Question About Making A Website For Your Videography Business

[Jenna Klingensmith]

I'm going to be making a website for my videography business soon, and I have a few questions. First of all, when I buy a webhost, domain, etc, will I be able to host my videos from the webhost or will I need a separate video hosting account? (I need highquality, no youtube!)

Tell me, for those of you with websites that have video on them, how do you deal with your video, and approximately how much space will I need to host a few videos (no longer than five mintes and no more than maybe 2 or 3 videos) I want to make sure I do this right the first time around, and I don't want to dive right in until I know what I will need to do.

So can anyone explain to me in plain english how the whole process of building a website goes, it doesn't have to be in great detail. And please explain how to put the video onto the website. (Is it a simple uploading process like uploading a video to youtube? Or do i need a special software, etc)

Another thing, do you use already made templates or do you design your own websites? Do you webhosts you use allow you design your own layout or do you have little control over it?

Thanks for your help.

[Mark Bournes]

Jenna. I use yahoo small business, They have a bunch of Templates to choose from, they make it real easy to upload pictures and video. It all depends on the package you buy as to how much video you can store, and how much bandwidth you need. There are plenty of choices out there, I pay 11.95 a month for my package. I like this because I can add or change anything at any time at my discrection. It will all depend on your needs.

[Josh Chesarek]

Wow, very open question. So I will do what I can :)

If you get a decent webhost all of it is under your control at all times. Most will offer 2 ways of making the website, one which is a site building tool that allows someone who has no experience with a website to make one. Or the other is where you code out your HTML or PHP etc and upload usually via FTP to the server and it hosts those for you. I personally hate coding PHP and such so I use Wordpress which is a CMS/blogging software which allows me to focus more on the content rather then the design. There are also tons of themes out there for it plus you can spend some money and get a custom theme made for you if you want.

Addressing the video question, you should be able to host the videos on your regular webhost as long as you are not trying to stream the videos. You can use progressive download to allow your viewers to watch the movie on your page (like you tube) and that works fine with nearly all webhosts. Be sure to ask and read their rules about multimedia. Most only have rules saying you must own the copyright and you also must not abuse the network with excessive use but you really need a popular video to do that.

As for uploading them once again unless you build a PHP site it will not be like youtube. More than likely you will need to compress your video to either, Windows Media, Quicktime, or flash, and them Embed the video onto your webpage. I chose Flash because it is the most widespread and fastest plugin to install for video. I then offer downloadable versions in Quicktime or WMV.

Incase you are currious I use http://www.1and1.com (referal link is @ the bottom of my webpage if you want it) Their Home package is probably perfect for you as it includes plenty of space and bandwidth as well as includes a built in Blog (Wordpress) for eady installing! I have only had to call their support once or twice but it was to deal with getting help on domain transfers but I was able to talk to someone with in a minute or two of holding and they were able to answer my questions quickly which is a huge plus to me.

[Daniel Ross]

You will pay for every element of the hosting (I mean-- it will be part of a package, and you can pay more for better packages).

You should be able to find a reasonably priced host that will have plenty of space for videos, yes.

It really depends on what size you want your files to be, so it's not something I can really tell you.

However, I'll note that 100mb is more than enough for a 5 minute clip at very high quality, and you should easily be able to find a host with that much space.

One thing to take note of is bandwidth, not just space.

If you have a lot of people downloading these files, the space might become less of an issue than the allotted bandwidth with the account.

powweb.com and godaddy.com have fairly reasonable rates. There are others that are certainly an option, too.

Just search google for some hosts and see what looks reasonable. You might also want to call some numbers to see how the tech support seems. I use godaddy and their service is quite good, but the tech support is a joke... an hour on hold, and people who just look at their site to try to answer questions. But... it's cheap.

You CAN buy templates or hire a designer, but you don't get this with a hosting account (some hosts might offer some sort of package, but it's certainly not standard).

You will need to learn HTML (and Javascript/CSS/PHP, etc., if you need that sort of content), or use a WYSIWYG editor (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get). A WYSIWYG editor is easier/faster, but also generates code that isn't preferable. It's a better idea to learn HTML yourself. It's daunting at first, but really not that hard once you get used to it.
Personally, I use Dreamweaver but I keep an eye on the code it generates and fix up what I need to or write portions myself.

