best way to put video onto a website.

gabe

I recently converted a movie i directed from dvd to *.mp4 format using HANDBREAK. So that was my first step. Now im stuck with a *.mp4 and I have no idea how to get it onto my website. I tried uploading it through my FTP but it kept timing out. Im thinking my mp4 file may be too big. Its 54.4mb, but i don't know what that means haha.

what would be the best way to get it onto my website? do i need to convert it into a smaller size? is it too big right now? will everybody able to play .mp4's on their computer...Im aiming for a video file that will download right away and as easy and those videos people are putting all over youtube.com but I have no idea how they got the files to do that.

Anybody have any helpful tips? thanks a lot. :smiles:

gabe

help. please. :sad2:

RWB

OK It seems you are trying to stream a video file from your website... tell me, do you know how much storage space you have for your site? If it's generic 10MB storage then that 54MB file won't fit and that would be one reason why it won't upload.

RWB

I looked up that Handbreak program, it looks interesting... never heard of it though I am gonna play with it when I get home.

I am curious about the file, 54MB is pretty big, not too huge... how long is the video?

gabe

RWB wrote:

I looked up that Handbreak program, it looks interesting... never heard of it though I am gonna play with it when I get home.

I am curious about the file, 54MB is pretty big, not too huge... how long is the video?

I think I have a 1gb of space...
I didn't realize that my movie was so big though...you helped put it into perspective hahaha. I know nothing about file sizes.

Anyways, the handbreak program is a program people use for their ipods when converting dvd's into .mp4 files so they can put onto their ipods to watch.

54mb is gonna take a viewer FOREVER to download isnt it? I don't want that...like I said earlier, I want my video to load as easily as all those movies on youtube.com load...how did they convert their files and get them online that easily?

What do I need to use to make this file smaller?

my movie is 6mins long.

RWB

They are streamed which usually means you can't really download them, but there are methods. So when they open the file it's simply played as it's being downloaded... you might recognize this as buffering? You'll see that alot with streamed files.

54MB isn't that huge for broadband, I could download that in 20 minutes frommy DSL connection at home, maybe upwards of 30 to 40 minutes it depends on the connection. Dialup can forget about downloading as they might be waiting a week to finish the download. Acouple days at least.

I am a bit out of touch with my compression stuffs, but 6 minute videos can be as small as a couple MB's if you're willing to sacrifice the viewing size of the video and make it look pretty ugly. 54MB really ain't that bad though, what's the actual size of the video? 640x480? 320x240? Any idea?

gabe

its 320x192.

i guuess i'l try uploading it again, but i dont see the problem. Maybe its just my ftp connnection,but i changed it from passive to active. I heard thats the solution to prevent it from timing out..

Dexter

I would double-check with your webhost as to how much data space you have been allocated. FTP rarely times out like that unless your connection is wonky. I run an FTP server here at work that we use to transfer MPEG-2 files all the time, many in excess of 100 MB. I have had clients upload 600 and 700 MB High Def MPEG-2 files to my FTP server, with no timeouts. So I suspect that either you don't have enough space on your FTP or your connection is wonky.

We use Passive transfers all the time, by the way, our FTP hosting software prefers it.

Dexter...

leishi85

or you could just upload it to youtube or google video, and put the embedded player on your site, to stream the video.

That way you will not be using any of your bandwidth.

gabe

Dexter wrote:

I would double-check with your webhost as to how much data space you have been allocated. FTP rarely times out like that unless your connection is wonky. I run an FTP server here at work that we use to transfer MPEG-2 files all the time, many in excess of 100 MB. I have had clients upload 600 and 700 MB High Def MPEG-2 files to my FTP server, with no timeouts. So I suspect that either you don't have enough space on your FTP or your connection is wonky.

We use Passive transfers all the time, by the way, our FTP hosting software prefers it.

Dexter...

oopsie, typo. I meant i changed it from Active to Passive

thanks for all the help guys...i'll check my with my webhost.

gabe

okay. I finally got it uploaded....

now im just having trouble streaming it from my website.

this is the URL to the actual .mp4 file:
http://www.drunk-penguin.com/images/crazycardboard.mp4

and this is the code to the site I tried streaming it at:
http://www.drunk-penguin.com/cardboard.html

does anybody know why its not playing? im using Safari and FireFox and cant get it to load...all i get is the default quicktime image.

.....?

Dexter

First of all, did you encode the Quicktime for streaming? You have to save it as a "hinted streaming file."

Second, you need to confirm that your server is capable of handling streaming files. Not all web servers are optimized to provide streaming files, some will limit the bandwidth on your server unless you specifically request it, which usually means a higher costing server package.

Third, your code may need some tweaking. Do a search for "embed streaming quicktime." Some code resources will be found, this one looks pretty detailed:

http://www.soundscreen.com/streaming/embed_streams.html


Dexter...

gabe

i dont ever remember being given to option to save it as a "hinted streaming file"....I used a converting program that just converted it from my dvd player to a mp4 format right away..no questions asked...

and I have 1291.68 Megabytes of bandwidth, is that enough?

i'll try out the code resource you sent me & we'll see what happens..thanks alot.

Dexter

gabe wrote:

and I have 1291.68 Megabytes of bandwidth, is that enough?

You'd have to check with the ISP and confirm. It's not just the bandwidth, it is how the server is set up. If the server is not not set up for video streaming, you may not be able to do it no matter what the bandwidth is.

Dexter...

RWB

Hrm that's not a lot of bandwidth for that 54MB video.. means the video alone can be viewed 23 times before going over the bandwidth limit, then they'll probably start charging you for every MB after that.

gabe

ew....

well im hosted for free and can get as much space as i'd like..but thats really not the issue.

I guess I should just shrink down the file size. I'd really like to try to convert the .mp4 to something more compatible for other users...like a mpeg or .avi or .mov file...

does anybody know where or how?

i know somebody knows...people put dvd clips onto streaming websites everyday...why is my clip so different

Enverex

AVI is a container, not a format, so that's not something you can really say you want to convert it to. MOV is Quicktime which = proprietory garbage, not nice for those of us that don't want Quicktime trying to take over every format assignment on their machine, heh.

I'd recommend looking into XviD or something, that would give you a high compression rate and good quality at a smaller size than most other encodings.

6 mins @ 320x240 at 54MB is insane to be honest. It's either not compressed enough or the format is just not very good.

gabe

*sigh*

my life sucks...