Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web and video

How to create online video classes?

jabo — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:36:36 -0800

I need advice in setting up secure, online video classes. A student would pay for the class, and then be directed to a streaming video that they would be able to watch (not download) for a length of time (say a week).

I could use any advice, resources, warnings or general musings on how to accomplish this. Existing software or hosting solutions also welcome. I know html and css but only just getting my little toenail wet with php. Finally, this would be for a small business with limited resources (i.e. cash).

Video Sharing Websites?

tangyraspberry — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:17:53 -0800

Can anyone recommend a video sharing web service for private viewing? In other words not you tube. I trying out Smugmug but, at $60.00/year, it's a little pricey.

Where can I learn about standards for web graphics and video?

word_virus — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:05:02 -0800

Where can I learn about standards for web graphics and video? I need to get up to speed on "best practices" for creating graphics and video for use on the web.

I work for a website that produces a lot of media content including a daily mp3 and video podcast. Ostensibly, I'm the systems administrator but lately I find the focus of my job moving into helping produce graphics and video for the site.

I would be okay with this, but I don't really know what I'm doing and no else here really does either, so there's no one to ask when questions arise. I'm okay with learning on my own but I haven't been able to find a decent authoritative resource.

What file sizes should I be shooting for? What are the pros and cons of different graphic file formats? What resolution should things be at?

How do you learn this stuff? Is there a book or website anyone can recommend that can point me in the right direction?

Thanks

References to Video & Web production having similar structure

sswiller — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:54:50 -0800

Are there any books or articles that show similarities between web content creation and video production, specifically with regard to job titles and workflows? The titles don't match up exactly, but there are similarities, and I was wondering if anyone has published this phenomenon.

Video = Web
Producer = Stakeholder
Director = Project Manager
Art Director = Designer
Director of Photography = Developer
Screenwriter = Copywriter
Production Assistant = Assistant Producer
Talent = Content

Looking for .NET based server software for video blogging

Riemann — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:33:30 -0800

Looking for .NET based server software for video blogging I am looking for recommendations for server software (.NET, version 2.0 or newer + SQL server) that can be used as the base for a video blog site. I have resources (developers etc...) and budget to do a fair bit of customization so a package that has a strong blogging core but no inherent video blogging features is fine.

Commercial or enterprise software is fine. Doesn't need to be free though Telligent Community Server Enterprise is at the extreme high end of the budget I have at $25,000.

Packages I am already looking at include:

Oxite
Blog Engine
Telligent Community Server

Software based on license that requires the open-sourcing of my code is not an option. Also, LAMP, Ruby on Rails or other non-.NET platforms are absolutely out of the question.

Any suggestions or experiences with the above software would be much appreciated.

Easiest way to set up a 'fake' torrent tracker?

JMB1138 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:38:06 -0800

I need to create a website for a fake invite-only torrent community to feature in a short movie centering around said community. What's the easiest way to set up a customizable tracker? It's important to note that there will be no actual torrents shared, this is just for the purposes of the movie. I just need the colors and graphics to be customizable so it looks pretty on screen, and so I can 'update' it with fake accounts posting fake torrents as needed for the story. I already have a domain and a webhost with MySQL access. Do I need to go through all the trouble of setting up a real tracker script? Or you think I can just get away with a customizable BBS system?

Any thoughts appreciated!

web site design firm recommendation?

reddot — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:49:14 -0800

hi there. A friend of mine like to have a website created for his business. As someone more technical than he, he's asked me to help him find someone. He owns a Jewish funeral home. The site would be mostly informational, with two exceptions.

The first non-standard item would be the integration of the Memory Book product offered by FuneralNet (http://funeralnet.sharedbook.com/pilot/enterBook.do?bookId=FuneralNet_2007). This is a print on-demand service by Shared Book that has been customized by Funeral Net to create the books from obituary / guest book sources.

The second item would be integrating / linking to a streaming video service like StreamHoster or UpStreamNetworks. The new trend for funeral homes is to offer streaming video of funeral services. Ones held in the funeral home would be live. Ones at the graveside or elsewhere would be recorded then uploaded.

So, I'm looking for recommendations for web design firms geared towards small businesses that would be able to take this on.

The only updates that would happen regularly with the site would be to update the list of funerals and whatever would be associated with that.

Also, if you have any recommendations for live / pre-recorded video streaming services, I would love to hear it.

Thanks.

