How To Add Streaming Video To Your Website- 45 Degrees Latitude


About Streaming Video

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Adding video clips to your website have never been easier. As Internet connection speeds become faster more web site developers are using video to deliver their message and improve overall viewing experience. To add video to your site you first of all, need good quality video.

Choosing video for the web is slightly different that choosing video for CD or DVD playback. You may notice that clips on the web often have little motion in them such as "talking heads" which play well. Avoid panning shots as much as possible and complex transitions which could start to break-up or appear jumpy. Usually simpler, clean video is better on the Internet.

Companies considering adding this new dimension to their corporate web sites are often confused that the site download speed will be lengthened for viewers. This is not true because you are not adding the video clip to your site- only a link to the streaming host when you use true streaming video. The steaming host stores your video clip until a viewer clicks on the link in your website. Since all you are adding to your site is a link there is no difference in the time your web site will load. The video clips will not play unless requested by the viewer. If some of your customers/viewers have dial-up you still can add video to your website- your dial-up customers will not be able to view it until they get a high speed connection. I should note that if you embed video directly into your web site using Flash Video, download speed will be affected depending upon the video file size. Often times Flash Video files are short (under 30 seconds) and very small file size therefore easy to download.

The term "streaming video"can be a confusing term since many people get confused with progressive download video, calling it streaming video too. True streaming video never is saved on your hard drive. A good analogy is comparing it to radio waves-playing through your radio's speakers as it is received. Likewise, true streaming video plays when it is received. There are no progress bars, almost instant start-up and you can jump to any point in the video almost instantly. You must have your video clip hosted on a streaming server to allow you to provide streaming video.

Progressive download video is similar and is offered by website hosts (rather than streaming video). Progressive video does not need any kind of special server to host the files- just upload the files making sure there is enough room in your host package (video files can be huge). Progressive download video is a good likeness to streaming video although the viewer needs to download enough data to play the clip therefore wait times are increased.

After you choose your video clip and assuming you wish to go with the fastest, ultimate video presentation- choose a true streaming host (such as www.streamhoster.com). Hosting companies offer turnkey solutions and will take your clip and encode it for maximum speed of transmission and maximum quality. If you are not familiar with encoding for the web I would suggest enlisting the streaming host's services- a clip normally costs around $40 US and is a one-time fee.