Best way to host HiDef videos for members?

[zehron]

Hi all,

Just getting started with this IM business. Working on an info product that will include high definition videos along with an ebook. I'm not quite sure the best way to do this. Leaning toward .pdf for the ebook with links to the videos. Am leaning toward using DLGuard to protect the downloads of both the ebook and videos, and GetResponse for list-building since from what I've read on this forum in Sam's (DLGuard) posts, GetResponse works better with DLGuard than Aweber does.

My web host is Hostgator which says unlimited bandwidth for the plan I'm on. And that's important since hi-def videos are larger than standard def. Anyone had any experience with hostgator and high bandwidth?

Also looking for advice as to the best way to produce this product.

Will producing a .pdf ebook with links to the separate videos be best?
Can hi-def videos be embedded in .pdf's?
Or would it be better to set up a membership site where the videos could be accessed and give people who buy the ebook access to the membership site? Possible with DLGuard?

I kind of like the idea of having a separate membership site that could also be sold separately from the ebook, since I plan to expand the video series with different related products.

Appreciate any advice from experience warriors, and if I hear from DLGuard's Sam, I'll definitely use that product.

Thanks,
Ron

[Troy McDonald]

Ron,

My suggestions:

1. Amazon Web Services is cheap for hosting your videos, especially if you expect lots of demand on your hostgoator account.

2. Do you really need "hi-def" videos, or would clear 640 x 480 videos be good?

See there are a lot of people that think hi-def is the way to go since you can see it with less muddy-ness to the video and all, but it's really about the way the video is encoded and what not.

Josh Anderson has been talking about releasing this for some time, but I've never seen it out yet, but it's on how to encode/shoot video to look better online.

Here is the site: Optimize Youtube Video - Optimize Streaming Video - Optimize Web Video

* Josh if you read this, PM me and let me know about the release date.

[zehron]

Thanks for the info Troy. I did sign up for their notification. Looks like they're a little behind schedule, since the site says they're launching Dec 08.

Any way, I'll be recording in HiDef, but I suppose I could convert the videos to a lower quality as long as they're clear. Will be interested to see Josh's info.

Not really interested in hosting the videos on YouTube, which Josh's site references, because these will be private members' only videos.

But the optimization techniques sound interesting.

I've read good and bad about Amazon's S3 hosting. Bandwidth costs would be my main concern there, if hostgator or other options will work.

Thanks for the quick response.

Hoping someone will also make suggestions on the best format/delivery method for ebook/video products.

[matthewd]

I use Upload videos! Free home video sharing and editing. Secure Home Movie Archiving, Hosting and Storage. for my videos.

It's like $30/year and you can have unlimited space and HD videos. I don't use the HD feature, but my videos are always better quality than when I have uploaded them elsewhere.

I just upload them and set the restriction to private so that nobody has access to them but me and then embed them in my member pages.

[dotcomsecretsonline]

Hi Ron well if I was personally creating this product I would use
Kiosk.ws for the hosting because they understand internet marketers needs
so if your videos do recieve a lot of hits or they get overloaded with traffic then kiosk.ws won't shut you down.

Amazon S3 is also a good one too I haven't used them yet but I hear they are reliable.

As for format I would go for standard because its not the quality of product
you create its how good the content is.

I would also create the ebook on its own, then create a membership site for the videos as you will be expanding them further. Also put the links of the membership site in the ebook stating you have video tutorials of the product you are creating and they can join here... ect.

That's what I would do

I hope this helps and drop me a PM If you need anything

I wish you all the best

Kind Regards

Shaun Trevett

[4morereferrals]

Im pulling my hair out right NOW ... trying to find an easy way to embed flash vids in wordpress. Arrrggghhhh ... there must be a simpler way?

But ... you may want to check out Bits on the run Hassle free video hosting- Bits on the Run Beta



Why does the visual editor in WP munge all the code adn screw everything up when I want to add text and graphics to the rest of the page? Lame.

How to get it in the center of the page?

Is there a better blog post/page editor than the WP Visual Editor?

[Chris_Willow]

Originally Posted by Troy McDonald

1. Amazon Web Services is cheap for hosting your videos, especially if you expect lots of demand on your hostgoator account.

Exactly. Thats what I'm using too and it' s perfect!
Fast, reliable and cheap. Just the way I love it.

Chris

[Sean Hoffman]

We were thinking about adding HD support to one of our sites today. 1080i looks incredible, I don't care what anyone else says.

[zehron]

Originally Posted by matthewd

I use [motionbox.com] for my videos.

It's like $30/year and you can have unlimited space and HD videos. I don't use the HD feature, but my videos are always better quality than when I have uploaded them elsewhere.

I just upload them and set the restriction to private so that nobody has access to them but me and then embed them in my member pages.

Thanks MatthewD, Motionbox.com looks promising. $30/year for unlimited upload and download of HD video sounds good. They even have an article about how to best encode the videos for use with their system. Definitely on my list.

Had to remove the link since I don't have a high enough post limit yet to include it.

Appreciate your input!

