I am trying to come up with a product which probably has 8-10 videos which are around 10-15 minutes long (screen casts). Should I host these videos on my server or move it Amazon S3 or something? I use Hostgator.
Can't you then use private or unlisted YouTube videos? Only those with the correct e-mail address or code can view them on a certain page, and they don't appear on YouTube, except to those people. (I don't know about Vimeo though).
This is done on Udacity: you need to sign in to see their videos, which use YouTube but don't appear there.
You tube private videos need people to sign up for an account and only 50 people can access it. Unlisted means it is not public. People can easily copy the link and watch it. So that opton won't work.
If your concern is that people can copy the link, and you want to make it visible to one paying customer only, you're going to run in other problems. You can't create something that can not be shared with anyone else (they can still share their login information).
Anyway, hosting on Hostgator should be fine, they have no bandwidth limit or anything anyways, do they? I use it for my sites, but I have no experience with hosting large videos.
If it's unlisted, whether a person copies the URL or not it doesn't matter: they need to be logged in (through PHP or something), which means that if they have the link but aren't logged in the video won't work.
@cyneWATCH : actually, if the video is embedded on a page that requires a login, then it can still be accessed outside that page. The PAGE may be protected by a login mechanism, but the video itself can still be viewed if someone just types the direct Youtube URL in their browser.
From my understanding, an unlisted video on Youtube is just that: it only won't show up on searches and such (but someone who has the address can still view it).
How would they get the URL of the video though? There must be a way with JavaScript that does not let you right-click it and it could probably be hidden on inspection.
I have been having some really great success with this product - Video Email, Video Newsletters. I have created a full managed service around the video platform and charge a monthly fee for maintenance, and custom template designs. Not bad for $35 month. Best thing for bringing in new business.
@CyneWATCH "view source" always works. If someone really wants to figure out the URL of the video, they will. Disabling right-click is (in my opinion) generally bad practice that can easily be avoided by disabling JavaScript anyway.
I've seen a website (can't remember the link) that someone asked me to find the link to a video that used the <video> tag I believe or something, and it was completely hidden. I tried loads of stuff but couldn't find the link (it was free). Could something similar not be done to a YouTube video?
In short there is no way to stop any one from sharing your private videos be it on a custom solution or a public one like youtube.
Take Netflix for example, you pay £6 a month to watch as much content as you like, there is nothing to stop any one watching every thing on Netflix and recording it whilst they do so using a screen capture program and then sharing it with friends family w/e.
This is just one of those things, as far as getting the videos private so only those with a paid subscription on your site can view them (wont prevent them from recording it) then there are a tone of solutions out there for you, personally i would try to achieve what you are doing using some sort of system where a user registers on a webpage (they buy a subscription), Once they have the subscription the videos page would then be visible to them until such times as there subscriptions runs out. You could probably achieve this using a forum or wordpress :D
I am thinking just give the product to download and avoid all the embedding and such. This case I don't have to worry about memberships/subscriptions and so forth.
If I go for the download option, which format would be the best?
.FLV is a terrible format, on a lot of systems it gives a lot of trouble trying to run them locally. Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for the customer, so a video should play by just double-clicking it. FLV doesn't do that unless you have specific software installed. As an embedding solution it's fine....3 years ago, before iPhone/iPad got so big.
.MP4 is becoming more and more standard, plays fine on most systems so I would go with that too. Both Windows and Mac play that nowadays without the need for special software.
Other alternatives are .MOV and .AVI (DivX format).
Please advise.
(also good for SEO apparently, as those services carry "authority")
Thanks Senf.
(I don't know about Vimeo though).
This is done on Udacity: you need to sign in to see their videos, which use YouTube but don't appear there.
Thanks Cynewatch!
Anyway, hosting on Hostgator should be fine, they have no bandwidth limit or anything anyways, do they? I use it for my sites, but I have no experience with hosting large videos.
From my understanding, an unlisted video on Youtube is just that: it only won't show up on searches and such (but someone who has the address can still view it).
I would probably host it myself but use some sort of CDN like Cloudflare. I'm sure others might have a better idea.
Could something similar not be done to a YouTube video?
Take Netflix for example, you pay £6 a month to watch as much content as you like, there is nothing to stop any one watching every thing on Netflix and recording it whilst they do so using a screen capture program and then sharing it with friends family w/e.
This is just one of those things, as far as getting the videos private so only those with a paid subscription on your site can view them (wont prevent them from recording it) then there are a tone of solutions out there for you, personally i would try to achieve what you are doing using some sort of system where a user registers on a webpage (they buy a subscription), Once they have the subscription the videos page would then be visible to them until such times as there subscriptions runs out. You could probably achieve this using a forum or wordpress :D
Hope this helps.
If I go for the download option, which format would be the best?
As an embedding solution it's fine....3 years ago, before iPhone/iPad got so big.
.MP4 is becoming more and more standard, plays fine on most systems so I would go with that too. Both Windows and Mac play that nowadays without the need for special software.
Other alternatives are .MOV and .AVI (DivX format).
.mp4 sounds best then.