Do you like watching videos on the web? Apparently a LOT of people do. Google thought the phenomenon important enough to dish out $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube and guarantee its position as a number one provider of video feeds.
But is there really any reason the average webmaster could not build their own video or audio based portal? Would that not be a difficult thing to attempt? Well, that used to be the case, but it is not true any more.
Now, based on the fact that you are currently reading this article, I would hazard a guess that the following is true: At some point in the past, possibly even just recently, it occurred to you that building a YouTube-like site might be a fun thing to do. But then you tossed the idea out the window once you discovered that adding audio and video clips to your site can be time-consuming and tedious. Not to mention technically intimidating. But like I said, that no longer has to be the case. In fact, if you are prepared to fork out a few hundred dollars for the software to power your site, you can be up and running in no time flat.
In all likelihood you do not truly want to compete with YouTube for visitors. But maybe that real estate site you had been thinking about could benefit from audio and video feeds. Or perhaps that restaurant guide, or model plane construction website--short how-to videos on the best way to build remotely-controlled planes might be just the thing you need...
Are the ideas starting to bubble up? If so, read on to find out how you can set up a video or audio site painlessly.
So what are the barriers to us as webmasters wanting to set up such a site? Well, you have probably already investigated several multimedia-related web sites to see how they go about presenting audio and video clips to their visitors. Most of these sites now offer streamed content, which is to say the music or the video feed starts playing just a few seconds after you hit the play button. No waiting for a full download to occur. Visitors, even those with high speed connections, simply do not have that kind of patience. So, you must serve the content immediately.
There are two basic ways you can do this. One, you can install a special server that is optimized to stream audio and video files. However, this can cost you an arm and a leg, depending on the server you choose. It is also just one more thing you do not want to have to deal with if you can avoid it. The second option is to go with a simpler method, called progressive streaming, wherein you make a request to your regular web server to stream the file in such a way that it can be played almost as soon as the first batch of bytes is received. This is not as efficient as a dedicated streaming server, but unless you are running a very highly-trafficked site, the results are virtually indistinguishable. This is the option discussed in detail in this article.
Several applications exist on the market to handle progressive, or psuedo, streaming. The difficulty in using them lies in the amount of work it can take to add HTML code to individual pages on your site in order to call the application which will then stream your audio or video content. What you really need is an automated solution of some type. An application that will allow you, or your visitors, to simply upload the content that is to be streamed, and then have all the file storage and HTML link-formatting done for you, behind the scenes.
Fortunately there is at least one application that does all this for you (this is mentioned in the resource box below). In this case the application makes use of a Flash-based client named Wimpy, which exists in several different incarnations. The best known of the Wimpy players is the Wimpy MP3 Player which allows MP3s to be played from a fancy Flash-based jukebox. The appearance of this player is controlled by a skin, and there are literally dozens to choose from--some of which contain rotating dials, flickering volume bars, and so on. An alternative to placing a jukebox on your pages is to simply place a button that allows an MP3 track to be played or paused. This is the Wimpy Button Player. It is useful for pages where you are going for simplicity, or page real estate is at a premium.
But Wimpy can do more than just play MP3s. If you want to serve video files from your site you can elect to use the Wimpy AV Player. This version allows you to load an entire video playlist, just as the Wimpy MP3 Player does. But my preference for video presentation is the Wimpy WASP Player. This client will play just one video at a time, but it can be controlled with javascript commands, so it offers more in the way of programmable and presentation options. You can embed the videos right into your web pages, or you can elect to have them pop up when a visitor clicks on a link.
By using a solution that combines all these Wimpy clients into a single transparent application, and which also allows visitors to review the uploaded audio or video files, you have at your disposal just the tool you need to create a YouTube-like site complete with visitor reviews. Hopefully I have managed to convey the idea that creating such a site is fairly straightforward. With the right tools in hand, the only remaining ingredient you need to make it happen is dedication and passion. But if you have read this far, you likely have that in spades. Good luck!
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