Todd

News footage for web video: where can I get it, and for how much?

hazelshade — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:43:27 -0800

News footage for use in a video to be distributed over the web: where can I get it, and for how much? Anyone have an idea of what the usage costs are for video clips of news footage of the sort used in, for example, this video? (It's Progressive Media USA's "McCain: Out of Touch" video, which juxtaposes clips of Bush and McCain making the same completely head-in-the-sand claims that the economy is sound.)

Just want an estimate of what use of these clips would run, and where a person would go to obtain them.

Apologies if there are previouslys for this -- didn't find any recent questions upon search. Thanks!

Start judging me -- I need a free/cheap online photo-multimedia contest judging software

jkl345 — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:40:41 -0800

Is there any decent free or cheap online contest judging software out there? I'm looking for a tool to help people submit and judge media contests (specifically photo and multimedia contests) for a non-profit organization. The closest thing I've seen for this is this Omni Contest site: http://www.omnicontests3.com/ (But it costs money, is hosted elsewhere, isn't as flexible as I'd like, etc.)

Ideally, it'd be able to:
- Allow entrants to upload their entry directly online
- Allow judges to view, comment on and rate entries directly online
- Allow user classes (so judges and entrants have different permissions)

Would be cool stuff:
- Free or cheap cost
- Allow integration with Wordpress blog software

I know this might be kind of a pie in the sky fantasy because I've never heard of anything like this for free/cheap, but if there's anything that might be hackable or modified to work with this, I'd love to hear about it. Perhaps some sort of photo gallery system that allows multiple media formats and raitings? I'd like to hear all ideas. :)

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!

Help me forward to new page at end of Flash video

aaronetc — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:42:28 -0800

How do I get Flash to play a FLV and then go to particular URL when it's done? I'm working on a project where people view a Flash video (just an FLV file with no skin or anything else) and then get forwarded to another page when it's done. I need them to see the whole video, so I can't just put a text link for the next page. I don't know Flash especially well, and the code that I've found online keeps giving me demands for an onClipEvent handler. Ideas?

Help me send my desktop over teh internets!

ostranenie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:04:11 -0800

How can I stream my desktop to my boss? My boss is in the US and I'm in the UK. He wants a live web broadcast (ostensibly because we can both see the internet but we're both behind various firewalls) of my desktop. One frame a second or so would be great, but I'd be happy with even 1/5 frame a second.

I thought about writing something that would snap my screen every 1-2 seconds and FTP an image up to a website, but it'd be super-nice if something like this already existed (a 'push' client at one end that sends to a web server, some PHP script, and a 'pull' script (JavaScript?) at the remote end that constantly updates the image in his web browser).

VNC / TightProjector or similar won't work because there's no way I can open these corporate firewalls. (Okay, fine, there's a way but it'll take two weeks and I need this by Sunday). Super bonus points for something generic like the old webcam-sender programs that takes a "most recent" image (JPEG) and uploads it to a webserver, then updates an index.html type file on the webserver and refreshes its content smoothly. Or something.

Thanks in advance!

Distance Ed

simplesharps — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:33:57 -0800

I stopped 3/4 of the way through my degree. I'd like to get the piece of paper, but I don't necessarily want to study on campus or with that Australian university. I was bored with its syllabus difficulty (not it's content: web, video and graphic design) and decided to see if I could make it in the real world. I've since been working in the industry for 4 years with some success. I thought it was time that I made another change so I quit my job, traveled remote parts of SE Asia without dying OR contracting horrible diseases. I came back refreshed and got straight into freelancing. Still haven't quite mastered all the ins and outs, but the freedom of waking up and starting work in pajamas is something else.

Now that I have the opportunity, I'd like to finish a similar degree with a respected Australian institution who is well known for its creative graduates. I can't study on campus, so I'd need to apply for some form of distance ed. I'm not sure how all of this works - any recommendations much appreciated.

Flash Video Homepage

andrewyakovlev — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:55:07 -0800

Looking for commercial/business/corporate sites where a flash video clip starts playing upon loading the home page - and it works, looks good, isn't annoying. All suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Help me create a tutorial video for the web!

Geoffh — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:52:46 -0800

I want to create a tutorial video in the style of this one. I've got the voice-over stuff covered, but what software would I use to pull this off if I'm not actully filming anything with a camera?

How does one export a quicktime file from iMovie that can be added to a web page?

traderjoefan — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 23:46:22 -0800

How does one export a quicktime file from iMovie that can be added to a web page? I am helping someone put a Quicktime movie on his website. He has iMovie on his Mac and I have a PC. He has exported his movie in Quicktime format and burned the movie on a disk (which he mailed me) and also uploaded a copy onto the web server directly. When I add the movie to his webpage, only the Quicktime Q comes up with a question mark. When I download the file and double-click or play from CD, I get "Error -2048: the file is not a movie file:

I can view random Quicktime movies on the web (like movie previews) and even downloaded one onto my computer and it plays when I double-click.

