Hosting Video Clips

[Dzinerbear]

Hi all,

Until now, my sites have been static picture galleries. I want to try an experiment with providing some galleries with video clips on my sites, but I've never done before.

And I'm always escared of new things.

Are clips the same as pics? You just click an icon for the clip and it plays? Or do I have to have a player on my site?

Is there free software out there to help you edit the clips so you can create smaller clips as advertising teasers?

What about screen grabs? How do I achieve that?

And I'm assuming my BW will go through the roof. I'm planning on making them premium sites, so that should stall some of the free traffic and I do have quite a bit of unused BW every month, but still, am I bracing myself for a phone from the host?

Thanks, any suggestions, tips, or URLs you can provide would be appreciated.

Cheers
Michael

[Xstr8guy]

OH GOD! I had a long response to your questions, but I accidently closed down the window before I posted! DOH!

Give me a minute to compose myself and I'll try again.

[Xstr8guy]

Here is the short version...

Windows Movie Maker makes great .wmv files... and it's free! I also use FlixPro for making Flash movies (not free) and RealProducer looks great for making .rm files.

I use about 4-12 2 minute plus clips per AVS site and fill-out the site with picture galleries. You can make the movies open up from thumbs (it will open up windows media player automatically) or you can embed the movie in a webpage. The last method is preferred because you can stick a banner under the video and the surfer is forced to look at the banner the entire time they are watching the movie, Most .html editors have object embed options.

Screen caps are easy using PaintShopPro or VirtualDub (free)

Your bandwith can take a pounding... start with smaller clips first, until you can see the effect on bandwith. I use less then 200 gigs a month with all of my sites (you're familiar with them).

You will not be able to use .htaccess with most media files, so your members area will be exposed. I had someone redo some of my sites in .php and that seems to work (not sure how he did it). The hotlink protection applications, that I'm aware of, aren't really geared toward AVS sites... too expensive or restrictive.

Let me know if you ned anything else...

[Pistol]

Hi Michael,

Another suggestion is to use video that is hosted by somebody else. I know that Braincash has got an impressive array of hosted video ads and both Blueloot and Gunzblazing have a few.

So to lessen your initial hosting risk, why don't you use a few that you host yourself and then a whole bunch that others host for you? It will let you test the waters to see how much you can handle. You can change the ratio as your knowledge increases.

BRIAN.

[Dzinerbear]

Thanks for the tips guys, I appreciate it. And X, thanks for all of the names of the software.

The htaccess stuff is a bit worrisome. But I'm sure someone here has a work around.

Cheers
Michael

[Xstr8guy]

Hey Pistol... are you guys going to be carrying the HDK-Bare feed?

[Xstr8guy]

D-Bear... you know I've never had a big problem with hotlinkers. I think most of the kiddies that are hotlinking are going after the straight stuff. Or maybe I've just been lucky (knock wood)

[Lee]

Lemme send this thread over to EC Steve he knows a bit about movies and all that jazz so hopefully he will be able to assist you

Regards,

Lee

[EC Steve]

Originally posted by Dzinerbear
Hi all,

Is there free software out there to help you edit the clips so you can create smaller clips as advertising teasers?

What about screen grabs? How do I achieve that?

Cheers
Michael

Hello Michael,

For screen grabs i'v found the best program is random Frame
you can download it here. http://kis.glazov.net/ its not free
but i think theres a shareware version. Excellent program!!!!!

For cutting up clips i LOVE avi/mpeg/asf splitter you can download
it here http://www.boilsoft.com/. great program. again its shareware but woth the couple bucks after the trials over to register.

If you need any more help or suggestions, just ask!

Steve

[EC Steve]

forgot to mention.

when posting video clip trailers.

make them small in Size and dont encode them at dvd quality.
use like wmv 300k encoding. qualitys good but not to good. LOL
make sure your surfers know that its lower quality on the outside and that inside you got DVD quality movies.

also DONT show Cum Shots!!!!. show just the right amount to make them wet but not enough to get them done LOL this will only make then use you as a place to wack for free!

look at this sites trailers

http://www.spoiledslut.com

its a hetro realitysite but the trailers sorta give the idea of what im talking about

[Dzinerbear]

Steve,

Thanks for the tips and the software leads. Appreciate it!

Michael

[Pistol]

Hey Pistol... are you guys going to be carrying the HDK-Bare feed?

Hey Xstr8guy - you can check it out at www.hardgayfeeds.com.

Hit me up if you have any questions.

BRIAN.

[Dzinerbear]

Hey Steve,

I downloaded Random Frame and I'm playing around with it, but I'm not finding it very intuitive.

I can play the movie and manually grab frames. Is there a way to just play the movie and tell the program to grab random frames until the movie is done. There seems to be but I don't seem to be getting the hang of it.

Thanks
Michael

[southernexposure]

The Best Video Tool on the Market to use for websites is Vegas Video 4.0.. It's a bit pricy but it's an all around tool..

Screen Grabs.. huh, you can resize the good quality clips to 740 x 460 or what ever H & W you want for Picture Galleries of the entire movie if you want.

There is a formula that protects .mpg and .wmv files.
I use .htaccess on my movie sites, I have too... Had a month with over 300 gigs used on a my host..
Place this in between your head and body tags.
inclose with the forward and backward arrows of course (< >)..

SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript"
// Calculate the expiration date
var expires = new Date ();
expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + 10 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
document.cookie = "id=valid; path=/" + "; expires=" + expires.toGMTString();
SCRIPT

Then for your .htaccess

Options +FollowSymLinks
Options +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://yoursite.com. *$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yoursite.com. *$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*ssid=valid.*$

RewriteRule .*\.(.gif|.GIF|.jpg|.JPG|.rm|.ram|.mpg|.MPG|.mpeg| .MPEG|.wmv|.WMV)$ http://www.yoursite.com/ [R,L]

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yoursite.com/redirect-url.html


HOpe this helps and if you need anything let me know...

:groovy: