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Embedded flash player for Hak5


Darren Kitchen

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I'm wondering what you guys opinion is on our embedded player for the website. Currently we're using Veoh, which is nice because they download our content directly from our MP4 feed, something I haven't seen from other video portals. They also seem to have much higher video quality than say youtube. This is likely because they don't have the 100mb limit that youtube has. Since our episodes are quite long I am forced to render out a much lower bitrate version just to upload to youtube.

Anyway I'm wondering what you guys think. I'm specifically talking about episode pages like http://www.hak5.org/archives/210

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There is a site that coverts videos to any fomat for you including flv, so you can use their online converter and then upload the flash to hak5 and host it direclty(unless you do not want the extra bandwidth and space usage). Just feed it the URL of the video file(including ones you want to rip from other sites like YouTube).

http://mux.am/old.jsp > To make Flash Videos from yoru already online files. You can then place the flash file on Hak5 and hsot them directly.

http://beta.mux.am/

Mac Based offline conversion to Flash(and many otehr formats)

http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/

http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/vhhero.png

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I like it, and think its a good idea. i also use there site to download there shows.

I'm wondering what you guys opinion is on our embedded player for the website. Currently we're using Veoh, which is nice because they download our content directly from our MP4 feed, something I haven't seen from other video portals. They also seem to have much higher video quality than say youtube. This is likely because they don't have the 100mb limit that youtube has. Since our episodes are quite long I am forced to render out a much lower bitrate version just to upload to youtube.

Anyway I'm wondering what you guys think. I'm specifically talking about episode pages like http://www.hak5.org/archives/210

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Stage6 imho.

Unfortunately Stage6 requires the Divx plugin be installed which isn't exactly as mainstream as say Flash. Otherwise I love stage6, the quality is superb!

Tis a shame about that, but veoh is probally your best bet in terms of accessibility. Lack of linux support is probally a killer reason not to make it the primary version, but considering that linux/bsd make up a relatively small amount of the user base here I would still include it somewhere on the page.

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Mux is really cool but it doesn't handle our video size (often 250+ MB). Know of any similar tools for PC?

Tools for what part or all in one converter?

If you want to convert things to Flash, there is the official Flash program ($699) or, if you want to try this method(I have not becaue I have Flash 8 Full Version and do not need to go this route):

Install Sandboxie

Then the free trial version of Flash CS3 inside the Sandbox. (or http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Allo...load-45252.html <-- Only lets you make 5 minute clips though when in trial mode) Scratch that, it puts a watermark ont he trial version of Allok files.

Convert videos in sandbox, move them to another location outside the sandbox,

then delete the sandbox when done converting videos.

Deleting the sandbox also deletes the flash installation.

Repeat the process for a version of Flash that will never expire because its in the sandbox

and never touches your pc's real registry so it cant count down and block it from working upon reinstall.:)

This works for almost any trial software.

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Ok so I just checked and it turns out the embedded veoh player for all of our episode pages only plays the first 5 minutes of the episode as a "video preview" then if you want to watch the rest you have to click through to see it on their site where you're bombarded with not only standard web ads on the page but also lower-third ads _in the video_ for crap like McDonalds! What utter crap. While they offer the best bitrate by far I really think the rest is lacking. This sucks because otherwise I love everything about Veoh, especially the way they offer the ability to download new episodes through our RSS feed, it really takes the publishing pains out of their system. Oh well, unless I can think of anything better I guess I'll switch to youtube. *sigh*

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Ok so I just checked and it turns out the embedded veoh player for all of our episode pages only plays the first 5 minutes of the episode as a "video preview" then if you want to watch the rest you have to click through to see it on their site where you're bombarded with not only standard web ads on the page but also lower-third ads _in the video_ for crap like McDonalds! What utter crap. While they offer the best bitrate by far I really think the rest is lacking. This sucks because otherwise I love everything about Veoh, especially the way they offer the ability to download new episodes through our RSS feed, it really takes the publishing pains out of their system. Oh well, unless I can think of anything better I guess I'll switch to youtube. *sigh*

the http://www.alloksoft.com/flv_converter.htm is still cheap enough to do what you want if you do not want to shell out the 699 for the Full Flash software. You will still need a SWF Enclosure to play it through on the site though. FLV files do not stream off sites by themselves, but need a SWF file to act as a front end to embed the video into, but there are scripts to do this online. I even found one that jsut points to a player on another website and the flv files was on my local server and it played it embeded in the webpage using a small script.

