andrgl Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 7 minutes ago, Dimitris Stasinos said: The developer of Elite player gives some workarounds on their Envato support page plus you can buy the Wonderplugin which is a direct link generator for Google drive. This is by far the most cost effective solution for hosting videos on your low traffic page. It may not fit Andrew's needs for EOSHD but it is good option for building a portfolio page. The suggested alternatives here look way overpriced, at least for my needs. Those videos are re-encoded on upload, no different from hosting on YouTube. A user would have to download the file from a Google drive link to actually get the original quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Stasinos Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 29 minutes ago, andrgl said: Those videos are re-encoded on upload, no different from hosting on YouTube. A user would have to download the file from a Google drive link to actually get the original quality. Are you referring to self-hosting videos? This is the case with Vimeo also. The only difference is that Vimeo uses adaptive encoding. So will the same thing happen when using a direct link from Google drive or Dropbox into Elite? Will the player by it's self re-encode the file? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrgl Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 @Dimitris Stasinos I took closer look at this. Dropbox does not re-encode your videos. So you get whatever quality you want, BUT, you have maximum bandwidth of 20 GB free and 200 GB paid, per day, for entire account. Elite Player method for streaming Gdrive videos is bad. Can't do large files and your videos stop streaming arbitrarily due to exceeding an unknown amount of bandwidth. You'll be seeing a lot of this... (edit: actually you won't, the videos will simply not stream.) Orangenz and Dimitris Stasinos 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orangenz Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 15 hours ago, nigelbb said: I have less than 5GB so although they did delete the 1080p they leave 720p versions of all videos. I was countering your claim that they delete "all your files" when clearly they don't but apply the rules you quoted when you revert to a free Basic account. Apparently you don't know what "basically" means. So you're a light user and this discussion about professional Vimeo use doesn't apply to you. Congrats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelbb Posted November 5, 2018 Share Posted November 5, 2018 10 hours ago, Orangenz said: Apparently you don't know what "basically" means. So you're a light user and this discussion about professional Vimeo use doesn't apply to you. Congrats. Au contraire I had a Business account when I was doing wedding videos professionally. I am now retired from that but kept the videos online as a service for a few of my clients. When I stopped paying for my Business account it transitioned to a Basic account with up to 5GB storage & only 720p versions of the videos. I think there are 20-30 videos online now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dslnc Posted November 5, 2018 Share Posted November 5, 2018 https://wistia.com or https://vzaar.com/ or https://swarmify.com/ could be an alternative to vimeo all are quite a bit more costly than vimeo pro. Not sure how much better their cdn are - And suddenly extra fees for bandwidth use and amount of hosted videos and play counts comes in to play. More enterprise level cost structure (read: not very transparent) One thing for sure, making your own player and maintaining it is a full-time job with constant browser, device OS updates with ever changing features and policies. I continue to stick with Vimeo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orangenz Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 On 11/5/2018 at 11:19 PM, nigelbb said: Au contraire I had a Business account when I was doing wedding videos professionally. I am now retired from that but kept the videos online as a service for a few of my clients. When I stopped paying for my Business account it transitioned to a Basic account with up to 5GB storage & only 720p versions of the videos. I think there are 20-30 videos online now. Lite user of Vimeo bandwidth is nothing to do with being a professional or not. You've got to stop reading into my words stuff that aint there. I just uploaded a few but I guess they were 4k goliaths and took up a load of space. Either way we both stopped paying didn't we. Getting those emails from vimeo is something big users should be aware of. The psych manipulation from Adobe when cancelling is also bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdouthit Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 On 11/5/2018 at 12:35 PM, dslnc said: https://wistia.com or https://vzaar.com/ or https://swarmify.com/ could be an alternative to vimeo all are quite a bit more costly than vimeo pro. Not sure how much better their cdn are - And suddenly extra fees for bandwidth use and amount of hosted videos and play counts comes in to play. More enterprise level cost structure (read: not very transparent) One thing for sure, making your own player and maintaining it is a full-time job with constant browser, device OS updates with ever changing features and policies. I continue to stick with Vimeo. I used Vzaar to power my Roku channel for a couple years. Very good customer service and some nice features. However, they're not cheap. Makes you really appreciate that companies like Vimeo and their ridiculously cheap pricing are still options. Once Vimeo started allowing API pulls for TV apps, I dropped Vzaar and saved thousands a year in hosting fees with no loss in quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Andrew Reid Posted November 9, 2018 Author Administrators