How can I post a video for people to see without using YouTube?

[unclet]

I places a video on my website and thought people would be able to click on the link and select "Open" and have the video start playing while it continuely downloads more pieces of the video.   However, what I found was that the person has to wait until the whole file (51Meg)  is downloaded before it starts playing.   This is crazy.

So .... how can I post a video for people to see?  I do not really want to register with YouTube since I do not really like those websites ...

[hsstie]

You would be best to seriously reconsider using youtube or a similar website to host your video. Unless you have a huge bandwith allotment you will hit your max quick offering videos for download. Most hosting sites will eat you up in fees if you go way over your limit. Just something to keep in mind.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Uncle T,

To answer your question, try using a "streamable" format.  Using .avi files will not work, since the whole file needs to download in order to see it.  Try using Quicktime files (.mov).

~ DeLuSioNaL

[JinxedSoul]

Better yet use www.stage6.com

[Neverending Project]

Elaborating on what delusional said, a streaming format allows you to post a link where the movie starts playing immediately when clicked. Some formats (like Quicktime) also have a fast-start format that will allow the movie to start playing as soon as there is enough downloaded to play smoothly. Depending on the viewers bandwidth, this may be a few seconds or a minute or so, but well before the entire download.

And to reiterate what hsstie said, YouTube is the obvious choice for many reasons. Mostly because it is simple to use, and everyone can play them. You can even post a link on your site such that viewers will be able to see and view the movie frame right inside your webpage without ever going to YouTube.

But I understand not wanting to join... it is a beast of an entity. But it is no myspace... that is for sure.

If you give some more details like what format the movie is in now I may be able to help more. I can even help convert it for you, if we can figure out an easy enough way for me to get the file.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I almost forgot to mention to also keep in mind that this forum lets you embed youtube.com videos as well, so that you can simply put them in your post.

Something to consider.

~ DeLuSioNaL

[Fozzy The Bear]

Better yet use www.stage6.com

Better yet.... DON'T use stage6 unless you also want to install the spyware that comes along with their streaming DivX player.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Lilwolf]

I would consider hosting bit torrents for each file.  If you want to host multiples especially.   Sure some people don't like it much, but I don't see many other solutions without spending money without going with a youtube style site.

[unclet]

I wanted to post a video of my jukebox lights in action ..... the video is currently in MPG format since that is what my video camera produces. 

If I use YouTube.com to post the video then can I delete it after it is posted if I wanted to?  Doubt I would need to do this but I dislike the idea of posting stuff which I can no longer remove..... if I decide that is what is required.

Anyway, I would still prefer not to use YouTube .... ugh


Fozzy
Thanks for the stage6 warning....

[Neverending Project]

I was going to post the code to embed a QuickTime movie in your web page, but apparently that is the old school way of doing it. The new hip way is to put a script tag where ever you want the movie to appear which calls a JavaScript (provided by Apple). The JavaScript will create the correct <object> and <embed> tags for you.

A complete example, along with the JavaScript can be found here. Oh, and let me know if you want to see the regular old <embed> tag code for embedding it in your web page without using an inline script.

Note: you will need QuickTime Pro ($29) to convert the movie to Fast-Start. If you have QT Pro and need help exporting the movie as Fast-Start, let me know. If you don't have QT Pro, give me the link to your web page where your 51MB behemoth movie is, and I will download it and covert it for you. I can even convert it to something like h.264, which will give great quality at a much smaller size.

Oh, and I would stay away from torrent files. P2P networks aren't designed for delivering media content on your website - they are for transferring and sharing large files (among other things, I would guess).

[WunderCade]

Yes, you can delete anything you post on Youtube through your My Account options.

[unclet]

Neverending Project
Thanks for the information.  Let me play around with this stuff this weekend and see what I can do.   I will need some help converting the file, I will send you a PM once I confirm exactly which video I would like to use.   I might try to take another video with better lighting .... but not sure yet.  Anyway, I have little league baseball to coach tonight and tomorrow night so probably will not have a chance to play around with this until the weekend.

A few things though ...

1) It might be nice to see the old school way of doing this without using the script.

