good host for video site?

I'm building a website to post short 2-6 minute videos. they will change daily, but id like to keep a collection of them on the site, as many as i can.

this is the first website ive ever created so i would love advice as to if dreamhost's features would be good for that or if there is a more specific video-centered host i should go through

I don't have a lot of experience with video streaming, but DreamHost does support QuickTime video streaming. You can post any other format for download or RSS/Podcast.

I'm sure someone else with more direct experience will post shortly.

Did you have an idea of who your audience would be and what format would work best for them?

I have gone for flv (flash) Seems to work perfectly. of course it depends on the users weblink.

FLv is small file size which appears to be able to get a good looking file. Also there is a free flv tool you can use for conversion.

mm so yeh. I am doing it and it seems good on dreamhost

PMJI here - I have a site with PW and I have some training vids that I'd like to post for my clients and prospects. As an example of the size I'm looking to post, I have one that is a WMV, 18MB for a 521kbps 320x240, and the same vid is 44MB for a higher res 922kbps 720x480. This is my first attempt at doing this sort of thing.

Based on experience streaming media to a general audience, can someone here suggest a good codec / format / compression / kbps / MB, etc that we can use here at DH? For example, AVI and WMV are Windows-centric. MPG is more generic but can I create MPEG4 (as an MPG) or something else that's cross-platform but with good compression and quality? I'm sort of adverse to QT and RM but if those can provide good streaming at high resolution then I'll offer either or both as an option. Again, I'm a noob at this, so no flames please about my lack of understanding of the options. :)

Thanks!

Convert them to flash (FLV) aparently they say 99% of people can play those because it uses web browser.

I use allok flv converter which is a pay app because i use wide screen.

There is a free converter called Riva flv converter which does a great job. I should cut your files sizes down by 70% (Not really sure but it is a lot)

go here to see some of the flv files in action www.rhcpaustralia.com

Hello ranneworm,

I do host a video sharing website-type on Dreamhost. So my experience could eventually help.

Dreamhost is a fairly good host in general. Now, if you receive a high amount of visit (from digg.com for example), your website will display your video less fast than on a "normal day", because there is a lot of request on the server and on a particular video. But that will happen with most of the shared-hosting company.

One of the (many) advantage to host with Dreamhost if you have a video website is that they allocate a large amount of broadband.

I also highly recommend you to encode your video in flv (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flv)

If you want a more elaborated answer I need to know: What is the format of the video you are going to encode in FLV ? Are you coding your website?

Hope this help.


Get $55 discount: use this code DHDISCOUNT55 when you sign up with Dreamhost for one year.

Google has more stories.

Awesome IronGeek hosts videos at DreamHost. He has a DreamHost review with comments on video.

This recent Ars Technica story about video and DreamHost was interesting.

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I host a video site on Joomla with Flash videos in .swf unless length requires an flv file. I use ON2 Flix Pro exclusively because I want as much control as possible over the compression. I also did not want to compress at 15 fps because I am showing gaited horses in motion.

I recommend 512 kbs for the most universal access to your videos... the only ones who are locked out are on dial-up.

You are welcome to see for yourself at http://hestakaup.com.

I am pleased with DreamHost and would recommend it. It's not just the price and the bandwidth, storage, etc. The support from the users is, in my opinion, what makes it really work for me.

Stan

http://hestakaup.com

Flash is ok, it'll be like what's on YouTube. Of course you can change the quality to be higher, but the file sizes as you know will also grow.

Unless you really have some reason against Quicktime, I would definitely use it. Heck, I wouldn't even use the streaming part, I'd just post the file. QuickTime can use much better looking codecs (the compressor/decompressor) than Flash can. I believe that Flash just very recently started to support h264 compression for video, but unless your users are definitely going to have the most recent release of Flash, it won't work for them.

The one I can say for sure that I would personally stay away from is Real. RealVideo stuff is pretty bad in my opinion and is slowly but surely on its way out. My vote is for a plain non-streaming Quicktime video if you need good quality at a reasonable file size.