[Troy McDonald]

A few points to remember (regarding MotionBox):

1. They have a file size limit, so make sure your video fits that limit. There is software that will convert your video into another format by file size or time, if needed.

2. Even though it's HD, you don't have to use the highest setting of your camcorder in order to get the best. Remember file size.

3. You can break up your video into segments. (You won't be able to fit a 30 minute HD video (training, etc.) into the limit they have now, that may change.

4. In regards to "unlimited". This has been a lie for most things on the Internet. Get a host with "unlimited" space or "unlimited" bandwidth.. eheh.. Try uploading gigs and gigs of stuff and see if they give you a call. Unlimited usually means that they will give you a little more than the "average" user, so to speak.

4a. Mainly with hosting of any type, video, web site, it's all about resources. If your video or web site that is sitting on their hard drive starts to get too much viewing and it hurts the others hosted on the same computer, you'll get a call or they just shut you off.

Now I am not saying this is how Motionbox is, but just a friendly reminder in regards to "unlimited".

So if you plan on "Mega" users, who doesn't love that? Then have a backup and don't get caught with your pants down that will piss off members.

The amazon services option, you pay for all you use, so they won't complain.

[zehron]

Thanks for the info about kiosk.ws Shaun. I hadn't heard of them before your post, but it looks like a lot of big name internet marketers host there, so I'll definitely keep them in mind.

[Troy McDonald]

I'm not sure if all of these big names are still there (or exclusive) as one says.

The videos are old.

But! With that said, it doesn't mean that they aren't (or are) a company to use.

Originally Posted by zehron

Thanks for the info about kiosk.ws Shaun. I hadn't heard of them before your post, but it looks like a lot of big name internet marketers host there, so I'll definitely keep them in mind.

[zehron]

Originally Posted by Troy McDonald

A few points to remember (regarding MotionBox):

1. They have a file size limit, so make sure your video fits that limit. There is software that will convert your video into another format by file size or time, if needed.

2. Even though it's HD, you don't have to use the highest setting of your camcorder in order to get the best. Remember file size.

3. You can break up your video into segments. (You won't be able to fit a 30 minute HD video (training, etc.) into the limit they have now, that may change.

4. In regards to "unlimited". This has been a lie for most things on the Internet. Get a host with "unlimited" space or "unlimited" bandwidth.. eheh.. Try uploading gigs and gigs of stuff and see if they give you a call. Unlimited usually means that they will give you a little more than the "average" user, so to speak.

4a. Mainly with hosting of any type, video, web site, it's all about resources. If your video or web site that is sitting on their hard drive starts to get too much viewing and it hurts the others hosted on the same computer, you'll get a call or they just shut you off.

Now I am not saying this is how Motionbox is, but just a friendly reminder in regards to "unlimited".

So if you plan on "Mega" users, who doesn't love that? Then have a backup and don't get caught with your pants down that will piss off members.

The amazon services option, you pay for all you use, so they won't complain.

Thanks for the additional info Troy. Yes, that "unlimited" question is what had me worried about using hostgator for the videos.

This thread has also made me think about the format for the ebook. It seems like I'd want to include links in the ebook to a private page that would allow me to embed the HD videos from different sites, so if one goes down or I have to switch for some reason, I could just update the code on the site's embedded video page. That way I wouldn't have to worry about people having ebooks with invalid links.

Couple Amazon S3 users seem satisfied, so I'll keep them on the short list too.

[Troy McDonald]

That is exactly how I go about it. You want your products to be as evergreen as possible.

There is nothing worse than going back to something you bought 6 months ago to reference something and the links end up dead, etc. Having a link that you can control where it finally goes (wherever your web site has moved to, or where the video is now) is the way to go. Most people may not think about "wow, 6 months later this link I click goes to what it is supposed to go to", but they will for sure remember you if the link goes to dead space. Do you think they will think highly of you or any future products you want to release?

And the reality, adding videos to an e-book, which unless it was an online e-book, assuming it is a downloadable e-book, it would be a LARGE file. (That can cause its own set of customer problems.)

Originally Posted by zehron

Thanks for the additional info Troy. Yes, that "unlimited" question is what had me worried about using hostgator for the videos.

This thread has also made me think about the format for the ebook. It seems like I'd want to include links in the ebook to a private page that would allow me to embed the HD videos from different sites, so if one goes down or I have to switch for some reason, I could just update the code on the site's embedded video page. That way I wouldn't have to worry about people having ebooks with invalid links.

Couple Amazon S3 users seem satisfied, so I'll keep them on the short list too.

[Scott Lundergan]

Originally Posted by zehron

Thanks for the info Troy. I did sign up for their notification. Looks like they're a little behind schedule, since the site says they're launching Dec 08.

Any way, I'll be recording in HiDef, but I suppose I could convert the videos to a lower quality as long as they're clear. Will be interested to see Josh's info.

Not really interested in hosting the videos on YouTube, which Josh's site references, because these will be private members' only videos.

But the optimization techniques sound interesting.

I've read good and bad about Amazon's S3 hosting. Bandwidth costs would be my main concern there, if hostgator or other options will work.

Thanks for the quick response.

Hoping someone will also make suggestions on the best format/delivery method for ebook/video products.

