Basic Server Video Primer

We created a system of gloming web based surveys and web based videos together. This was not as simple as I thought it would be. Anyway below I had to explain the process to one of their executives.

Okay this to answer the last part about the technologies and leave the stuff about the menu options aside for now.

Basically your need is to be able to upload a video, show it to the respondent(I”m calling them that for now), have them answer questions and process the results. You also mentioned at one point that it should be as portable — i.e. easy to install and use on other servers — as possible.

All we’re concerned about here is the first two — upload and show.

Note here that the reason we show this is because we’ve incorporated the management of the resulting video content into the content management system. This is key and easy to miss actually. Otherwise is is like a rehash or showing other peoples technology for no reason. For instance one can embed VideoEgg into a Blogger page so its not a big deal just to be able to offer it. It is a big deal if you can utilize it for things like you have in mind. As far as the CMS is concerned the Videoegg, Google, Local Transcode, whatever are all the same.

The options on that page on onevid.

Google was at one point thinking that you would be better served by uploading to Google and using their free or even pay version to do this but it has changed so much in just the last month it is already a management nightmare. Any small change in their terms of use would require a legal opinion and I’m not sure what in the end it gets you. That is one of the options on that page and you can just cross it off.

Youtube: See above. Even if Google had not just absorbed Youtube the concepts of managment problems are the same.

Videoegg. This is a matter of preference. You could use this or not and it is up to you. My adivce is to keep it handy no matter what. Here is a breakdown of what they’re doing in terms of the key difference Videoegg has over the other option which is to transcode on the server.

• The video is uploaded to their servers not ours (yours)
• The transcoding is done locally by their application which is downloaded to the machine

That is it as far as the technology and process. In terms of presentation they have a better player than the one we install which is I will admit is not great. A month ago I thought it was fine but the state of the art has moved forward a bit. They offer watermarking or branding the video. We can as well but it was not incorporated. You should consider getting a great Flash player and we can get third party bids for building a player to your specifications. Our guess is that it would cost somewhere around $300. I\’m looking at some stuff now based on Davids specifications.\n

Transcoding on the server. This is the one you originally wanted and it is the other option that is available on onevid. If you upload a video file it is almost instantaneously transcoded to FLV.- \ni.e. Flash Video.

In order for this to work on the server about 10 software packages, libraries (FFmpeg is only one of them) and such have to be installed and configured. This has nothing to do with the programming involved to incorporate it into the CMS which was done just for you btw. Either way none of the software packages are Red5 .. \n

I think this is my biggest point. Red5 is not relevant to what you want to do unless you want to offer live interaction with the respondents as in a two way audio connection or video chat.

Red5 is there only right now I don\’t know what you can do with it. We could do videochat but it will take some doing to get it into the CMS so we could use it for something.\n

So right now my big picture thinking is that we need to clean up the interface and we should think through the player.\n

By the way. The main thing VideoEgg has going for it is portability. Setting up the transcoding is not simple stuff. If you were selling it as a service its not a problem.”,1] );

• • The video is uploaded to their servers not ours (yours)
  • The transcoding is done locally by their application which is downloaded to the machine

That is it as far as the technology and process. In terms of presentation they have a better player than the one we install which is I will admit is not great. A month ago I thought it was fine but the state of the art has moved forward a bit. They offer watermarking or branding the video. We can as well but it was not incorporated. You should consider getting a great Flash player and we can get third party bids for building a player to your specifications. Our guess is that it would cost somewhere around $300. I’m looking at some stuff now based on Davids specifications.

Transcoding on the server. This is the one you originally wanted and it is the other option that is available on onevid. If you upload a video file it is almost instantaneously transcoded to FLV.- i.e. Flash Video.

In order for this to work on the server about 10 software packages, libraries (FFmpeg is only one of them) and such have to be installed and configured. This has nothing to do with the programming involved to incorporate it into the CMS which was done just for you btw. Either way none of the software packages are Red5 ..

I think this is my biggest point. Red5 is not relevant to what you want to do unless you want to offer live interaction with the respondents as in a two way audio connection or video chat.

Red5 is there only right now I don’t know what you can do with it. We could do videochat but it will take some doing to get it into the CMS so we could use it for something.

So right now my big picture thinking is that we need to clean up the interface and we should think about the player.

By the way. The main thing VideoEgg has going for it is portability. Setting up the transcoding is not simple stuff. If you were selling it as a service its not a problem. But its not  that hard either.  We can do what you want.

I hope this makes sense.