How to set up a website for streaming videos.
How to set up a website for streaming videos.
Hi all. I was wondering if anybody has setup a website for streaming videos. I'm a member of a local video group and would like to upload our video's for general access. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.
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Dave Watterson
- Posts: 1881
- Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
- Location: Bath, England
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Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
First - are you sure you want to put movies onto your website this way? There are at least two catches:
A) Videos are large files and hosting companies keep a check on how much data is being sent to and from your website. Most contracts have limits in them and it may not take many showings of a video to take you to your limit. Some web hosts then shut down your whole website for a while, others charge you a hefty "overdraft" fee.
B) If there is any question of copyright infringement - I hope there is not - then all the wrath falls on your club. If your video is stored on YouTube or one of the other specialist sites then they take the wrath of music company lawyers and just remove your video's soundtrack and write you an email.
But if you are determined to go ahead
Use Flash
There are umpteen different formats for video, but by far the most commonly used on the web is Adobe Flash (the nnn.flv format). This can be played on almost all computers and keeps your file sizes reasonable.
Reduce its size
Use one of the free conversion software packages to make your picture size smaller than full-screen - that keeps the download file size smaller and means it is likely to play back more smoothly on other people's machines. There are detailed descriptions on using two of the main free programs on our main website ... start at http://www.theiac/resources/web-upload-intro.html and at the bottom of that page are links to the info you need to start that part of the process. Those notes were written for uploading to YouTube and so suggest using an MP4 output, but in your case you should set the converter to flv video output and mp3 sound output.
Put the following code into your web-page
<object classid="clsid:166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shoc ... on=8,5,0,0" width="720" height="576">
<param name="src" value="filename">
<embed src="filename" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/" width="width_of_video" height="height_of_video"></embed>
</object>
DON'T PANIC
You can copy and paste this ... what you need to change is:
Where it says width="720" height="576" - the figures should be changed to the actual reduced picture size of your video. Perhaps 240 and 192.
Where it says value="filename" type in the name of your video like "mywork.flv"
Near the end where it says "width="width_of_video" height="height_of_video" fill in the same figures as you did before. (Perhaps 240 and 192.)
Notice that all of those items go within quotation marks.
Now put the actual flv file of the video into the same folder as that page and upload them both to your website. When you visit the page there will be a brief pause then the video should start to play.
You can improve presentation by doing as we do for the "Bijou BIAFF" feature at http://www.theiac.org.uk/central/biaff2 ... biaff.html and having an index page with small stills from the videos, each of which is a link. When people click the link it takes them to a new page like the one described here where the video plays.
All in all there is a LOT to be said for putting your work onto YouTube and the like, then just embedding their movies on your website. That's what we do on the IAC website. It looks OK and the heavy file traffic goes to and from YouTube not us, so we don't get stuck with enormous bills.
Dave
A) Videos are large files and hosting companies keep a check on how much data is being sent to and from your website. Most contracts have limits in them and it may not take many showings of a video to take you to your limit. Some web hosts then shut down your whole website for a while, others charge you a hefty "overdraft" fee.
B) If there is any question of copyright infringement - I hope there is not - then all the wrath falls on your club. If your video is stored on YouTube or one of the other specialist sites then they take the wrath of music company lawyers and just remove your video's soundtrack and write you an email.
But if you are determined to go ahead
Use Flash
There are umpteen different formats for video, but by far the most commonly used on the web is Adobe Flash (the nnn.flv format). This can be played on almost all computers and keeps your file sizes reasonable.
Reduce its size
Use one of the free conversion software packages to make your picture size smaller than full-screen - that keeps the download file size smaller and means it is likely to play back more smoothly on other people's machines. There are detailed descriptions on using two of the main free programs on our main website ... start at http://www.theiac/resources/web-upload-intro.html and at the bottom of that page are links to the info you need to start that part of the process. Those notes were written for uploading to YouTube and so suggest using an MP4 output, but in your case you should set the converter to flv video output and mp3 sound output.
Put the following code into your web-page
<object classid="clsid:166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shoc ... on=8,5,0,0" width="720" height="576">
<param name="src" value="filename">
<embed src="filename" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/" width="width_of_video" height="height_of_video"></embed>
</object>
DON'T PANIC
You can copy and paste this ... what you need to change is:
Where it says width="720" height="576" - the figures should be changed to the actual reduced picture size of your video. Perhaps 240 and 192.
Where it says value="filename" type in the name of your video like "mywork.flv"
Near the end where it says "width="width_of_video" height="height_of_video" fill in the same figures as you did before. (Perhaps 240 and 192.)
