Hello Everyone,

I am looking for comments and input on some new demo videos I just loaded onto my site. I'm wondering if it takes too long for the video to load, and also wouldn't mind critique of my work.

My Site (http://www.TruVisionStudios.com/demos.html)

Thanks,
Matt

hi matt. i'm on a t3 here, and i stopped waiting after a couple of minutes of "buffering" in wmp. i tried to check out the vows video. it kept bouncing from 10% to 13% back to 10%... how big are your files, if you don't mind me asking?

The vows are only 11.9MB @ 741kbps.

When I try to play the clips on the computers in my studio they do what you have described. However, I believe my network is setup a little funny... so I attributed it to that. On the computers at the office next door to me the video loads fine (buffers in about 10 seconds). I have tried on my home computer and the video starts up fine. Starts up fine on 3-4 friends computers as well.


Any Ideas?

i'm now at the studio, and after a couple of minutes, i'm at 77% buffering... frankly, i would have quit by now, but i'll stick around.

about 4-5 minutes of buffering later, it's now playing. i'm on a wireless airport network over cable.

I'm on a 1MB DSL and the vows video took just under two minutes to buffer using WMP 10.

You need to fix "vary" on your wedding page. ;)

Fixed vary to very. It has been that way for a year now, and I never noticed it, lol, thanks.

Any suggestions... new host? Should 750kbps vbr be too much?

Should I take this over to the DVD / Web Streaming Board?

Thanks,
Matt

it's only 11mb, so it has to be your host. this should have loaded just about instantly earlier today when i was on the t3.

please bear in mind, however, that your host may be having an off day. i wouldn't write them off just yet based on some impatient goon from southern cali.

I just tried your clips as well, and it's definitely taking longer than you want it to. Brides won't be as patient probably.

I think your host is probably the issue. For an 11MB file the buffering should take WAYYY less time.

Would anybody who tried this yesterday care to empty their browser cache and try again (http://www.TruVisionStudios.com/demos.html) today? Havn't changed hosts but I have looked into different options. Does anybody use PlayStream? $22.00 for 100MB storage and 4GB transfer / month. 1 cent per Megabyte over the transfer limit.

I currently have the videos on the same host as my website. I get 1000MB storage and 10GB Transfer for $14.95 / month @ Hypermart.net. Maybe it just isn't a good server for a fast continuous download?

Recommendations are welcome!

Thanks,
Matt

I currently have the videos on the same host as my website. I get 1000MB storage and 10GB Transfer for $14.95 / month @ Hypermart.net. Maybe it just isn't a good server for a fast continuous download?

Recommendations are welcome!

Thanks,
Matt

Hi Matt,

You are severely overpaying for your hosting services and they are not giving you much in return. I would suggest you host your media files on another host such as:

www.bluehost.com
www.inmotionhosting.com
www.godaddy.com
www.powweb.com

Right now 10-15 GB of space and 250 GB of transfer is the norm for about $6.95-$7.95

I own/operate a marketing and advertising agency and part of what we do is website development. If you're looking for the best hosting out there, check out these guys.

www.startlogic.com (http://www.startlogic.com)

Usually it is $7.50 a month for 5GB and 100BG of transfer. Right now, however, you can get your 1st year for just $50 (just $30 if you transfer your domain name to them - I'd recommend this because then your domain name fees are included in your future hosting cost, saving you even more). You can't beat that. Also, these guys are on their game. I've used them for a while now and their customer service is top notch.

Hello Everyone,

I am looking for comments and input on some new demo videos I just loaded onto my site. I'm wondering if it takes too long for the video to load, and also wouldn't mind critique of my work.

My Site (http://www.TruVisionStudios.com/demos.html)

Thanks,
Matt
Matt, I had no issues playing pre and post ceremony. Took like 10 sec to buffer and start playing in WMP. I'm only on my cable modem. Nice job.

Hello Everyone,

I am looking for comments and input on some new demo videos I just loaded onto my site. I'm wondering if it takes too long for the video to load, and also wouldn't mind critique of my work.

My Site (http://www.TruVisionStudios.com/demos.html)

Thanks,
Matt

The download was ok for me.

In general, I think the colors could be a bit more saturated? The clips look like they were brightened and it's giving them a bit of a washed out look in my opinion. ..maybe my eyes are failing ...dunno

www.1and1.com is the best I've found for bandwidth. 1.5TB (yes, 1,500 GB) of transfer for $20 a month. $10 per month for "only" 1,000GB. 30GB storage.