Share Posted November 9, 2018 One alternative could be... erm Vimeo. Set up a second *free* account with them, backup all your videos to this account but set them to private. If the main channel goes down due to DMCA you can instantly switch to that second free account. Simply make all videos public (apart from the ones DMCA'ed obviously) and upgrade to Plus or Pro. You would then only lose the comments and view stats - still not an ideal solution but better than losing everything and having to re-up in a hurry, re-title, and all that. At least by creating the backup ghost channel you can just cut & paste video titles and descriptions exactly as they were. You would still need all the original files but downloading them over a period of a week would be workable. It would take me forever and a day to go back through 8 years of shoots and re-up without a reference Vimeo account to go from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Stasinos Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 On 11/4/2018 at 11:46 PM, andrgl said: @Dimitris Stasinos I took closer look at this. Dropbox does not re-encode your videos. So you get whatever quality you want, BUT, you have maximum bandwidth of 20 GB free and 200 GB paid, per day, for entire account. Elite Player method for streaming Gdrive videos is bad. Can't do large files and your videos stop streaming arbitrarily due to exceeding an unknown amount of bandwidth. You'll be seeing a lot of this... (edit: actually you won't, the videos will simply not stream.) I just did a quick search on dedicated servers & pricing. Prices start from 8 bucks/month to 100 for a dedicated server (dual core Atom, 2 TB of storage and unmetered traffic for the cheapest option) and there is also the solution of a virtual machine where your data are being copied to different machines and stay intact in case of a hardware failure. You can rent a virtual machine with 18 bucks/month for 100GB of storage (again with unmetered traffic and 100mbps speeds). It seems like a solid solution. A little more expensive than vimeo but definitely cheaper than Wistia, Vzaar etc. You can always split the cost between associates. We just did a test by uploading an HD clip on our site's host and playing it through a free video plugin for wordpress and it worked fine. The video plays instantly (i can't say this for vimeo) and you can upload three different versions for different devices. hansel and andrgl 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrgl Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 2 hours ago, Dimitris Stasinos said: I just did a quick search on dedicated servers & pricing. Prices start from 8 bucks/month to 100 for a dedicated server (dual core Atom, 2 TB of storage and unmetered traffic for the cheapest option) and there is also the solution of a virtual machine where your data are being copied to different machines and stay intact in case of a hardware failure. You can rent a virtual machine with 18 bucks/month for 100GB of storage (again with unmetered traffic and 100mbps speeds). It seems like a solid solution. A little more expensive than vimeo but definitely cheaper than Wistia, Vzaar etc. You can always split the cost between associates. We just did a test by uploading an HD clip on our site's host and playing it through a free video plugin for wordpress and it worked fine. The video plays instantly (i can't say this for vimeo) and you can upload three different versions for different devices. I'd take this a step further an investigate how competitive $$$ a dedicated server is versus using cloud storage from the big 3: Amazon S3, Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage. Managing a dedicated machine can become a PITA if you're responsible for security patches and updating software. I do have some personal experience with all of this. Am currently using Google for my hosting... and, back in the old days, 2006-2010, I used to run a website that streamed videos. This was before Amazon AWS was mature enough to use, so I was running my "CDN" on dedicated linux servers. It was expensive, even with aggressive targeted advertising. It took a few years to simply break even every month. Good learning experience: bandwidth is expensive, videos are large files and visitors always expected things for free. Dimitris Stasinos 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Stasinos Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 4 hours ago, andrgl said: I'd take this a step further an investigate how competitive $$$ a dedicated server is versus using cloud storage from the big 3: Amazon S3, Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage. Yeah, the truth is i could use some help digging this The cost in cloud storage is calculated through many factors of usage. I am not sure yet what role does data storage location plays. It could be an alternative (i just saw vimeo in Google's client list for cloud storage) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomekk Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 20 hours ago, andrgl said: I'd take this a step further an investigate how competitive $$$ a dedicated server is versus using cloud storage from the big 3: Amazon S3, Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage. Managing a dedicated machine can become a PITA if you're responsible for security patches and updating software. I do have some personal experience with all of this. Am currently using Google for my hosting... and, back in the old days, 2006-2010, I used to run a website that streamed videos. This was before Amazon AWS was mature enough to use, so I was running my "CDN" on dedicated linux servers. It was expensive, even with aggressive targeted advertising. It took a few years to simply break even every month. Good learning experience: bandwidth is expensive, videos are large files and visitors