Serverless video software

[DocRocks]

Hi,

I have some large (>200MB) .mov files that I want to play on a website. Even broadband Internet connections take hours to download these files and start to play and many of the sites users are on slower connections. I am looking for a low-budget solution to this problem for the charity I am helping, one that doesn't require paying for a streaming video server.

Is a serverless streaming video solution possible - something that starts playing at the beginning of the download? I have seen an offering from webmastermediamaker.com that fits this description but would like to get the opinion of others on this or other software. Or, is there another way to solve this problem? I can convert the mov files to avi if needed.

Thanks

[OmegaSupreme]

You don't say what the playing time of the movies are, or what the frame size or frame rate are, but my guess is that you are going to have reduce the size of the file. If a 20 minute video takes 1 hour to download, your minimum buffer time (time it takes for the movie to start playing) is going to be 40 minutes (60-20=40). The problem is even more acute for dial-up customers. The general solution is to have 2 files, one for broadband users and one for dial-up users.

You can reduce the size by scaling down the resolution (frame size), lowering the quality of the picture or reducing the frame rate (makes the video choppy). You will probably have to do all three is you want to stream to dial-up users.

[DocRocks]

Thanks for your prompt reply. Each file plays for 30-40 minutes at 29 fps in a frame size of 490x380. I will probably have to take the steps you mention. But do you have any info or experience with "serverless" streaming. The vendor I mentioned indicates that simply converting the files using their software and uploading to my host's web server will allow quasi streaming.

[OmegaSupreme]

Webmaster Media Maker is a software package that basically gets your video files in the proper format for quasi-streaming. You can use freeware to do the same thing in the tools section of Video Help.

The key with QT files is to embed them in the page and set the autoplay to "True", see example below.

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"HEIGHT="180"
CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="videofilename.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="false">
<EMBED SRC="videofilename.mov" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="180" AUTOPLAY="true" CONTROLLER="false" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

Note: The 320 x 180 size of the video window which is standard for streaming.

[DocRocks]

The freeware product descriptions that I see in Tools>Streaming don't say anything about getting files ready for quasi-streaming. Can you recommend one? Thanks for guiding me through this process.

[OmegaSupreme]

You can try Super to re-encode the videos. Getting to the right mix of picture quality vs file size is more art than science and depends on the video source. You could start with the ipod/mpeg-4 preset and experiment with a 30 second sample from one of the videos. Adjust the frame size, frame rate and bitrates until you find an acceptable compromise. Most DSL lines today are 768 Kbps or better, so I would suggest a total (audio + video) bitrate of about 700 Kbps. This is assuming the server that you are using has this capacity.