Notice that all of those items go within quotation marks.
Now put the actual flv file of the video into the same folder as that page and upload them both to your website. When you visit the page there will be a brief pause then the video should start to play.
You can improve presentation by doing as we do for the "Bijou BIAFF" feature at http://www.theiac.org.uk/central/biaff2 ... biaff.html and having an index page with small stills from the videos, each of which is a link. When people click the link it takes them to a new page like the one described here where the video plays.
All in all there is a LOT to be said for putting your work onto YouTube and the like, then just embedding their movies on your website. That's what we do on the IAC website. It looks OK and the heavy file traffic goes to and from YouTube not us, so we don't get stuck with enormous bills.
Dave
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
Hi Dave a big thank you for taking the time to answer my problem. You mention Youtube, that brings me to the copyright of certain music tracks. As you probably know the music is just as important as the video. And to change it would seriously affect the final output. I have taken the full membership with IAC and was informed the licence covers me for copyright on such sites as Youtube. I've since found out that is not the case and the audio is promptly removed.
With Facebook you get the chance to appeal and they replace anything they had previously removed. This happened to a video of mine about 2 month ago and as I write it's still there and I'm still waiting for the outcome. I did give them my IAC membership number.
Anyway Dave I will look at what you have suggested and give what you said a go. Thanks again.
One last question.... Who do you use to host your site?
Regards
Gordon Armstrong.
With Facebook you get the chance to appeal and they replace anything they had previously removed. This happened to a video of mine about 2 month ago and as I write it's still there and I'm still waiting for the outcome. I did give them my IAC membership number.
Anyway Dave I will look at what you have suggested and give what you said a go. Thanks again.
One last question.... Who do you use to host your site?
Regards
Gordon Armstrong.
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Dave Watterson
- Posts: 1881
- Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
- Location: Bath, England
- Contact:
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
You can try letting YouTube know you have an IAC licence. See http://www.google.com/support/youtube/b ... swer=59826 and look at their International section. Some people have found that this is accepted.
There was an agreement between YouTube and the major British corporate copyright holders (mainly the large record companies) which allowed quite a wide range of use for the music to which they had rights. Unfortunately that broke down in an argument about fees.
We were given to understand that IAC licence holders were covered. This now seems less certain.
If you had problems on YouTube the same work could have the same problems wherever it was hosted. Identification of copyright music is done by "spiders" - programs which visit lots of websites (crawling the web) and these can analyse music to identify the tune and often the performance. That's another reason to consider music to which you can buy or be given free internet rights.
IAC website is hosted by Merula Limited (http://www.merula.net) whose boss, Richard Palmer, is very helpful.
I personally also run sites hosted by virgin and 1&1.
- Dave
There was an agreement between YouTube and the major British corporate copyright holders (mainly the large record companies) which allowed quite a wide range of use for the music to which they had rights. Unfortunately that broke down in an argument about fees.
We were given to understand that IAC licence holders were covered. This now seems less certain.
If you had problems on YouTube the same work could have the same problems wherever it was hosted. Identification of copyright music is done by "spiders" - programs which visit lots of websites (crawling the web) and these can analyse music to identify the tune and often the performance. That's another reason to consider music to which you can buy or be given free internet rights.
IAC website is hosted by Merula Limited (http://www.merula.net) whose boss, Richard Palmer, is very helpful.
I personally also run sites hosted by virgin and 1&1.
- Dave
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Roy
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
Hi Dave. You are undoubtedly a whizz kid when it comes to web sites and music copyright, so I hope you can give me some info.
I have a video on Youtube which has music which is apparently copright to a certain party. Youtube avise me I needn't do anything but the video is blocked in Germany for some reason, but is ok everwhere else. The copyright owners have been identified, but what I want to know is-how can I find out which of the music pieces is the one that this party own. If I knew that, I could withdraw the music and replace it on the video. Thanks for your time. Roy
I have a video on Youtube which has music which is apparently copright to a certain party. Youtube avise me I needn't do anything but the video is blocked in Germany for some reason, but is ok everwhere else. The copyright owners have been identified, but what I want to know is-how can I find out which of the music pieces is the one that this party own. If I knew that, I could withdraw the music and replace it on the video. Thanks for your time. Roy
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Dave Watterson
- Posts: 1881
- Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
- Location: Bath, England
- Contact:
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
Hi Roy
I'm no whiz kid just a plodder through the thickets of the web ...
