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03-13-2009, 01:43 PM
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Ok so I am working on a new site www.rangerpast.com and I am trying to come up with the best method for the comming users for site I am currently using phpfox as the base for the site with a few modifications. However I need to come up with the best method for embeding the media. What would be your suggestion for the streaming content most start anywhere from .flv - .avi files. I have contemplated embeding using a Windows media player content but I want the users to be able to stop ,play and pause.
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  #2  
03-13-2009, 03:16 PM
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I would suggest the following:
  • If these videos are instructional in nature, then I would create a video stream that is between 640x480 and 800x600, so that it is large enough to be viewed.
    • Keep your clips short, no more than 5 minutes each.
    • You can reduce filesize and bandwidth consumption by cheating with framerates, such as 15fps, which thereby allows you to use half as much bitrate as is normally required.
    • Encode your videos as either FLV (On6 FlashVideo) or as F4V/MP4 or MP4-named-as-FLV (H.264). Flash Player 10 and higher, and some of the last version of 9, natively play H.264. Some of the web embedding players are stupid scripts, so the workaround has been renaming the extension to FLV (as I've done with videos in this forum).
  • If these videos are entertainment in nature, then I would create a video stream that is either 320x240, 400x300 or 480x360. My choice is often the lower of the two.
    • Again, keep the clips short, to avoid problems with streaming.
    • If you're wanting to stream longer videos (for example, 20 minutes), then you'll want to look into some powerful streaming-capable servers if you have more than 1-2 people ever concurrently viewing the file.
    • Sometimes you can cheat and reduce the framerates, but sometimes not. if you're not able to create good 15fps videos, then maybe some 20fps or 24fps videos would work too. It's the 29.97/30fps videos that take up so much more room.
  • From a storage standpoint, I hate hotlinkers and content thieves.
    • Personally, I would prefer to store short videos, no more than 20MB each, inside the mySQL database. For that to happen, you must be on a VPS or dedicated server, where you can tweak the mySQL blob size beyond the 1MB default limit. I would raise it to 25MB size. While some folks online shun file storage in a database, it's honestly not much different than storing files in the filesystem. In fact, it's safer in several ways, and allows better control over the access.
    • If you store these in the file system, be sure to enable htaccess that blocks hotlinking, and whatever else can be done to disallow access not initiated by the forum or CMS software.
  • My experience with streaming video goes back many years (to the mid/late 1990s), but only in the past 2-3 years has it been truly functional in several aspects. The quality, compression and bandwidth is now decent enough to allow truly useful and user-friendly content. I've largely dealt with PHP systems such as vBulletin, phpBB and WordPress, which have open-source/freeware plugins available (written by code developers), that make our lives easier as site developers.
  • I would most definitely NOT use RealMedia, Windows Media, or QuickTime anymore. Those are legacy formats -- I don't care what BS marketing those companies have released -- and FLV/H.264 has already cemented itself as the future of web video.
Hopefully that's answered your questions, and given you some things to ponder and consider.

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  #3  
03-14-2009, 01:12 PM
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Yea alot of the clips I dont believe will exceed 5 mins either way. As they will mainly be TV Intro's and Commercials to Movie Trailers.
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03-16-2009, 01:12 PM
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Well I was able to finally come up with a descent player for this issue.... now will be onto encoding so I dont loose quality taking them to .flv files size isnt really and issue since my host is unlimited like my bandwith. The Test Clip I used was from Youtube so it looks a little crappy!



http://www.rangerpast.com/index.php?...ic/spdfanmade/

There is a description added to the bottom havent decided to wether or not let them download the media or not. Still need to review the media to see if the quality is worth it.
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03-16-2009, 05:08 PM
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The player I use here is the JW FLV Player, although my implementation is by way of a vBulletin plugin. To play H.264, you simply rename the extension from .MP4 to .FLV or .MP4.FLV. So far, it looks to work really well.

There are also some Youtube plugins, and other services, for those you use third-party hosting of their videos.

For what we do here on this site, we want to have a bit more control over our video feeds, so we host videos locally.

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