PlanetStream Blog

Why pay for streaming when YouTube is free?

We are often asked why people should pay us for hosting streaming video when YouTube is free. It used to be easy to answer because the quality was so poor on YouTube but that's not so clear cut any more.

There are three main issues:

1. Unlike PlanetStream, YouTube give no guarantee of service or the quality of playback and it can deteriorate quite badly at busy times. So for professional users there is always the risk that a key visitor to your website could receive a poor impression of you.

2. Because YouTube is free they add their branding and their advertising to your video. This detracts from your image and dilutes your message. It's a bit like finding a professional person with an AOL email address. It makes you look amateurish and even cheap-skate.

3. Most importantly at the end of your video they add links to "similar" content. At worst this could be links to your competitors but even if it's complementary content it can distract your visitor away from your message.

We did a bit of a survey recently and got the following comment from a third party on a YouTube video embedded in a client's home page:

"I just watched the video that was on the link that you sent and then at the end saw a picture of a helicopter, clicked it and watched a Royal Air Force video and then a Sony Television advert, then someone doing tricks with a football and then ... all on the home page of their website which really distracted me from their services. I didn't end up reading any of the content on the page..."

When you consider that hosting your videos "properly" costs as little as £10 per month you don't need the above to happen very often to make that seem cheap.

At the end of the day there can only be one reason why YouTube is free. That is so that Google can derive benefit from your using it. Fair enough but don't you want to control how your videos are presented? To try PlanetStream's service for free (limited timescale though) call us on 01386 7929872 and see the difference.

Choosing Your File Format

What file type should you use to stream in? This is a regular question I get asked by PlanetStream clients, and an important consideration that can be best answered by looking at your individual requirements and the goals you’re looking to achieve from video streaming. Choosing the file type is important as you want to ensure your audience has everything in place to view the stream as easily as possible:

Windows Media Format - .wmv

The Windows Media Video format was developed by the Microsoft Corporation, and until a couple years ago this was the standard video format for use online. With the vast majority of web users browsing on a Windows Based PC, any videos being streamed in wmv will launch Windows Media Player automatically and play the stream – this is why wmv. Is still a very popular format and offers excellent compatibility rates with your potential audience.

You can choose to wither embed the Windows Media Player into your webpage (see blog entry from May 01, 2008), or have it launch a stand-alone player.

Flash Video - .flv

With the fact that a Flash player is installed in nearly every web browser currently available, and the popularity of sites such as  YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, and Yahoo! Video, streaming in Flash Video is a very attractive proposition in terms of reaching as many potential viewers as possible – in fact, it is now almost dominant in On-Demand streaming.

Flash Player is a multimedia and application player originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems. Because the Flash Player runs as a browser plug-in, it is possible to embed Flash Video in web pages and view the video within a web browser.

Quicktime - .mov

Quicktime is the video file format used by Apple. It’s not as common as Windows Media or Flash are for video streaming, and PC based users will need to have either the QuickTime player installed or a plug-in for their current video player to be able to view videos streamed in .mov format.

Real Video - .ram or .rm

RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile phones. It is less commonly used than the file formats above for video streaming, but has continued popularity when used for streaming audio, particularly online radio stations, as it is adept and handling low bandwidths and bitrates.

Bandwidth Calculations

A question I’m asked a lot by PlanetStream clients is “How much bandwidth do I need?” Sometimes this question is akin to the old chestnut “how long is a piece of string”, so I’ve come up with some rough calculations to help you along. It all depends on the amount of viewers you’re expecting to receive, so an easy way to work this out is to calculate approximately how many viewing minutes our different levels of Monthly Data Transfer offer:

Viewing Minutes	Monthly Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Required	PlanetStream Package
500	1GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level 1
1250	2.5GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level 2
2500	5GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level 3
10000	20GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level 4
25000	50GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level5
50000	100GB	WM/FLASH/MIXStream Level 6

Interested? You can email me on steven@netsecrets.co.uk or call me on 01386 792972.

Microsoft Silverlight

A lot of people are talking about Microsoft Silverlight. Will it challenge the (alleged) superiority of Flash?

Here are a few links to fill in some of the gaps.

Wiki entry on Silverlight

A (not very good) site built using Silverlight

Geeky forum discussing the bits that don't work (most of it?)

Any more insights welcomed.

Embed Microsoft Windows Media Player into your webpage

I receive a lot of questions from customers who want their On-demand videos to be easily accessible for a wide range of clients, family etc. on the Web. As most streaming multimedia files are in one of the three major formats — Microsoft Windows Media, Apple’s QuickTime, or RealAudio/Video – it can be difficult to decide how best to display the video on your website.

An ideal solution to this issue is to encode or convert your video files into WMV format and embed the Microsoft Windows Media Player right into the Web page, as the vast majority of PCs have Windows Media Player on them, and people are familiar with it. A lot of people tell me they hear the words “embed into the web page” and think this involves some major work – truth is, it’s a very simple thing to do!

Embedding a Windows Media video file is done by inserting code in the web page's HTML. Our shared streaming server space allows you to upload video and audio files via FTP, and then by using the Control Panel in the File Manager system, it will generate the HTML code for you. Just sign up for one of our On-Demand WMStream packages and follow these simple steps:

• Step one – Encode your Video file into WMV format.
• Step two – Upload the file to our shared streaming server.
• Step three – Use the control panel to generate the HTML code for you
• Step four- Embed the HTML code into your webpage.
• Step five – Sit back and enjoy your video!

See? I told you it was easy! The HTML code will look something like this:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="384" HEIGHT="380" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"

STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player components..." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">

<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="http://links2.planetstream.net/dave/SHFullVideo384x2882spkf.asx">

<PARAM name="autostart" VALUE="false">         

<PARAM name="ShowControls" VALUE="true">

<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="true">

<PARAM name="ShowDisplay" VALUE="true">

<EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="videofilename.wmv" NAME="MediaPlayer"

WIDTH="192" HEIGHT="190" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="1" ShowDisplay="1" autostart="1"> </EMBED>

</OBJECT>

And will produce the following video embedded into your webpage (Click 'Play' to start video):

And that’s how easy it is to embed a Windows Media video file straight into your webpage with PlanetStream's WMStream Package. Interested? Want to know more? You can email me on steven@netsecrets.co.uk or call me on 01386 792972.

How Much Disk Space For Streaming Files?

The amount of disk space you need to store your streaming media files depends on two things. Firstly the type of file you are using - Real, Windows Media, Quicktime, Flash, mp3, etc. Secondly it depends on the bit rate of the streaming file. The higher the bit rate, the better the quality, the bigger the file.

There are some examples on the PlanetStream website, take a look at:

http://www.planetstream.net/faq-disk-space.html

For more detail post a comment or email info@planetstream.net.

Viewing streams from behind a firewall

Most business users of the internet will access the net via a network connection. this means they will almost invariably be sat behind a firewall.

We can overcome this by streaming via http protocol which is what your web browser uses. So if you are behind a firewall but can still browse the web, you will be able to view our streams too.

There is more info on this on the PlanetStream web siteat:

http://www.planetstream.net/faq-firewalls.html

If anyone has anything to add to this we'd be glad to hear from you.