Help with Wordpress video files?

[misheck]

I am helping someone with a website thats using WordPress and they need help with adding video files to their website. Most of them are avi and mpg and they are about 60mb to 150mb long and all the plugins I have been finding at wordpress either host the files for you and have a limit which after that you have to pay and the other thing is they take ages to upload the files and you do not know how long these companies are going to there for.

I have 2 questions.
1. Can I not convert these files to small files and also have an a link that loads the video and plays the video in the existing web page? (eg <embed src="http://mixitme.tv/media/>burningboy-Rise(to meet you).avi autostart="true/false" />)

2. I have been looking at cool javascripts and I wanted to know if there is a way I can have the video loadup in a new window using a javascript like http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/stickynote.htm and then the video is auto plays on load and I will have a picture or still of the video on the main page and the pop will load probably linking to a javascript. window.open.(examplevideo.html) and it formats the size according the javascript from dynamic drive? At least this will buy me time because my websites will not take long to load and when the user does choose a video they will understand that it might take them a few seconds to load depending on their internet speed.

Note: In wordpress I will use the HTML editor for the pages or posts

[TheTVStop]

He is wanting to host the files on his own server, or display video files from other sites like youtube?

[misheck]

He wants to host the files from his own webhost server.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Well your videos are too large as they are to begin with. You will need to convert them to .flv format. There are many converters out there. One of the best free ones I like is the Riva FLV encoder. Just do a search for it. You'll find it. After converting the file sizes would have dropped quite a bit to maybe 34mb-70mb

Now he can upload them to his own host. I'm assuming he is also hosting wordpress on his own server or is he using something like http://myname.wordpress.org ? If its on his own server he will need to use the html option when posting or you could find a plugin that allows you to insert a flash file. I recommend you use the flash video player by JW FLV Media Player. Do a search for that as well. I would post the link but it gets marked as spam. I would then use SWFObject 2.0 to put the video onto the page. The JW site has a generator for creating the code to use with swfobject.

If this is too advanced or you didn't understand what I said then your friend may want to look into hiring someone to get this started for him.

Good luck.

[misheck]

Thanks a lot. I will try out this week and if I get a problem I will post the question on the same thread. In the meantime if anyone has any other suggestion then feel free to add on.

[dergal]

Video is pretty easy now - there are 2 secrets ...

1. Compress it, down effectively - the best format is H.264, although FLV is pretty good and easier to get free compressers - the smaller you make the dimensions of the video, the more you can compress it - of course if it is for music make sure the sound quality is good enough. I used WMV a few years ago, and that did seem to work 'ok'.

2. Ensure that its on a fast server, it doesn't matter the type - just as long as it is fast - (for progressive download) streaming servers are pretty good, but progressive download will work just as well as long as the video is well compressed and small enough...

As for delivering - popups are great, but I struggle with people who have problems with popup blockers ... There used to be a few solutions around it - but I would go with trying to deliver it in page. Someone suggested the Jerowing solution which is very good, and I think that will use most formats.

If your interested in developing your own, Lee Brimelow has some instructions on writing your own using Flash, the link to his site is http://www.gotoandlearn.com/ - I needed to do this to deliver video from a database (using XML).

Gerry

[misheck]

Thanks. I am looking at doing something similar to that but I have little knowledge of XML and Aspnet but I will give it a go.

[dergal]

You don't need .net or even XML,
You can do it all through MySQL and PHP - the XML can of course be generated by PHP, but its a step that I only took because it was easier to be read into a custom flash player.

If you use the Jerowing player you can make the source dynmic and that be done relatively easily.

It would be much easier to embed YouTube or one of the other services into it, including Vimeo. Hosting the videos can get costly down the line...

[misheck]

I am also thinking of uploading the videos you tube but I had stumbled upon Adobe Flash Media server so I might spend sometime on looking at how could use that. I am going to use Amazon Cloud computing services and host my site and services there so that I can have a good upload and download speed (I think).

[dergal]

I don't have any experience with Amazon Cloud computing, but I have played around with Flash Media Server, to be honest I haven't seen an improvement worth the money, the only real advantage is that it will optimise the content on the fly, if you have dedicated servers there are some open source alternatives to Adobes "own" however, there was a good article about two months ago in .net if you can get access to that ...

[misheck]

I will look for the link for open source alternatives to Adobe FMS. I will be setting up my website in 2 months time coz I am still studying on php and mysql. I will speak to the people at Amazon Cloud to explain to me the benefits or differences between their services and a dedicated server.

One other question is Adobe Flex builder a for coding help like notepad but with a more extras?

[alixolson]

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