Uploading will be done through FTP. FTP is a different protocol than HTTP. HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) is used to view pages, and FTP (file transfer protocol) is used to view the pages and directories much like files and folders on your own computer. Drag and drop, copy, delete, etc.

You can use FTP through Internet Explorer (just type in ftp.yoursite.com), or, better, use any number of freeware applications. I like fireftp, an extension to Mozilla Firefox. (Interface is a bit weird, but it's very good once you get used to it.)

If you don't know what you're doing, you really need to either learn and do it right right way or pay someone who does know because a poorly designed site will really lose you business.

[Bob Thieda]

Jenna,

I use www.1and1.com
For 4.99 a month you get two domains, 120gig of space and 1200gig volume a month...

They include a web page builder called Fusion which is easy to use and they also have an online page builder.

Their tech support is suppose to be very good, but I've never needed them.

Check them out...

Bob T.

[Bruce Foreman]

Bob,

Have you ever had a problem with the allotted bandwidth not being enough? I notice the package you have is limited to 1200GB a month.

Just curious.

[Bob Thieda]

Originally Posted by Bruce Foreman

Bob,

Have you ever had a problem with the allotted bandwidth not being enough? I notice the package you have is limited to 1200GB a month.

Just curious.

No Bruce....I've been with them for two years and I've never been charged for using more than the allowed bandwidth...
Most of the videos I've posted have been in the 50-60meg range so it takes a lot of hits to git to 1200gig...

Plus...they keep increasing it...when I started with them, I think the limit was 500gig...

I know several people using 1and1 and they have all been happy with the service....

Bob T.

[Daniel Ross]

1200GB is just fine. That won't run out quickly.

[Josh Chesarek]

Well if you had a 100MB video the 1.2TB (1200GB) would get you around 12,000 downloads. Not to bad for the price especially considering the next package up is not much (neither is the overage really). That is a really popular video to hit 12,000 Views in a month, If your video gets viral status that can easily happen but at that point, you can make some money off of it to pay for the bandwidth. So if she has 3 Videos @ 5 minutes or under @ 100MB (which should be very high quality) Each video would get around 4,000 views. I have only had a few videos get that popular but you guys might have a better fan base than me :p

[Andrew Fraser]

try Bluehost for hosting. Cheap and heaps of storage

Currently have two accounts - One for myself (hudorproductions.com) and one for a client (mafekingfarm.com.au), with a third on its way soon...

[Jim Michael]

Originally Posted by Daniel Ross

If you don't know what you're doing, you really need to either learn and do it right right way or pay someone who does know because a poorly designed site will really lose you business.

Listen to this wise cousel. There are two aspects of website design that you have to get right, page layout and browser compatibility. Nothing says amateur better than a bad design that doesn't render properly. There are some sites where you can put your web design work out to bid such as elance.com. Just be sure the vendor guarantees browser compatibility as a condition for payment and make sure it works correctly on IE 6 & 7, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, and Safari.

Re content and delivery, there are three parameters to look at - bandwidth, storage space, and throughput. Bandwidth is the amount of content you are allowed to deliver per month. Storage space is the amount of content you can store on the server. Throughput is the amount of data the hosting company's architecture can reliably deliver per second. The way a hosting company is able to provide you with dirt cheap hosting is to put your site on the same server with thousands of other sites. If they are all busy sites they have to divvy up the throughput, making each site appear slow. Fortunately there are thousands of poorly trafficked sites to each popular one. If the hosting company provides good service they will work with you to resolve throughput issues.

[Jenna Klingensmith]

How hard is it to learn to use dreamweaver? do you have to have an extensive knowledge of html for a program like that?

For anyone who uses it, can you tell me how it works? Do I design a website on there like I would design a layout in photoshop? (are the two programs compatible?)

Thanks for your answers everyone, i appreciate it! I'm not sure which webhost i'll end up going with, but is the video quality for these webhosts of high quality? I do not want it to recompress my video and turn it into garbage the way youtube, etc. does.

