Embedding Videos Into Your Website

[Don DesJardin]

I have been posting some of my videos to Vimeo for a while now, and ran across a widget that Vimeo offers call Hubnut. Basically it allows you to embed all or part of your videos, depending on the number any types of channels you have created, into your website. In my case I had three channels, and I selected one of these to be embedded. It generates the code, and you paste into your site where you want it. I chose my front page, because it was basically a blank page. You can customize your widget, like changing the background color as I did to match the background of my page. Every time I open my site, it automatically connects the widget from Vimeo. What's really nice about it is, I'm using Vimeo's server and bandwidth instead of me paying for more bandwidth from my ISP. If your interested, take a look at my application of this widget at:

Videography

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the info.

Mick

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hi Don, yes I will try using Vimeo to host future videoes.

Did an upgrade to Plus member, so I have plenty of GB per week to upload! Being a Plus member also give you some additional settings, e.g setting flags who can embed your vidoes in websites.

I'm experimenting with some settings for best quality/file size for uploading. Being able to upload HD is nice. As a Plus member you can embed HD in your own website!

I'm on Mac - FCP 2 - will report back my findings later on!

Per J Naesje on Vimeo

[Don DesJardin]

Hello Per Johan,
I forgot that you also had some of your videos posted on Viemo. I'm also thinking about upgrading to the Viemo Plus status, but for now I'm happy in posting HD content once a week.

"I'm experimenting with some settings for best quality/file size for uploading. Being able to upload HD is nice. As a Plus member you can embed HD in your own website!"

I'm working with a PC, and I found that encoding my edited HDV mpeg-2 video using Dr. DivX, which is a free encoding program, to a DivX file with a custom HD profile that I made which incorporates the following settings.
Codec Performance: Extreme Quality
Aspect Ratio: Custom 1280x720
Interlace: Progressive Output
Rate Control: 2 Pass 4000kbps
Audio: MP3, 160kbps, 48kHz, Stereo, CBR, Audio Booster: off

I found that this was about as good as I was going to get as far as quality, and keep the final file size within reason. I realize that you can't use this DivX encoder on your Mac system, but these settings are pretty universal to most all encoders, Mac or PC.

Also, if and when you try embedding this widget into your site, I noticed that the Viemo's script has the player sized at a default 400x300. Although I really don't have the room, I'm wondering if you can manually edit those numbers to increase the size of viewer after you have copied the script to your website. Let us all know if and/or if you use this Viemo widget, and some of your encoding specifications.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Originally Posted by Don DesJardin

Also, if and when you try embedding this widget into your site, I noticed that the Viemo's script has the player sized at a default 400x300. Although I really don't have the room, I'm wondering if you can manually edit those numbers to increase the size of viewer after you have copied the script to your website. Let us all know if and/or if you use this Viemo widget, and some of your encoding specifications.

No, problem changing it manually to whatever you want. I put it 640x360 at my site, and it plays perfectly.

[Dave Allen]

It has been my experience that Vimeo hiccups badly when playing a large file size video.

ExposureRoom.com plays them MUCH better, and they give you 3 different sized embed codes.

[Bobby Arnold]

I think YouTube has vimeo beat for playback quality (and ability to embed high def and medium quality). Here are some examples:

Wakatobi by Full-Moon Light (Night Dives)
YouTube - Wakatobi by Full-Moon Light

Wakatobi - A Closer Look (Macro Madness)
YouTube - Wakatobi - A Closer Look

Wakatobi - The Nudibranchs (all the slug action one could ever want)
YouTube - Wakatobi - The Nudibranchs

Wakatobi - Wide I Go Back (not so macro.)
YouTube - Wakatobi - Wide I Go Back

And the same videos on Vimeo:
Wakatobi on Vimeo

[Don DesJardin]

I love it when a subject is posted and then some how migrates off into something like "my video posting site is better than yours". Hey, my original post was about the benefits of embedding videos from sites like You Tube and Vimeo onto your website, and use their servers to handle the bandwidth instead of you having to pay for more disk space from your hosting site. Use whatever site satisfies your needs best, and the quality issue is very subjective, so if it looks good on your monitor, it doesn't mean it's going to look as good on all monitors, and if the playback is smooth on your Internet connection, doesn't mean that playback is going to be the same for other Internet connections. For what it's worth, I played Bobby's video back on both You Tube and Vimeo, and the streaming on You Tube was so bad that I couldn't watch it, but it played all the way through with no stopping on Vimeo, and the quality was so close, it was a non issue.