YouTube has to accomodate the fact that music copyrights tend to be regional. It is entirely possible that the tune in question is fine in the UK because the UK copyright agent approves, but not in Germany because the local copyright agent does not.
These messages from YouTube usually contain a line like this video "may have content that is owned or licensed by " xxxx Where xxxx is a company. Google them and take a look at their catalogue. If their site is all in German try using http://translate.google.com
You could try identifying each piece of music in your film by going back to the original discs/downloads and searching German music suppliers. A good starting point is http://www.gema.de - the website of the main copyright body in Germany. They have a button at the top of the home page "English" which gives you most of the site in translation. Their search facilities might help.
There is a website which claims to recognise a lot of music: http://www.midomi.com - you have to hum the melody to it.
Some young friends may have a similar app for their phone which recognises tunes...
You can always try asking YouTube but they probably do not know. Their software automatically checks video soundtracks against a database and does all the warning etc with little human intervention.
Sorry I cannot suggest more. Can anyone else come up with any ideas?
- Dave
I'm no whiz kid just a plodder through the thickets of the web ...
YouTube has to accomodate the fact that music copyrights tend to be regional. It is entirely possible that the tune in question is fine in the UK because the UK copyright agent approves, but not in Germany because the local copyright agent does not.
These messages from YouTube usually contain a line like this video "may have content that is owned or licensed by " xxxx Where xxxx is a company. Google them and take a look at their catalogue. If their site is all in German try using http://translate.google.com
You could try identifying each piece of music in your film by going back to the original discs/downloads and searching German music suppliers. A good starting point is http://www.gema.de - the website of the main copyright body in Germany. They have a button at the top of the home page "English" which gives you most of the site in translation. Their search facilities might help.
There is a website which claims to recognise a lot of music: http://www.midomi.com - you have to hum the melody to it.
Some young friends may have a similar app for their phone which recognises tunes...
You can always try asking YouTube but they probably do not know. Their software automatically checks video soundtracks against a database and does all the warning etc with little human intervention.
Sorry I cannot suggest more. Can anyone else come up with any ideas?
- Dave
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
Hi Dave.
Thanks once again for the valuable information. I have a busy life and as yet have not looked into it. But reading what you have said has given me numerous options to look at which I will be doing in the very near future. I would appreciate it if you could let me know who to contact at Virgin as I have an account with them. I did phone them but came up against a brick wall.
Regards
Gordon
Thanks once again for the valuable information. I have a busy life and as yet have not looked into it. But reading what you have said has given me numerous options to look at which I will be doing in the very near future. I would appreciate it if you could let me know who to contact at Virgin as I have an account with them. I did phone them but came up against a brick wall.
Regards
Gordon
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Dave Watterson
- Posts: 1881
- Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
- Location: Bath, England
- Contact:
Re: How to set up a website for streaming videos.
I use my "freespace" as they call it at Virgin. See http://www.virginmedia.com/help/national/freespace/ All customers have 16Mb they say - not huge but useful. I rent a domain name from 1&1 and point it to that space. As none of my sites are commercial there is no problem using such space offered by my ISP.
For the wider readership ...
Most ISPs (the people who supply your internet connection) offer some free webspace ... though sady btinternet seems to be an exception now. It used to work together with yahoo to offer space.
There are sources of free webspace, but they are usually funded by advertising which looks a bit tacky on most websites. Besides, you always have a suspicion that they might suddenly close at any time.
You can rent webspace from thousands of suppliers. Don't go too low on the price scale if you also want reliablity. Reliable companies like 1and1.co.uk often have good deals - such as their beginner's package at £1.99 a month with 250Mb storage. You may have to pay bit extra to rent a domain name. (www.theiac.org.uk is a domain name ... a web address which is more memorable than (say) http://freespace.virgin.net/dave.watter ... tsnew.html
- Dave
For the wider readership ...
Most ISPs (the people who supply your internet connection) offer some free webspace ... though sady btinternet seems to be an exception now. It used to work together with yahoo to offer space.
There are sources of free webspace, but they are usually funded by advertising which looks a bit tacky on most websites. Besides, you always have a suspicion that they might suddenly close at any time.
You can rent webspace from thousands of suppliers. Don't go too low on the price scale if you also want reliablity. Reliable companies like 1and1.co.uk often have good deals - such as their beginner's package at £1.99 a month with 250Mb storage. You may have to pay bit extra to rent a domain name. (www.theiac.org.uk is a domain name ... a web address which is more memorable than (say) http://freespace.virgin.net/dave.watter ... tsnew.html
- Dave