Maybe someone has an idea where this incompatibility lies and what I need to tell him to do to get a file I can use?

How can I tell how many of my website's users have Quicktime 7 installed?

tweebiscuit — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 16:05:11 -0800

How can I tell how many of my website's users have Quicktime 7 installed? I run a relatively popular, regularly updated video website, which serves both to casual internet users and to a large podcast audience. I want to switch to the H.264 codec, for its far superior quality and iPod compatibility, but it requires Quicktime 7 (as opposed to Quicktime 6) to play back. (I'm currently compressing to MPEG-4, because I got sick of making separate H264 and Sorenson encodes.)

However, I'm going to need some numbers before I can force them all to upgrade. General statistics about the internet-using population at large aren't helpful, as our audience is relatively young -- I'd wager that most of them are iTunes users, for example, and as Quicktime 7 is part of iTunes 6, I think our demographics are going to skew towards having it installed. However, I still need to know for sure.

So, is there a test I can run that will provide me with statistics of how many users use Quicktime 7, a la browser user statistics? A piece of Javascript on my front page, for example?

How to Find a High Bandwidth & Secure Webhost?

jbelkin — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 21:48:34 -0800

How to Find a High Bandwidth & Secure Webhost? Recommendations? Directory? I work for a company that wants to launch this promotion along with weekly web video updates - the promotion has a pretty big prize so I imagine there will e much interest - how do we find a professional business web host that can handle add'l bandwidth and scale up as it goes?

We do have a website now but it's pretty minimal and the company is pretty smalltime. We have posted video before and playback can be slow.

For companies like Akami (sp?), do people negotiate separately with them or are they a webhost also?

Or hire a consultant? How much would that be?

Thanks.

need a web-based video player

quadrinary — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:41:47 -0800

i've been using wimpy video player in one of my websites for the past few months, but i'm looking for other options. it'd worked well, but always seemed to lack... i'm not sure. i just didn't feel as though it were as clean as it could be. so after the flash v.8 transition and months of use, i decided i wanted to look for something else. i appreciate the playlist feature, but prefer something a little more clean that doesn't require as much user interaction. i really love the way google video plays files, but i don't know if such a thing exists for private sites other than wimpy. my server right now can handle PHP (which is what wimpy uses) or ASP. anything is fair game as long as it can support a variety of video formats (wmv, avi, mpg, flv, etc) and requires no non-standard plugins.

thanks!

Webcasting Software?

loquax — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 10:17:20 -0800

Webcasting: I'd like to create some streaming video content, synchronized with powerpoint/.jpgs - Can anyone help? I don't have any trouble with creating the content (windows media video only) or streaming it, what I need is a presentation interface to display the content to users and syncronize the audio/video with the powerpoint/images. Basically, I'm looking for a software package that will make it easy to generate and sync many presentations using custom templates, not a service provider or archiving/streaming solution, which is most of what Google seems to throw at me. Anyone have any experience with this? (Other than MS Producer, which requires plugins and is not customizable enough, as far as I know).

How to video stream my radio show?

TeamBilly — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:25:53 -0800

How can I set up and stream LIVE video to be viewed through my, or another website? I run an internet radio show, (encode to Shoutcast) and I'd like to run live video from my PC and Cam to be viewed either A) through the station's website (preferred) or B) through my personal website, so that the listeners can actually see what's going on in the "booth" which is actually my home office.

I've found lots of little software packages, but they all seem to require that the video be pre-recorded. I have ample bandwidth and processing power for doing this.

How can I do it effectively and (hopefully) cheaply?

Web video resizing/compressing/formatting?

jmevius — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:36:23 -0800

So, I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've been handed a 60mb VOB file of a television commercial that I want to post to the website of said company. I was thinking the way to go was four versions, large and small sizes, for mpeg and quicktime. Is that a good target? Or is there a better format alternative that I should use?

I'm looking for a freeware/shareware program that will allow me to resize and compress the video and export it to the appropriate formats. Any ideas? Bonus points given if I can use them while being a video idiot.

I can only pass along minimal expenses to the company, so a no/low cost solution is probably the only option. For what it is worth, I see this as a one-time thing, not something I will be doing regularly.

Is there a way to save my Imagination at work sketch?

codger — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:04:03 -0800

Is there a way to save my Imagination at work sketch? Not that I don't trust GE to save my artwork for all time, but I don't. [mi]