Bottom line is that the ability to embed video into a website is a great way to get exposure with no additional expense and possibly selling some footage as the net end result. A good producer isn't going to base their entire purchase decision on the quality they see on a website, knowing the mechanics of putting it there in the first place, but the content in the video is what they are looking at first. You will have a chance to prove the quality after you have your foot in the door......

[Bobby Arnold]

Still reeling a little bit from that non sequitur.

Sorry didn't mean to change topics, or make this a battle of video sites - I was actually concerned most about the embedding of videos on websites - which I think I'm going to start doing more with YouTube now since they've obviously proved to offer decent, and IMO superior to Vimeo, streaming HD (that you don't have to pay extra $$ to embed, or to upload more then one HD clip each week.) Thanks for the feedback that you had issues playing back the YouTube video - YouTube may have more bandwith issues that Vimeo, but I haven't eperienced that as of yet. I think most people are still used to letting streaming HD buffer some before playing it, so I don't see that being as big of an issue.

[Jim Cancil]

I'm not as quick as some of you folks, so tend to look at things that make my simple life easier/better - like my Macs. I found these nice folks at UCSF very helpful in embedding video on my pages..

Embedded Media HTML Generator

I don't know if this is useful with Vimeo?! I have basic hosting sites at GoDaddy and they let me stuff pretty large files in folders without complaint.. and no filters.

j i m

[Richard Gooderick]

Originally Posted by Bobby Arnold

which I think I'm going to start doing more with YouTube now since they've obviously proved to offer decent, and IMO superior to Vimeo

For what it's worth it stuttered on YouTube and played back smoothly on Vimeo when I tried it, so it wasn't obviously superior for me.

[Don DesJardin]

Bobby,
Sorry, but I didn't aim my post directly at you, but how the original post drifted away from the content of the original post. Right now there are posts in other forums talking about You Tube now having the ability to stream HD, with pros and cons. Sorry if I ruffled anyone's feathers.

[Jonathan Shaw]

With regards to whether it's best to host yourself or on a second party site here are my thoughts:

Hosting Yourself:
Negatives: Takes up your server space, you have to keep an eye on bandwidth transfer, you have to be able to correctly embed it into your site.
Positives: You have complete control over your content, the content will stay where you want it... I used to use stage 6 for enbedding web vids but it folded, then had to go about re-encoding and uploading to Vimeo, and it was a pain in the arse. You can also get the specific look you want.

Hosting on Video Site:
Positives:Free or very close too it depending on whether you go premium
Generally easy to embed in your site
Negatives: No control, not much ability to change the look and feel

I ended up using video on my own site for key information and smaller files, second party sites for hosting additional pages. I initially used second party sites for the majority but have now opted for hosting most of it myself.

[Dave Allen]

We set up our scuba community site so all the major video file sharing sites will auto embed a scuba or dive travel related video with the pasting of the video url, but just to let you know, when most of the major video file sharing sites generate an embed code, you can strip out the video sharing promo spam from the code, then paste it to an html checker to make sure it is right.

I know some are averse to using an outside host due some issues, so this may resolve some objections.

[Jim Cancil]

Just an update to that UCSF link I posted... I wanted to add video to an Ebay listing. I shot a small clip with a Canon HF10 .. ran it thru iMovie '09 .. made a 4MB, mp4 file.

I used the UCSF generator to make it a QT embed - because it plays as a QT in my browser. Eh-Eh, it would not test?! We Mac users tend to simply try something else; it turns out Real Media was the ticket. I don't care why - I just need it to work.

Mostly, I will go to Dreamweaver and create some sort of reference page to hang on one of my sites .. but I thought I'd simply dump the code in the middle of the listing to see? BINGO! Hell, it provides audio sparkle to the listing .. and you scroll down to see where the Hell this noise is coming from... Cool.

j i m