I've only been using them for a few weeks, and they are blazingly fast. Plus they have great site building tools.

Sorry-this was a double post by mistake. Is there a way to delete a post once you've got it up?

Matt-
I'm on a cable connection and the vows took me less than 20 secs to buffer and start playing. I didn't think the colors looked washed out at all-the footage looked clean to me. I don't think the 741kbps is too high a bitrate at all--I use 3mbps for my broadband demos and 256kbps for my dial-ups and haven't had any complaints. The transfer speed has so many variables--the time of day is a big factor. Here in CT we just had a couple of days of heavy winds, which took down a bunch of poles and power/cable lines and greatly affected my speeds for a time.
Keep up the good work.
Vin

Matt,

It played just fine for me. However, I like your watermark. Care to share how you did that?

Thanks!

Thank You All,

I am in the process of switching to a new host, a local ISP. They have told me to expect much faster connections, especially for local clients - the brides that will be looking!

Don't know what is really going on with all the DNS stuff... so if service is interupted, sorry. It seems to be working so far... I think the domain is pointed to the new host already... but am not sure if this is being redirected through my old host... god knows what will happen when I delete my old hosting account.

As far as the washed out look... I thought the blacks looked a little dark after compression (on a windows pc) so I raised the black output in the Matrox Color Correction filter to 32 instead of 16 before encoding in Windows Media Encoder 9. I thought it looked better on my PC's monitor. It looked worse on my mac, but I am assuming most of my potential clients will be running windows? Those who said it looks washed out. Any chance you are on mac?

This is my first real attempt at creating video for the web.

Thanks Again,
Matt

Yes, I'm on a Mac!

Matt,

I downloaded one of your ckips. It was as fast as any download on my cable has ever been, so working good!!

Mike

i was downloading your vid at the max speed of my 'net connection, according to the windows media player stats... 1300kbps, which is plenty fast.

i can't believe some of the cheap prices on bandwidth that you guys have listed out here... pricing has dropped like a rock in just the last year.

at that price point, most of what you are seeing there is typically low quality bandwidth that's capped at a certain speed, and you'd probably be sharing a server with hundreds of other sites... but i'd certainly give it a shot at those rates!!

if you are looking for a price point comparison, i have a couple of sites on my dedicated windows media streaming server, at $167 a month, for 1,200 gigs of bandwidth a month... it's all savvis bandwidth, which is top notch stuff, but at least $30 a month of that is just for the windows 2003 server license rental.

$167 a month seems expensive by comparison, but i only got that rate after months of researching dedicated web server hosts at www.webhostingtalk.com... and i've only had the server for 3(?) months so far, so the rates are fresh... all the websites in my sig file are on another server.

as the cheap bandwidth goes, tho, so shall the dedicated server bandwidth... i may have to re-negotiate my bandwidth limit before too long, lol.

Glad to hear that things are moving quickly. I switched my hosting over to a local internet service provider. It is shared hosting but it seems like I'm all alone on my server. In my control panel for my site I can view the server status. It always says...

Server Load: 0.00 (4 cpus) -I've seen it up at 2-4 a couple times
Memory Used: fluctuates between 11-12%
Swap Used: 0.00%
Disk sda3 (/): 26%
Disk sda1 (/boot): 12%
Disk sdb1 (/home): 12%

Craig... I do all my editing on mac and I agree the WMV files look a little washed out on the mac. If you switch the gamma over to 2.2 (pc gamma) I think it looks alright. I plan on putting up versions in a format for QT for mac users and those who prefer QT. I'll leave the blacks alone for these.

Sorenson, MPEG-4, or push the technology forward and use H.264?

Thanks,
Matt

Would anybody who tried this yesterday care to empty their browser cache and try again (http://www.TruVisionStudios.com/demos.html) today? Havn't changed hosts but I have looked into different options. Does anybody use PlayStream? $22.00 for 100MB storage and 4GB transfer / month. 1 cent per Megabyte over the transfer limit.

I currently have the videos on the same host as my website. I get 1000MB storage and 10GB Transfer for $14.95 / month @ Hypermart.net. Maybe it just isn't a good server for a fast continuous download?

Recommendations are welcome!

Thanks,
Matt

One word. 1and1.com

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1.5GB Transfers
50 FTP Accounts
3000 Email Accounts
5 Domains Included
MS Hosting or Linux Hosting

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