Adding Video Content to Your Website
 Television has to be the major promotional tool for any
company, because it is much easier to get a message across visually than by any
other means. As the internet has expanded as a form of entertainment and
information gathering, technologies have developed to combine these two media
forms, and allow people to add video content to their websites which can either
be viewed online (streamed) or downloaded to a customer's hard disk for later
playback. Even internet advertisers are starting to see the benefits,
providing video playback instead of banner ads.
 Many websites have evolved around the ability to offer video content
and video clips -
perhaps the widest use on the internet has been by the porn industry (out of
which have been born many millionaires). Television and media companies
are just beginning to join on the bandwagon and starting to offer their programmes over the internet
and to mobile phones as
well.
However, this industry still remains fairly small scale and has only
just been marked by the release of specific options in Google
and Yahoo search engines to look for video content as well as the evolving PODcast industry - which provides video for download
onto Apple's Video iPod.
Certainly many websites still do not make the most of the facilities available
and tend to only offer video clips with an option to purchase the full video on
DVD or VHS video. The main reasons affecting this are the perceived
limitations placed upon offering video.
A
video downloaded direct to a visitors hard disk offers the best possible quality for
playback. However, there are various video formats out there and you cannot be certain which type of
format a customer can support, or the player a customer is
going to prefer. Remember that there is a sizeable number of people who
surf the internet using systems other than Windows, such as Linux. As a result, most sites seem to offer download options
for each of the three main players in the field, each of which offer varying
degrees of quality as well as user friendliness (namely
Microsoft Media
Player,
RealPlayer,
and Apple
Quicktime).
You also have to balance the quality of the video with the time taken to
download the video over a dial-up connection or a broadband connection and at
the standard 512Kb broadband, it is still going to take a long time to download
a 20 minute video, let alone anything longer. However, as more and more
providers offer
1Mb broadband services as standard (and much faster services), then this
will not be a problem, apart from the fact that some ISPs place caps on the
maximum downloads available to their users and other "fair usage" policies.
When designing websites you always have to bear in mind that not everyone
will be using fast broadband for access and some may have older computers which
cannot support the latest media player software. You also have to consider
how easy it is to upload your video content in the first instance and the speed
at which your web site hosting provider will be able to serve the content to
your visitors.
From
your website point of view, if you want to add video content to your website, y ou have to balance the amount of storage space and bandwidth
required for such large files.
 You will
generally need a dedicated server, such as that provided by
Streamload.com which provides unlimited file storage for MP3, Divx, Anime, Movies, Images, and Music .
They also add the ability to charge your customers for downloads, make
them searchable, mark them as Adult Only and even include them in
emails. Charges are based on the download width and amount of
storage, although for Home and Small Business users, charges are a lot
less. If you only intend to offer one or two videos on your website,
a cheaper option might be to use
Globat
as your web site hosting provider, as they offer low cost bandwidth of up to
300GB per month and 10GB of storage.
One thing which you may wish to do if you offer video for download, is
to allow the ability for your visitors to convert video to play on mobile
devices. Companies such as
PQ DVD offer software specifically designed to convert DVD movies onto
various mobile devices, such as the Sony PSP, Pocket PC, Palm devices and
Apple's video iPod. This software allows users to convert DVDs, or
standard video files (wmv, avi, mpg, mpeg, rm, rmvb, Tivo2go, etc) format
on their PC and the software provided by
PQ DVD is easy to use and low cost. At least this does tackle
one of the potential pitfalls, in that your visitors may not have the
right codec to play your video download.
The other option for providing video content is to offer video streaming.
This solution sends video to your customer's computer in small packets, which
allows the customer to start watching the video almost immediately - whilst they
are watching the first few seconds of video, the next packet is buffered in the
background, which should help to provide a seamless video experience, although
on slow internet connections, they can often be left waiting for the next packet
to buffer.
Because the video is transmitted in this way, there is no long delay whilst
the customer waits for whole of the video content to download before they can watch any
of it. It also has the added benefit that the visitor will need to return
to your website to watch the video more than once.
However, there does have to be a trade off in quality. We have found
that many streaming videos are also difficult to watch over a 56K dialup
connection, with the sound and pictures often getting out of sync - presumably
as the video has not been fine tuned to work on either broadband or dial up
internet connections.