always expected things for free. 1 Dedicated server will be more expensive when you run into problems you cannot solve. I monitor and fix servers for corporations and you get these problems: hardware failures or O/S problems or you cannot access your server remotely to fix it (requires a visit to a DC if you want to do it cheaply, rate for remote hands fix is over 100gbp/hr and you have to buy and ship the part to the DC if it is a hardware problem. Check the cost of the parts for the dedicated server you are buying. O/S troubleshooting if something stops working, well, if you can fix it yourself then that is fine, some problems are easy to fix but if you cannot fix it then you have to pay someone or learn how to fix it. If you do not mind having your server down for long periods of time and spending days/weeks learning how to fix an issue then fine. I am not even mentioning standard things like patching stuff that messes things up occasionally and application troubleshooting. If it is just for sharing videos for micro public/friends it might work but forget the exposure you get by using big established sites. With cloud storage you just do not care about those things. Just to give you a picture. There is a DC team of several people fixing issues and separate teams handling issues that can be fixed remotely in the background all the time 24/7/365. General overview: dedicated server = most control = most problems. VM = A lot of control and at least you do not have to worry about the Layer 1 (hardware). Cloud = least control. Ideally to compete with Vimeo you build your own network with dedicated servers, your own VMs in your own cloud and on top of it you build a web application to access it from the Internet by people webrunner5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hansel Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 On 11/5/2018 at 9:35 PM, dslnc said: One thing for sure, making your own player and maintaining it is a full-time job with constant browser, device OS updates with ever changing features and policies. I continue to stick with Vimeo. Self host is as straightforward as: <video width="320"height="240" controls> <sourcesrc="movie.mp4"type="video/mp4"> <sourcesrc="movie.ogg"type="video/ogg"> Your browser does not support the video tag. </video> No os updates no policies or what ever. Only trouble is amount of traffic on your server if you have loads of views. Not sure what is cheaper. For 20 € per month you get a good amount of server space and traffic bandwidth, my provider says traffic flat rate but am not sure if you have loads of requests if the server would be able to handle that. No, don't do evil, no third party cookies etc...but also no community Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Stasinos Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 4 hours ago, tomekk said: O/S troubleshooting if something stops working, well, if you can fix it yourself then that is fine, some problems are easy to fix but if you cannot fix it then you have to pay someone or learn how to fix it. If you do not mind having your server down for long periods of time and spending days/weeks learning how to fix an issue then fine. Almost every company i spoke to takes full responsibility of server maintenance. Even on the cheapest plan the company is committed to change a faulty drive/power supply (these are the most common problems) in 3 hours. And this is the most self-evident thing to do as you are not the owner of the server, you are just renting it so you are not responsible for it's proper function. Many of these companies are offering free basic support services as well, like setting up the software for remote access and creating direct links for your data. Overall it's much simpler these days than it was in the past. Better & cheaper servers, simpler & more effective software plus better support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webrunner5 Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Big time servers are built like a tank overall. Most are sort of two servers in one. Dual processors, tons of fans, dual power supplies, lot of hard drives, separate memory banks, on and on. They are built for a failure and to sort of keep limping along in a safe mode. I find the mechanical hard drives last longer than SSD's. And Mechanical ones give you more of a warning they are going to fail than SSD's on average. But they all fail, every component in them does with time. It is heat related as much as anything. The biggest fear I would have Owning your own servers is not mechanical problems, it is outside attacks. Viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, etc.. That stuff is a damn hard cookie to control for the average person. I would have TWO cloud bases systems if you can afford it. That way if one is attacked, fails, goes bankrupt you Still have your stuff. I would just keep Proxies at home and Rent the cloud space. This is no time to put all your eggs in one basket as they say. Even if you have 10 hard drives on your computer hooked to a raid system they are All connected to your main computer. If it gets attacked well you are F ed as they say. All of it got attacked. You have to have Everything you have on some sort of Extra back up, Unfortunately it Might be Vimeo! Doing your own I think is crazy if you have a lot of traffic or material you have shot. These do it yourself systems are very weak, and the big boy stuff is best left to people that are a wiz at it. Either way both solutions are expensive as hell if you have a Lot of data. And with 4K, and now going 8K, grab your ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Stasinos Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 1 hour ago, webrunner5 said: The biggest fear I would have Owning your own servers is not mechanical problems, it is outside