[Paul Mailath]

Originally Posted by Jim Michael

Listen to this wise cousel. There are two aspects of website design that you have to get right, page layout and browser compatibility. Nothing says amateur better than a bad design that doesn't render properly. .

I agree - Remember what business you're in. while it may be fun to design web pages (I do my own) it can be very time consuming for a less than desirable job. If you're intent on doing your own - keep it simple and professional, don't mix fonts and go for fancy flash titles just because you found one that looks cool (it's the same as using 73 different transitions just because they're available)

aim it at your target market, it's there to get you business, nothing else.

If you do go to web designer, look at examples of their work and make sure you are able to make changes yourself (add new videos, change details etc) without have to go back to them and pay more money

[Jeff Anselmo]

Hi Jenna--

We just renewed our yearly subscription with Aplus.net. We ended going with them based on a Cnet rating. (We have the Primo XR service.)

All of the suggestions listed above are really good. But I wanted to stress everyone's advice of making/designing/creating your website, and making it look professional. Our first website was rather too personal, letting everyone know just how happy that we're in the video production business.

For our most recent website, we're still very happy we're in the video production business, but now we've streamlined it for a more business/formal look. Plus, we've been finally able to upload our videos.

(Just an addition, uploading our videos was a mixed bag. It was horribly frustrating, as uploading 15Mb seemed to take forever. Trying/experimenting with different resolutions, export settings, etc. was a major pain. But when it works, and people can view it from the site--it's a beautiful thing!)

Best,

--JA
www.madjavaproductions.com

[Daniel Ross]

Originally Posted by Jenna Klingensmith

How hard is it to learn to use dreamweaver? do you have to have an extensive knowledge of html for a program like that?

The idea is that you don't have extensive knowledge of html and use a graphic interface to create webpages. The idea is great and requires little knowledge of html, but very often buggy even with a top of the line program like dreamweaver, and much worse with some of the more buggy apps (whatever you do, don't use frontpage).
I really would recommend having someone, either your or someone else, who DOES know html at least participating in the site, regardless of whether it is all really coded by hand.
There is a strong feeling from experienced coders that WYSIWYG editors are wrong, but that's a bit extreme. However, there is a very good point in that, that people who don't know what they are doing make bad pages without knowing it and have no ability to fix it.
Certainly keep an eye on the code (and learn by doing this if needed) as you go. That will always help.
HTML is really not that hard to learn. If you've used BBcode (like [b] or [i], on a page), then you'll do fine. Just takes some practice.

For anyone who uses it, can you tell me how it works? Do I design a website on there like I would design a layout in photoshop? (are the two programs compatible?)

It uses a GUI as I said to create elements. It's output IS html, but you don't really ever need to touch it if you try not to. It has a preview based layout so you can add elements like a table, or an image, or text, or a link. It's like a page layout program such as pagemill, pagemaker, etc., more than photoshop, though in some ways fairly similar-- like you make things at certain places, can change colors, etc. Certainly more limited than a canvas on which you can draw upon.
Photoshop is certainly not directly compatible with Dreamweaver (though both are now owned by adobe), but indirectly, yes. You can make an image then use it in a page. Sure. Or you can use slices to make a layout then "slice" it into chunks (actual different image files) then put these together into a page.

Thanks for your answers everyone, i appreciate it! I'm not sure which webhost i'll end up going with, but is the video quality for these webhosts of high quality? I do not want it to recompress my video and turn it into garbage the way youtube, etc. does.

You do this yourself. They give you space, bandwidth and a way to access it, and you do it all. Compress however you want. Nothing will be automated, so --good-- you'll have full control, and --bad-- nothing will be automated/easy.


I'm a member (actually moderator) of a very good web design forum at www.dynamicdrive.com/forums if you want to ask some specific questions on the subject.
Of course continue here if you have questions for people who have video sites, but that would probably be a more helpful place in terms of actual questions about creating your pages, perhaps later once you've worked a few things out. You can also browse through some old threads and get an idea of how this works.

A frequent misconception of those new to publishing on the web is that there is some complex thing going on. It's quite basic. You have text files (html, etc.). You upload those. The visitors goes to them. The pages are rendered from the code to display stuff. And that's about it. Code can get complex, but it's certainly something for which you can attain an understanding.