 One
alternative solution which has been used by
HIT Entertainment plc
(who make children's television programs, such as the infamous Thomas the Tank
Engine and Bob the Builder), is to create movies with
Macromedia Flash which can
then be played over their website. This works really well for short
animated movies and we have even seen this method used for streaming small
presentations with real people. Ten Alps plc also use this method
currently for their free video download site,
PublicTV. However, we
have found that the Flash PlugIn (v9) does not appear to install correctly on
some setups running Microsoft's Internet Explorer v7 (IE7) - this can be
rectified by downloading and installing the
Macromedia Flash Active X control instead. However, this highlights
one of the problems with relying on a separate video player to show your
content in that if the user does not have the rights to install an updated or
different version of the player, then they will be blocked from accessing your
content.
Again you generally have to take account of the various forms of internet
connection and media players, which are available to your customers and
provide different versions of the video stream for the varying speeds. You
will also need to bear in mind the high bandwidth and storage space requirements
for this type of service, and will undoubtedly need to use a dedicated server -
again, we would recommend that you look at
Streamload.com.
Choice of
Player and Video Codecs / Plug-Ins
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As well as deciding on the type of video content to supply and how to provide
it, you will have to consider which media player the majority of your customers
are likely to have installed on their computer - the most popular are
Microsoft Media
Player,
RealPlayer,
and Apple
Quicktime, as
well as the Macromedia Flash player. However, even these come with their
own problems in that the user may not have the relevant codec installed (this is
the software which converts the video to images on screen) or even the latest
version of the Media Player.
Firewalls and browsing control software, which is now commonly used within
companies to restrict the sites and types of content which their employees can
access may also block video content served in this method.
In either case, your customer may have to download more software from the
internet before they can even begin to view your video content which is
frustrating, particularly if they do not have rights to install new software
(remembering that parental controls and firewalls may also block this).
If your visitors have to go to these extremes in order to access your video
content, many will decide to use another web site - no matter what quality of
content you promise, if they are unable to view it immediately, people are
unlikely to stay around to find out.
One way around all of these problems is to look at using a Java based video
player.
A Java based video player is a small piece of software which is actually
embedded within your video content. This means that whenever a customer
wishes to view your video content, they are always ensured of having the correct
version of the player for use with your video, without having to download or
install any software. The video displays from within any java enabled web
browser, whatever operating system it is running on. In fact this leads to seamless video
streaming.
This can have some huge advantages, as has been shown by GMTV who have
adopted Forbidden Technologies java video streaming solution to allow their
foreign correspondents to watch the television show from anywhere in the World,
without needing to pay for expensive satellite links, in order to enable them to
find out what is happening within the programme.
There are various companies who
provide Java players (and the facility to convert your video to this format),
including Forbidden
Technologies,
Eyewonder,
Oplayo and Clipstream.
The video at the top of this page, was created using Forbidden Technologies
software, which we prefer for the quality of sound and video, as well as a
consistent frame rate.
The advantages of using the Forbidden Technologies solution are:
-
 Video and audio can be sent on a tape to Forbidden Technologies for
conversion, or you can convert it direct from a DV tape machine or mini-DV
camera connected to a PC via Firewire, or from a Quicktime movie file, using the free FORUpload
Windows (or MAC) program.
Professional users are also able to purchase a dedicated FORScene compressor
which works much more quickly and can handle larger volumes of video. The
latest version of FORUpload has a much improved user interface and is now
easier to use by novice users.
Professional use of this product is now starting to be seen, with FORScene
being used to edit
Super Vets on BBC1 and "Trust Me - I'm a Holiday Rep", which was broadcast
on Channel 5. -
As well as being able to use FORUpload to upload Quicktime video files, and
to capture output from DV video cameras, you can now use
record CIF resolution video (approximately VHS), with
high quality audio, on your mobile phone, and then upload it over the air for
editing.
 Once
it has been converted, you can then edit it online using the low cost Java
FORScene program which has features comparable to those expected in television
editing suites. FORscene makes it easy to work collaboratively, since
more than one person can have access to the same file and again all you need is a
Java enabled web browser to use the software. Prices for editing start from
only £1 per hour.
There is no need to convert your video content into more than one format,
because your customers do not need any special plug-in or player to view your
content - 9 out of 10 customers will have all the software they need already,
namely a Java enabled web browser. What is more, you do not have to
worry as to whether viewers will have rights to install a player (for example,
if they are behind a corporate firewall or have parental controls set), which
ensures the widest possible audience for your video content.