Hi Zehron,

Just as a heads up, for our Optimize Your Video product, it's more than just YouTube hosting, although I'm sure you somewhat figured that out. Also, did you mean you were wanting to display consumer HD of 1280 by 720 or broadcast display HD with 1920 by 1080?

Troy brought up some great points. With the "unlimited bandwidth, etc" that is also mainly focusing on with shared hosting. For instance, Aplus.net gives 2500 gigs of bandwidth, but on a 100 megabyte shared pipe unless you get the dedicated option, so I use that for simple training demos in memberships or sending files to people because I'm not getting massive traffic all at once and they offer great service/price with it.

For streaming/streaming with HD, I highly recommend content delivery networks:
SoftLayer CDNLayer

because they offer a private label and discount pricing for customers of Internap's CDN at
Content Delivery Network

Internap/Vitalstream delivers media in download progressive or true streaming. They are like Amazon...but better/more expensive and also what many major companies who use massive bandwidth and get tons of video traffic use without clogging up networks or "server crashes".

Something else you mentioned was just shooting in HD, but taking it down to a clear file size rather than encoding in full-HD.

If it makes you feel better and less guilty, this is how I produced and delivered the video content for the Consumer Electronics Association, We shot everything in HD, then took it down to instant streaming capabilities for their promotions and the quality was still great. So if HD gets delivered to an audience of media people this way, I don't think your viewers will be disappointed or asking you where the HD version is

Optionally, you can add an HD version perhaps (!?)

Hope that helps and good luck!

Very best,

Scott

[zehron]

Originally Posted by Scott Lundergan

Hi Zehron,

Just as a heads up, for our Optimize Your Video product, it's more than just YouTube hosting, although I'm sure you somewhat figured that out. Also, did you mean you were wanting to display consumer HD of 1280 by 720 or broadcast display HD with 1920 by 1080?

Troy brought up some great points. With the "unlimited bandwidth, etc" that is also mainly focusing on with shared hosting. For instance, Aplus.net gives 2500 gigs of bandwidth, but on a 100 megabyte shared pipe unless you get the dedicated option, so I use that for simple training demos in memberships or sending files to people because I'm not getting massive traffic all at once and they offer great service/price with it.

For streaming/streaming with HD, I highly recommend content delivery networks:
SoftLayer CDNLayer

because they offer a private label and discount pricing for customers of Internap's CDN at
Content Delivery Network

Internap/Vitalstream delivers media in download progressive or true streaming. They are like Amazon...but better/more expensive and also what many major companies who use massive bandwidth and get tons of video traffic use without clogging up networks or "server crashes".

Something else you mentioned was just shooting in HD, but taking it down to a clear file size rather than encoding in full-HD.

If it makes you feel better and less guilty, this is how I produced and delivered the video content for the Consumer Electronics Association, We shot everything in HD, then took it down to instant streaming capabilities for their promotions and the quality was still great. So if HD gets delivered to an audience of media people this way, I don't think your viewers will be disappointed or asking you where the HD version is

Optionally, you can add an HD version perhaps (!?)

Hope that helps and good luck!

Very best,

Scott

We're recording h.264 encoding at 1080i. I think we can record at different data rates to vary the compression as well. I'm far from expert at this.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look at those.

And regarding offering different versions, I actually was thinking about offering an SD version as an option for people whose PC's aren't "beefed up" enough to display HD Video without jumpiness. We have one slow PC in our house and I noticed some of our HD Videos are jittery and skip frames, so we need to figure out how to make them display well on all PCs.

Thanks again.

[lavaleekathy]

Thanks for your post Troy! Just what I needed to know as I'm thinking of upgrading to hi def videos on youtube and to my site! Thank you!

[Quentin]

Why not just use Wordpress as a membership site. If you don't want a monthly fee then you can use a simple ecommerce plugin which gives them access once they have paid.

Give you a bit more control than a PDF.

Load your videos to amazon and use a plugin to embed in wordpress. If you encode in mp4 at hi def which is about 1280×720 but embed them in your site at about 600 width then they can click on the full screen to get the full high definition feel.

Have a look at this site Multimedia | The Internet Marketers Club where I have done my videos (bottom of the page) at 600 and there is an example of high def through Vimeo 1st one.

Mp4 is the best as it is fully scalable.

At the bottom of the page is one of my Camtasia tutorials which you can also look at full screen but a bit pixilated.

Quentin

[LonNaylor]

Originally Posted by Chris_Willow

Exactly. Thats what I'm using too and it' s perfect!
Fast, reliable and cheap. Just the way I love it.

Chris

Chris (and other Amazon users),

Have you tried the Amazon Cloud yet instead of S3?

Supposed to cache better and be faster?

Haven't had a chance yet myself...

[roddaut]

I visited the Amazon Cloud website at this link

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

And it's something that you use in conjunction with S3 and seems to help with sites that want to run complicated programming.

Rodney

Originally Posted by LonNaylor

Chris (and other Amazon users),

Have you tried the Amazon Cloud yet instead of S3?

Supposed to cache better and be faster?

Haven't had a chance yet myself...