Streaming Media and Protect

I wanna try and offer different ways to stream media. For now all my videos are render to .wmv from Sony Vegas. I want to stream it as .wmv, flv, and youtube. I want to try and protect my videos from being downloaded. Any other formats I should offer also? What approach should I take? I know I am not allowing hotlinking.

Oh since I rendered them in .wmv, Dreamhost can't convert them with their goodie flv service. Ideas?

Matta

Matta

You can't really prevent someone from downloading and storing your videos. Things like mms, flash, and so on are enough to deter your average punk but smart hackers (and people who can Google for programs written by smart hackers) can get around this. Even the strongest DRM can be thwarted with a camcorder. Just be aware you are reducing risk, not eliminating it.

Anyway if you want to convert wmv to flv there are tools to convert movies on your desktop--it's not as easy as the spiffy Dreamworks tool but it's doable. It gives you more options, also. I make my own flash movies on Linux with mplayer (which is available for other systems as well, but it's an advanced command line tool).

In reply to:

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Things like mms, flash, and so on are enough to deter your average punk ...

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Maybe that is true, but I don't think so. Even your "average punk" will likely have no trouble grabbing your video (It's your *grandmother* that might be deterred!)

--rlparker