How to find webspace to host the video - is it easy?
 

Hello,

If and when I complete the video I will need to find some webspace to host it but haven't a clue how to go about findind it.

Is it easy? Costly?

It can be free, if you don't mind some advertising on the page your video's on. Try some of the following sites:

https://upload.video.google.com/
http://www.videobomb.com/
http://www.putfile.com/
http://video.tinypic.com/

Or Google it: http://www.google.ca/search?q=free+v...f&start=0&sa=N

Good luck!

Be careful about what the host of the site may do with your video, read here.

patrick's advice is good. most of the free sites ask that you relinquish some degree of creative control so use them if you don't care much about that. most of the free sites get so many video uploads that the chances of them using yours in a promotional fashion are pretty slim, but it's possible. it is inherent to posting on the web, though, that even if you copyright something, it's out of your hands to a large degree.

there are definitely things i can't post to a free site, but if you're just looking to share your work, put up a DV challenge piece, post a camera test for discussion, or just have a sample online, FREE is great. i use www.ourmedia.org, which can be glitchy on occasion, but it's free, and its best feature is unlimited bandwidth.

just be aware that, even if you copyright it, it still enters the public domain, so don't post commercial work or things like cute pictures of your naked kid in the bathtub. so you need to be a little responsible on your end. it does get circulated around the web, i think. but i don't really worry about someone ripping off my work from the free sites. i'm cautious about what goes up, and what goes up is so highly compressed, what could they possibly do with the footage?

How to set up the link?
 

At you again Meryem

My first effort is 13.6mbs in QT; apparently conforms to all requirements on Rob's list. Is it OK that it looks very pixelated after conversion to 320 x 240 ? I can't persuade Ourmedia.org to accept it, perhaps because I'm unwilling to tick more than 2 boxes on their "list of attractions". I'm not even sure which if any of the boxes are essential for my purpose.

Download.com appear to be happy to put it up on their site, but before opting for them I wish I knew how to set up the appropriate link to DVInfo. Will they facilitate that or what should I do to make the connection on either of the free websites?

Your help would be very welcome.

You should check out ZeD. I haven't read their terms of service lately but I know that the TV show (shown on CBC here in Canada) used to be made up 100% of user submissions. They changed the show's format so maybe this has changed.

http://zed.cbc.ca/

Hard to argue with FREE. Then again, for less than $100 US a year, you can have your own domain name with 10GB of storage and up to 250GB of transfer monthly from any number of reputable companies. No advertising, etc. Just do a 'net search for something like "review + web host", read a few review sites, and then READ the TOS of some candidate web hosts...some will have file restrictions (eg no streaming video or no files larger than X MB) or other little "gotchas."

Agree that we all should be a bit careful what we put on our web sites, as ANYONE, ANYWHERE can see them (unless you set up a log-in page with strong UID and password requirements).

Oh, and if you want to post your DVC entry, don't wait until the 11th hour to get a web site because it does take a couple of days for your domain name to propagate across the web and be accessible. Plus, I find it always ends up taking way longer to upload stuff to my web site than I think it will. (Except for the new FiOS, even broadband is pretty slow on the UPlink side).

Maybe for DVC6, everyone who needs hosting should chip in a few bucks to have their video on thedvchallenge.com.

Thank you Mark and Pete for really helpful ideas.

$100 for a domain name seems the way to go. I wish I wasn't so bloody nervous about taking on something quickly that I would love to take on at my usual slow pace e.g. does having a domain name facilitate me posting a link without having set up a website? Is a domain name a basic website? It's a matter of my ignorance, gentlemen ... [I can hear a maths teacher muttering long ago "Ye can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!" ]

Now I'll go and read up on the suggestions you've made.

If you don't mind having temporary web hosting, go with dreamhost.com and use a coupon code such as BEST. (777 is better, but expired.)

For about $20, you get one year of web hosting with 100+ GB of bandwidth ($1/GB overage, you can throttle the website). In terms of uptime, you get what you pay for. The price really can't be beat.

If at the end you want to keep the domain name and use another web host:
Beforehand, transfer the domain to a domain registrar like namecheap.com. You can't do this 30 days before the domain expires, or 60 days after you just bought it.
This will give you flexibility to easily change web hosts.