Other alternatives are Camtasia Studio. It lets you create Flash videos and gives you all the html to place in the page. All you have to do is tel it to convert your finished video to flash and it does the rest. Again, not a free program, but still cheaper than the $699.00 Flash CS3.

PS - What about Metacafe? What is their limit on size? 100meg like YouTube.. Oh Well..

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make your own flash and stream it from a server of your choice?

That is what I have been saying...

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I would suspect that the bandwidth costs would be prohibitive.

For one streaming file on the main page, I dont think it would be too bad.

Another altrnative to YouTube being only 100meg(as most upload sites I see have this cap, Metacafe, Revver, etc) is Break the videos into peices by the segments. Part 1, 2, 3, etc, per segments on the show. This way, you can upload higher def files and link them together in a video playlist. I thinlk youtube allows you to create  a playlist, so you might be able to chain them all together and th eusers wont evne know that its more than one file. This wya you can throw in some older content as hak5 ads with all the spoof videos you guys made, like haxxor flakes, rela player interview, etc.

Anyone tried VidLife? I can not find a size limit in their page, but I am sure they probably have a size cap. They claim no length limit to a video, but if you cna only upload a certain size, then that cuts the time limit down. http://www.vidilife.com/index.cfm?f=help.main

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1 gbit uploads!!!

http://blip.tv/faq/#maxsize

Wow. Who in their right mind needs that much space to upload 1 video? Unless your uploading DVDs. The time to upload alone is a turn off, but if your video is 2-300meg, then it makes sense to use them for the flash hosting of videos.

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I would suspect that the bandwidth costs would be prohibitive.

For one streaming file on the main page, I dont think it would be too bad.

Another altrnative to YouTube being only 100meg(as most upload sites I see have this cap, Metacafe, Revver, etc) is Break the videos into peices by the segments. Part 1, 2, 3, etc, per segments on the show. This way, you can upload higher def files and link them together in a video playlist. I thinlk youtube allows you to create  a playlist, so you might be able to chain them all together and th eusers wont evne know that its more than one file. This wya you can throw in some older content as hak5 ads with all the spoof videos you guys made, like haxxor flakes, rela player interview, etc.

Anyone tried VidLife? I can not find a size limit in their page, but I am sure they probably have a size cap. They claim no length limit to a video, but if you cna only upload a certain size, then that cuts the time limit down. http://www.vidilife.com/index.cfm?f=help.main

It really depends on the pipe out of the server and the amount of people using it. If 2000 people watch a 350MB file its about .5TB of data. Streaming video is really on of those cases where a 3rd party solution would be better.

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S03E07 has done about 247.3GB in youtube bandwidth (assuming its about 100mb it size, although I'm guessing it would be smaller) since it was released, which is around 15GB a day for one episode. Currently the site does about 3.5GB a day in bandwidth. It might *just* be possible to host streaming video in house for the last 2-3 shows, but I still think that using 3rd parties would be better. Especially since the point of this is to get a higher bitrate than youtube. Offering 27 streaming videos + extras from one box would be suicide financially, and thats not even taking into account the size of the pipe.

Veoh is a bit dodgy with the player, youtube doesn't have the quality and stage6 requires a browser plugin (which I don't think would be that bad tbh, there are Mac and Windows versions and its well known enough that anybody using linux would probally have something setup to watch it or would already be resigned to watching it on a download, plus it has no ads). There is also Google video, which while lacking in quality seems to allow for 200min+ films, but given its connection to youtube I can see it having the same issues. Since I'm guessing the streaming video is not the main source of exposure to Hak.5 and is primarily for new viewers, I would still vote for stage6 myself. Since your already using it, it wouldn't be that hard to switch the new episode emphasis to stage6 and see how it effects viewer numbers.

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The stage6 plugin is basically just straming the actual video while it downlaods. I usually just save the .divx file and rename it to .avi, since xvid codecs can play them.

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The problem with Stage6 is that there is no Linux or BSD web player, and I think that quite a few people here run Linux and BSD. So flash would be the most viable way of doing this.

You'd think that but no. Most people run windows or mac, and the few who run linux or bsd *should* know how to work around the divx player. Ubuntu has a walk through that took me 5 mins to find and I don't even use it. Or, they can just watch the youtube versions or download, like I was suggesting. Its all about choice, if you go with one solution then yes, some people won't be able to enjoy it. But if you have multiformat downloads, stage6 and youtube then even lynx users will be able to watch.

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