Corporate Web Video Delivery? at DVinfo.net

James J. Lee · September 18th, 2008, 04:30 PM

New here and did some searching but couldn't find the answer to this question, so forgive me if I wasn't using the right search terms.
I'm looking for the best method to deliver web video to corporate clients, most often small businesses with web pages and real estate firms. Posting .flvs to my site can be cumbersome and Vimeo recently killed my first video because evidently commercial stuff is against the rules. I do have the capability to create .flv players in CS3 but what I think would be ideal is to be able to post the videos to a professional site where they were automatically encoded and then provide my client with an HTML embed code for posting on their own sites. So, how do the corporate shooters here deliver their work?
Certainly willing to pay a small hosting fee as long as it's not TOO expensive as a startup. I see that "Brightcove" is popular but unsure of their pricing structure.
Any advice?
Thanks

Tripp Woelfel · September 18th, 2008, 06:23 PM

James... everything I've read says Flash is the way to go. Anything you edit you'll need to render out anyway. Transcoding to Flash shouldn't add too much time to that process.

As to hosting the video, I'm pretty unclear about your use case. Are you posting videos your customers will see or you making these for your clients that their customers will view? Sounds like it's the latter.

If that's the case you might want to let them foot the bill on that. If they don't want to do that, get your own Web site and build a template for a Flash video page. Then for each new video, create a new page from that template and drop the new video into it. Shouldn't be that hard.

This is all very easy for me to say, and you know your biz better than I. Might or might not work in your case.

Josh Chesarek · September 18th, 2008, 06:29 PM

bitsontherun.com does just what you asked for.

I suggest something like the JW FLV player and your own hosting but that is me.

.flv and or h264 video is the way to go.

Chris Davis · September 18th, 2008, 06:30 PM

I encode to FLV, then provide my clients with instructions for their web developer to copy the video to their server and post the video on their site.

I don't want to use some 3rd party service since I want to have 100% control over the quality of the video.

James J. Lee · September 18th, 2008, 08:39 PM

.flvs are the same conclusion I reached and I've been working on getting the players dialed in. I haven't done many of these yet but up until now I've encoded the video as .flv files, created players and delivered the files to the client by giving them a CD and letting them hand them off to their web developers. The issue as I see it is the question of "how do I get these on my web page?" and "what is my web developer going to charge me to put these up?" I'm just looking to streamline the process as much as possible.
Yes, I might could build my own web page channel but I'm far from a web design guru meaning a bit more to the learning curve. I wouldn't even know how to create the embed code once I had move the video to my host server.
Was just hoping there was something more professional than youtube, a Vimeo-like service out there that allows you to put up commercial work.
Josh, I'll take a close look at bitsontherun.
Chris, can you provide a little more detail about the instructions you give your clients and working with their web developer? That last one I did, I had to call the web developer multiple times to determine what sizes they needed and then was shocked at what they would charge to host and embed the video. Luckily the client didn't balk. Finally, I had to mail that developer a DVD since they couldn't receive FTP. That turned out to be as time consuming as the production and post-pro work.
Thanks for your input.

Chris Davis · September 19th, 2008, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James J. Lee

Chris, can you provide a little more detail about the instructions you give your clients and working with their web developer?

We are also web developers, so quite often the client will ask us to handle the installation of the video on their site. On a few occasions, the client has even moved their web maintenance to our company. The last few times we had to work with another developer, I'd generate a page with sample code and instructions like this:

www.famousdavispro.com/Video/FLWebInst.htm

Josh Mellicker · September 22nd, 2008, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh Chesarek

I suggest something like the JW FLV player and your own hosting but that is me.

I second that.

Here is a video showing encoding and generating a page with Jeroen's Player.

Sorry for the lackluster VO, I had little sleep the night before! :P

September 18th, 2008, 04:30 PM	#1
James J. Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Triad Area, NC Posts: 99	Corporate Web Video Delivery? New here and did some searching but couldn't find the answer to this question, so forgive me if I wasn't using the right search terms. I'm looking for the best method to deliver web video to corporate clients, most often small businesses with web pages and real estate firms. Posting .flvs to my site can be cumbersome and Vimeo recently killed my first video because evidently commercial stuff is against the rules. I do have the capability to create .flv players in CS3 but what I think would be ideal is to be able to post the videos to a professional site where they were automatically encoded and then provide my client with an HTML embed code for posting on their own sites. So, how do the corporate shooters here deliver their work? Certainly willing to pay a small hosting fee as long as it's not TOO expensive as a startup. I see that "Brightcove" is popular but unsure of their pricing structure. Any advice? Thanks __________________ J.Lee Photography, LLC http://www.jamesjlee.com

September 18th, 2008, 06:29 PM	#3
Josh Chesarek Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Winter Park, FL Posts: 978	bitsontherun.com does just what you asked for. I suggest something like the JW FLV player and your own hosting but that is me. .flv and or h264 video is the way to go. __________________ Simple Thought Productions - Life @ 30,000 Words per second

September 18th, 2008, 08:39 PM	#5
James J. Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Triad Area, NC Posts: 99	Good Points .flvs are the same conclusion I reached and I've been working on getting the players dialed in. I haven't done many of these yet but up until now I've encoded the video as .flv files, created players and delivered the files to the client by giving them a CD and letting them hand them off to their web developers. The issue as I see it is the question of "how do I get these on my web page?" and "what is my web developer going to charge me to put these up?" I'm just looking to streamline the process as much as possible. Yes, I might could build my own web page channel but I'm far from a web design guru meaning a bit more to the learning curve. I wouldn't even know how to create the embed code once I had move the video to my host server. Was just hoping there was something more professional than youtube, a Vimeo-like service out there that allows you to put up commercial work. Josh, I'll take a close look at bitsontherun. Chris, can you provide a little more detail about the instructions you give your clients and working with their web developer? That last one I did, I had to call the web developer multiple times to determine what sizes they needed and then was shocked at what they would charge to host and embed the video. Luckily the client didn't balk. Finally, I had to mail that developer a DVD since they couldn't receive FTP. That turned out to be as time consuming as the production and post-pro work. Thanks for your input. __________________ J.Lee Photography, LLC http://www.jamesjlee.com

September 18th, 2008, 06:23 PM	#2
Tripp Woelfel Trustee Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: North Conway, NH Posts: 1,745	James... everything I've read says Flash is the way to go. Anything you edit you'll need to render out anyway. Transcoding to Flash shouldn't add too much time to that process. As to hosting the video, I'm pretty unclear about your use case. Are you posting videos your customers will see or you making these for your clients that their customers will view? Sounds like it's the latter. If that's the case you might want to let them foot the bill on that. If they don't want to do that, get your own Web site and build a template for a Flash video page. Then for each new video, create a new page from that template and drop the new video into it. Shouldn't be that hard. This is all very easy for me to say, and you know your biz better than I. Might or might not work in your case.

September 18th, 2008, 06:30 PM	#4
Chris Davis Trustee Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Willmar, MN Posts: 1,400	I encode to FLV, then provide my clients with instructions for their web developer to copy the video to their server and post the video on their site. I don't want to use some 3rd party service since I want to have 100% control over the quality of the video.