Putting videos on a blog

I need an alternative to YouTube or anything publicly viewable

[Trisha]

I'd like to put videos on a blog, but I'd rather not use YouTube. I'd rather not use any hosted service and instead put them on my host's server.

This is for a small, private family blog so I don't expect too much bandwidth usage and since it is private I don't want to use YouTube or anything else other people can access.

There must be software to do this with, but I have no idea what to search for, I've mostly seen YouTube on sites.

And I'd rather it not require people to download something to their computer, if possible. Some members of the family are not that computer savvy, so I don't want it complicated.

Any ideas? I honestly don't even know what to search for.

[thecoalman]

Since it's not for public consumption I'd suggest using Windows Movie Maker to encode to WMV which should cover just about anyone trying to view it. WMV is "web friendly", it produces a small file. Anyone on Windows machine can view it.

From there you can just FTP and provide a direct link to the file. When the user clicks the link they can either save it or open it to view on regular media player. You can embed it using some basic code but you'll run into a lot cross browser issues.

If you want to provide a more robust player you can use a Silverlight player, there is very good free one available for non commercial use. One benefit there is if anyone is using a Mac they can view it. Silverlight might need to be installed on the users machine but it is fairly straight forward easy install.

[Major_Payne]

Most people have the flash plug-in for their browser. You can convert any media to the swf format. Most computers in use has the media player to play just about any of the popular formats. The main thing is getting the correct media code placed on your page to call the player for the format you are using.

If you have your own paid web site, there is no problem with putting the media files on your server and linking to them in your pages. Just make sure all media is copyright free or that you have permission to use any copyrighted material.

These sites may help you with the media code:

[freevideocoding.com...]
[cit.ucsf.edu...]
[trap17.com...]
[embedthevideo.com...]
[embedurl.com...]

Or, these...

Media Converters:

Convert your video or images: [gifninja.com...]
FormatFactory (The only free file (audio, video, image) converting program you will ever need): [dottech.org...]
Download & Convert Video File Tool: [zamzar.com...]

Various Formats: [mediaconverter.org...]
Online MIDI to MP3/WAV Converter: [hamienet.com...]
Video: [online.movavi.com...]
Formats - Movie, Sound, Ringtone, Image, Vector Document, Text, Data (Media-Convert is 100% free. No software is needed, and you don't have to register): [media-convert.com...]
Any Video Converter: [any-video-converter.com...]

Free Online Video Editor/Converter: [cellsea.com...]
BrushVideo (Free Online Video Editing Tool): [makeuseof.com...]

5 Free Online Video Editing Sites Reviewed: [extremetech.com...]

[Trisha]

Thank you! It turns out I already have Windows Movie Maker on my computer, it didn't like the .mov file from my camera, but I had some other video converting software I was able to use.

Based on only a little bit of testing, it does seem like there are issues with some browsers/OS - but I can also link to the file for those who can't view the embedded version.

So I guess it was knowing how write the html code that was throwing me off more than anything, thanks for the links!

Now I just have to figure out how to password protect the blog.

[Major_Payne]

You're very welcome.

[thecoalman]

Based on only a little bit of testing, it does seem like there are issues with some browsers/OS

The OS compatibility comes down to the codec, there is really only one codec that could be deemed cross platform and that's MPEG1. The issue with MPEG1 is that you need a file about 5X the size of something like WMV or other modern codec to create the same resolution and quality.

The browser issues become apparent with the embed code.

This is why any site serving video uses a plugin like flash. It eliminates both issues. As I mentioned above you can also use a Silverlight player to cross the gap OS/browser gap. That uses WMV and what is ideal about WMV is you already have the tools for creating these videos and anyone running a windows machine can view the videos as direct file download. WMV9 is compatible back to something like the Windows Media Player 6 or so which can be installed on Win95 :P

[Trisha]

Thanks again!

It has occurred to me though that when we are traveling I may only have my little linux netbook with me (Acer Aspire One/linpus), which doesn't as far as I know have any software that I can use to convert movies from our camera to .wmv.

I may have to skip embedding video when out of town. Why can't they make a camera that saves videos in a format that can be put directly on a web site?