Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 I've never dealt with streaming video from a web site before and I've been asked to format some of our in house animations for our web site. I think Flash might be the best format to use to give the smallest file size and keep the quality high but I'm not sure. I'd appreciate any advice in this area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 (edited) I would not use Flash. Flash = no Apple support = limits and frustrates your potential viewing audience. I'd go with something like Vimeo Plus or Pro that will allow embedding within your own page. They handle the hosting and you control the access. Edited October 24, 2012 by John Dollus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 I would not use Flash. Flash = no Apple support = limits and frustrates your potential viewing audience. I'd go with something like Vimeo Plus or Pro that will allow embedding within your own page. They handle the hosting and you control the access. This is the best way to go, and it keeps your web space clear. Though I far prefer Vimeo over YouTube for professional videos. That way you don't get dumb ads or previews for Keyboard Cat after your video plays. Vimeo will give you the embed code to add into your own website. It's as easy as copy and paste. If you must store and hardcode in your videos, Vimeo is still the best. Simply upload your current video file, let Vimeo process it, then download the video again from Vimeo and you get yourself a nicely compressed, ready to stream video file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 I have done more hour of research into video streaming than I care to count so here are the options I would look at: 1) As Scott has suggested Vimeo is a good option, although to use it for commercial purposes you have to use their Pro version (https://vimeo.com/pro). 2) If you are going to host the videos off your server or hosting space putting them in an H.264 MP4 using JWplayer is the best option (http://www.longtailvideo.com/players). Their player also supports HTML5 and Flash so you don't run into issues with Apple devices. When you host the file on a normal web server it will download as a progressive download, meaning that it can only play the video once its downloaded the amount buffered and you can't jump ahead until that part of the video has been downloaded.. If you want to do actual streaming, meaning you can scrub to any location, then you need to use an RTMP server or service. Bits On the Run (run by the people who make JW player) have a service that has a free option for small amounts of usage (http://www.longtailvideo.com/bits-on-the-run/pricing/). If you have your own server and really want to dig in you could roll your own RTMP server using Wowza (http://www.wowza.com/) Here are a few other streaming services to look at too: https://www.viddler.com/plans http://m.vid.ly/user/ (made by the creators of Encoding.com which we use for all of our 3dawards competitions and Autodesk competitions) Vimeo is going to be the cheapest and fastest way to get up and running, but there are other alternatives if that does not work for you. If you need to know anything else, let me know. I've probably spent hundreds of hours dealing with streaming and progressive download video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2012 Author Share Posted October 24, 2012 3 endorsements for Vimeo is good enough for me, $200 a year is really nothing to be able to play back HD video and not use up your own bandwidth! Thanks guy's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Embed Vimeo is the way we would suggest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Vimeo is still great however considering the growth of the tablet market and the lack of HD support for Android things get a little complicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 So when I'm preparing the video to upload to Vimeo what's the best format to save it out as and should I be uploading uncompressed or compressed files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 https://vimeo.com/help/compression Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fooch Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 +1 Vimeo, You can go slightly higher than their recommended range. We tend to go to a min of 8,500 KBPS for HD stuff (and more sometimes) if its for animation / motion graphics (depending on graphics / colour ranges etc and of course quick moves) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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