attacks. Viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, etc.. That stuff is a damn hard cookie to control for the average person. Some (actually many) server providers have an extra back up service (paid). It is like the Time Machine in OSX. If you get an attack and your data are corrupted (or lost) you can contact the support and ask them to restore your system from automatically saved backups. The cost for this varies from one company to another but on average it's about 50 bucks/month. Too expensive for my needs though... Also, if you worry about disk failure you can choose a system with 2 drives and go with soft. raid. The extra cost is minimal, about 3$/month for an extra 2TB disk. Cloud storage works differently. The data are stored in multiple locations and their servers are software protected (kinda..) so they are less vulnerable than dedicated servers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webrunner5 Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 Yeah but I don't trust anyone with all my data that is a Company. They can go into Chapter 11 in a heartbeat and you are screwed. I know the odds of that happening is low but if it happens to you, well guess what you are in Chapter 11 also. I have lived long enough to have seen some crazy ass stuff when it comes to Company's, especially Tech Company's. This Vimeo thread is a great example of it. You watch down the road, even big company's like Amazon, Facebook etc. are going to get their Pee Pee's smacked. They are too big and the government is going to limit them like hell. They have monopolies, and in a sense and that is a good way to break them up. Even Apple is pushing it's luck on this privacy thing. The shit will hit the fan. And the world seems to be against Tesla for some reason. I think the big 3 auto makers here are in on it a bit. I am a fan of Tesla. So even the big boys can bite the dust overnight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomekk Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 3 hours ago, Dimitris Stasinos said: Almost every company i spoke to takes full responsibility of server maintenance. Even on the cheapest plan the company is committed to change a faulty drive/power supply (these are the most common problems) in 3 hours. And this is the most self-evident thing to do as you are not the owner of the server, you are just renting it so you are not responsible for it's proper function. Many of these companies are offering free basic support services as well, like setting up the software for remote access and creating direct links for your data. Overall it's much simpler these days than it was in the past. Better & cheaper servers, simpler & more effective software plus better support. 4 If it is a dedicated server which you do not own then read the small print. Server maintenance can mean a lot of things. It is highly suspicious their SLA is 3hrs to replace anything in a server and server support could be really basic (almost nothing) for +-50/month. For example, power supply change / faulty drive change is +- 30mins job if you take into account reading a ticket, finding a part, getting to a server, replacing the part, logging it, dealing with the faulty one and that is if everything goes smoothly. Add to this time which takes to notice a faulty component, logging it in, doing checks and then preparing a ticket for the DC tech to actually replace it. At this point, you might be angry but a faulty drive/PS is usually not a super high priority task (after all the system is still live!) so they might be busy with other more important tasks... It is most likely like cars MPG given by manufacturers on new cars. I talked about a dedicated server that you own not a rented one so my bad for not being clear on that. Yeah, It is much cheaper and easier these days, but still, do not expect miracles for nothing. Usually, there is a reason for a certain price. Proft margins are really small in this field so you get what you pay for most of the time but that does not mean it is going to be bad. I am pretty sure you can still get a good deal for cheap as long as you are not planning on building an alternative to Vimeo ;). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dslnc Posted November 12, 2018 Share Posted November 12, 2018 19 hours ago, hansel said: Self host is as straightforward as: <video width="320"height="240" controls> <sourcesrc="movie.mp4"type="video/mp4"> <sourcesrc="movie.ogg"type="video/ogg"> Your browser does not support the video tag. </video> No os updates no policies or what ever. Only trouble is amount of traffic on your server if you have loads of views. Not sure what is cheaper. For 20 € per month you get a good amount of server space and traffic bandwidth, my provider says traffic flat rate but am not sure if you have loads of requests if the server would be able to handle that. No, don't do evil, no third party cookies etc...but also no community Sure, that is the basic way embedding a video onto a webpage today. If that’s all you need you are good to go ? However if you need stats or having the minimum ambition regarding the player functionality and looks it is another story. And more importantly the distribution on the internet. The user experience. If you want your 1080p or 4K video to play relatively fast forget about uploading it to your shared web host plan thinking that is it. To perform well and stream fast the video has to be hosted on a good CdN too Further more people are used to adaptive streaming. Not just one bitrate version of the video being downloaded. It is more important than ever since many are watching using their phone on the go. It seems simple but for high performance delivery and smooth experience the embed code is just a very small part of the equation. hansel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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