2) Is the script supported by the Mozilla browser ..... it only mentions Internet Explorer?

3) If I download the script to use it then I simply have to indicate where the location of the script file is using the "src=" parameter I guess .... correct?


WunderCade
Thanks for the info ..... good to know

[DeLuSioNal29]

By the way, Youtube.com imports .mpg files perfectly from a digital camera.  My videos that I posted were taken by my Sony Cybershot.  I didn't have to convert anything.  I simply went to my account in youtube.com clicked on "upload" and  then typed in a description.  Then I clicked "browse" to point to the file on my hard drive.  It uploaded it and when it was done it was on youtube.com.

Then in my forum post I use the command [ y o u t u b e ] (cut and paste youtube link from the address bar on top - where your video is) [ / y o u t u b e ]

Voila!  Hassle free stuff.

And by the way, I had a few revisions to my arcade unit video, so I easily deleted the old videos and then uploaded new ones.  So, yes, you can delete them at will. 

~ DeLuSioNaL

[Neverending Project]

A few things though ...

1) It might be nice to see the old school way of doing this without using the script.

2) Is the script supported by the Mozilla browser ..... it only mentions Internet Explorer?

3) If I download the script to use it then I simply have to indicate where the location of the script file is using the "src=" parameter I guess .... correct?

1) 'ere you go:

Code: [Select]

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"
HEIGHT="240" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="true">
<EMBED SRC="sample.mov" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="240" AUTOPLAY="true"
CONTROLLER="true"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>The OBJECT element is for Internet Exploere with ActiveX. The EMBED element is for Mozilla browsers. Basically, broswers that understand the OBJECT element use that, others use the EMBED. Change the "sample.mov" to the path to your movie, and the width/height tags as necessary. Set the AUTOPLAY and CONTROLLER to your preference as well. Everything else should remain as shown.

2) Yes, see above.

3) Correct again. I guess it is designed to make it simpler for a web deisgner - using a script to do repetitive tasks.

Using the above method will show the movie with the first frame in the viewer (unless AUTOPLAY is set to true, in which case it will begin playing as soon as it can). A lot of people use a poster movie - basically an empty movie file with the poster frame that you want to display. When the viewer clicks on the poster, the movie will load and begin to play.

To do the poster frame setup, you would save the first frame of the movie as a separate file with a ".mov" extension. This would go in the src parameter. Then you would add an HREF parameter pointing to the actual movie (href=" ") both in the OBJECT and EMBED tags.

I hope this isn't too confusing. Probably too much information here, but it may benefit others too.

[unclet]

Thanks for the detail .....  I need to play around with this stuff to see if I can get it to work ...

Saint has donated the web space I use for my jukebox and arcade webpages, so I was wondering if this video of mine is located on saint's webspace then will it cause him (or the BYOAC community) any grief when multiple people are downloading the video?  I do not want to cause any slow downs and such ......

[DeLuSioNal29]

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but if you are posting it on Saint's website, that would be an even better reason to use Youtube.  It will save him bandwidth as well.  It just makes sense. 

[unclet]

Yeah, I might go that route eventually .....

[BrentRadio]

Youtube is quick and easy to join and upload.

And this is the internet. You can never really delete anything once it's been posted. I've "stolen" several videos from Youtube via this site http://vixy.net/ and posted them on my site.

I say just post it and forget about it.

Brent

[DeLuSioNal29]

Youtube is quick and easy to join and upload.

And this is the internet. You can never really delete anything once it's been posted. I've "stolen" several videos from Youtube via this site http://vixy.net/ and posted them on my site.

I say just post it and forget about it.

Brent

You can say that's true with anything posted to the net.  Even without Youtube.com.

~ D

[unclet]

Well .... I just decided to go with YouTube  ..... my jukebox cabinet has been announced in the Project Announcements forum......

Thanks for all the information .....

[hsstie]

Well .... I just decided to go with YouTube  ..... my jukebox cabinet has been announced in the Project Announcements forum......

Thanks for all the information .....

Good choice saving that bandwith. One download of that 51 meg file equals ALOT of posts here.