Video and audio clips can be published from within FORScene to either a web page (FORWeb),
a PDA or mobile phone (FORMobile), included within emails (FORMail) or within
advertising banners and even uploaded to iTunes for download and viewing on
one of the new video Ipods from Apple (PODcasts). It can also be streamed live if you purchase a
FORScene compressor.
The video content is highly adaptable, with the ability to add slides,
subtitles, splash screens, company logos, chapters and links to websites to
the actual video.
The FORweb solution (providing video for use within a web page) can sense
the datarate of a connection and adjust the size of the video picture to suit
the visitor's internet connection speed
The video loads as soon as the user clicks on your website - a picture can
be displayed within the video whilst the player downloads and initialise.
FORMobile works over GPRS networks as well as 3G networks and has been
developed to work on
the Nokia
N-Gage, Nokia N70, N90, 3230, 3650, 6600, 6670, 7610 and 7650, Sony Ericsson P800, P900 and
P910i as well as Symbian based phones. Videos can be charged using either a Bango micropayment facility or
through an SMS billing system, ensuring that mobile users can easily pay to
watch new video content. With the advent of Viewtooth, mobile users can
also share videos and the player between themselves, and this has been
successfully used to broadcast video to tradeshow visitors for example, to
provide them with free details of what is happening at the show. With
the opening up of the 3G network by Orange, videos created with FORMobile can
now be watched on Orange Nokia 6630 mobile phones.
The video content can be served from your own server or stored on the
Forbidden Technologies' web server at fairly low cost. Live video
content can also be served direct from a FORLive compressor based on location,
which, if you have an SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) can be
uploaded to the internet at modem, midband and broadband datarates
simultaneously.
Obtaining Video / Sharing Videos
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All of this ability to create and store video has
lead to the need for Forbidden Technologies to look at creating a website which
can form a central source of video content for download and sharing.
 Forbidden
Technologies have now released a new website (www.clesh.com)
which provides a website for uploading, sharing
and downloading video content, including the use of this for private adverts.
This will enable you to use FORScene to edit video clips and upload them from a
computer or a mobile phone to a central server where they can be shared with
other users, who can access the clips using a PC (or MAC), or mobile. When
you create an account to allow you to store your videos, then you are able to
specify who can access the videos or place them in public folders (for example
you may wish to open a group account to allow your family to upload and share
videos).
This type of video sharing website is becoming more popular and Clesh looks
to take off with some quality videos having been submitted in response to a
competition run in conjunction with Tiscali. Alas, with the massive surge
in traffic towards Google's
YouTube video sharing website, Clesh appears to have taken a back seat,
allowing Forbidden Technologies to concentrate on the online video editing
capabilities of their solution.
How Do I Protect my Rights
in Video?
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With the increasing use of search engines to look for videos on the internet,
it is essential that you take some action so that if a video is viewed out of
context from your own website, any copyright notices are embedded within the
video itself and it attracts people to come to your own site to look for more
video content.
One of the great benefits of video streaming is that
you can control your copyright in the video - without a file to download and
store on their computer, people cannot copy your video to DVD or share it as a
bit torrent or using any other sharing software. If they add the video to
their own website, you can keep track of which sites are calling for your video
and then take action if required.
However, beware that there is software which can
capture video as it is viewed on someone's PC - this could then allow the video
to be redistributed by others. The solution provided by Forbidden
Technologies has the advantage that you can include a link back to your own
website as part of the java controls as well as a watermark in the video itself,
thus making it more difficult to remove details of where the video was
originally from.
How Do I Use this To Make
Money?
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Video streaming allows you to make access to video
content cheap. Instead of a user paying for each video which they
download, you can introduce a members section on your website where fully
paid-up members can watch the videos available as often as they like, provided
that they maintain their membership. Our programming team would be happy
to assist with implementing this if you require.
If you wish to offer video streaming to mobile
telephones, then this can be implemented using FORMobile and a
Bango micro-payment facility or
SMS billing system which are both implemented by Forbidden Technologies.
 We
cannot assist with implementing the actual videos on your website, and would
recommend that you use one of Forbidden Technologies' partners, such as
SiteSeer
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