Brendan: hosting and a domain name are two seperate things, although you can buy them at the same time usually. I pay something like $16 a year per domain name (like dvinfo.net for example). Hosting (putting your site on a server) is usually more expensive depending on the amount of traffic your site generates and what kind of server side support you may need (programming languages, databases, statistics, etc.).

Hosting future versions of the files on our site might be an option. We are still looking into things like that.

everyone's chiming in with a lot of useful advice, brendan.

but to offer up from my own meager store of knowledge....

if your file exceeds 10 MB, you need to download a copy of their uploading software, called Ourmedia Publisher, available at the site. it will walk you through the steps you need to get your upload accomplished.

uploading through ourmedia takes a long time--best to set it up and walk away for an hour or so--it can take as long as 24 hours to appear on your page, so what may appear to be a failed upload on your end may not be. i've had several links to the same file on my page, which i've had to clean up. if you get too many duplicate file names, i can give you the *secret* instructions on how to clean them off.

you may want to pay for your site, if the freebies seem too slow or confusing. frankly, i've never picked up a job through my actual website, www.planeteproductions.net --not a-one. most of what i do is word-of-mouth, and i have sample DVDs which i can give away. it just seems like one of those things a videographer needs to have on the business card. so while it is inexpensive to have your own website and owning your domain name gives you street cred, i personally have not found any advantage to paying for one yet.

it's good you are getting this down before the entry becomes due, because you can solve all the problems in advance.

regarding what appears to you to be excess pixellation, it's hard to comment without seeing what the file looks like. did you use mp4 or h.264 or what codec? i always find that mp4 looks pixellated to me when i render out of my mac, but it's a more universal codec. not very smooth, though.

looking forward to seeing what you've cooked up!

What about Google Video? Never used it but might be a go.

Where's the link?
 

Thank you all for a lot of guidance.

Part of my problem was that I had no email facility on my "videopc" and while my kvm switch allows quick changeover it does not allow cut & paste between my 2 pcs. So at last I've got email set up on my videopc, [videoraptor@yahoo.co.uk] and I've registered the domain name videoraptors.com (with namecheap.com as suggested by Glenn Chan).

The "review + webhost" search revealed permutations of website hosting all new to me ... but at least, with your thoughtful prompting, I begin to understand the words used.

Meryem
Does my Video codec "Sorenson Video 3" & Audio codec "QDesign Music 2" make sense. No sign of mp4 or h.264. I followed all Rob's low rates because my QT Movie comes to just over 3 minutes (2928 yawn frames yawn! so you'll have time to put on the kettle, please.). I used QT Alternate PAL Download as Preset to start with, not Custom. Maybe that's causing the pixellation? It was tricky enough getting it down to 13.6mbs without hoping to deliver better quality ... there she goes again, the sow with a silk purse on her ear.
I still need to know the following, please ....

Will Ourmedia.com accept my domain name, offer to host it and show me how to set up a link on it ? At present the Deny Access! or where are you giving night-classes at the moment ?

hi brendan: you're on a fairly different system from what i have, so some PC czar should probably weigh in. sorenson 3 is an even more universal codec than mp4, so the largest number of people should be able to watch your modest contribution, if you ever get it uploaded. h.264, my favorite is the least universal, but i really don't like the quality of the other two, at least as my mac renders it. welcome to the frustrating world of video compression. yuh'd think these brilliant code writers could invent one beautiful universal codec which plays across all machines without destroying the integrity of the original. hasn't happened yet. so we live with the frustrations and limits of multiplicity.

ourmedia will not host your domain name, because they *are* the domain. you just have to go to ourmedia and register, just as you would for any other online service--like dvinfo, you now the usual personal profile rigmarole. you don't have to join all those groups they list. the only one i belong to is "sights and sounds of nature." when i post a nature thingie, they list it on the nature blog. it's just an audience they provide. so you don't have to check a bunch of those....

once you've registered, go to the home page, click "publish my media" in the upper left corner of the page, and they'll walk you through the uploading media instructions, including how to download the Ourmedia Publisher software. (using that has given me a slight aneurysm, but nothing i can't live with).

just keep pushing all those buttons, you'll get there!