Help me decide how to put a DVD online.

October 24, 2014 4:44 PM

So I have this DVD with accompanying copyright information, descriptive notes and disclaimers and I'd like to put it online so others can access it. The last time I did such a thing, I ripped it and converted to FLV and used JW Player. I could do that again but I wonder if that's what people at the end of 2014 would do. Are we in a post-flash world? Could I do something similar in a different format? (Even though I have some experience with this, please "explain like I'm 5.")

More specifically, I'd like to show this video on a page with the information in such a way that this text would be seen by all who encounter it. As I understand it, if I use Youtube, I'd have to embed it in a page and people could pass around the Youtube URL which would not have the text on it. (Is this true? Can one put the copyright text as the description so they see it anyway?) What about Vimeo? Is it the same in this respect? Will Youtube (or Vimeo) add advertisements that would be "disruptive?" (I don't know because I run too many ad blockers to understand what others see.)

posted by Obscure Reference to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: You can put the copyright information in the YouTube description. You can disable embedding when you upload to YouTube; this will stop other people from putting it on their own sites (and not seeing the text description.) Thus, people could only pass around a YouTube URL that had the text on the page. You can also disable commenting if you wish.

Is the copyright on this video yours? Do you actually have the right to publish it online? Because while YouTube is likely to give you the biggest audience, they will also yank copyright infringing content.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:15 PM on October 24, 2014

Best answer: You can use the video tag, which is new in html5. Just rip the dvd as usual but convert it to mp4 or webm instead of flv.
posted by Poldo at 7:00 PM on October 24, 2014

Youtube and Vimeo are both very good at transcoding- taking your raw video and converting it into a set of formats that will play nice with everyone's browser, internet connection, etc. It's hardly ever something you want to mess around with yourself.

Vimeo never shows ads and allows you to post password-protected videos, so you can just send the password to those you want to see it and not worry about getting "caught."
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:13 PM on October 24, 2014

With a Pro account on Vimeo, you can lock down videos so they can only be embedded on your site and cannot be played directly on the Vimeo site or embedded elsewhere.
posted by zsazsa at 10:54 PM on October 24, 2014

Best answer: Could you edit the video to add the copyright notice etc to the start as part of the video itself, as a screen of text? Even the most basic video editing software should be able to do this.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:16 AM on October 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Before converting the video (unless the conversion is for reduction of file size) try just uploading the raw video straight since YouTube does its own conversion in the first place. YouTube also has an on-site video editor (no download required) that you lets you place words onto the video as you like..
posted by Quarter Pincher at 6:37 PM on October 25, 2014