One reason for the growth in online video sites is that getting high quality video onto your website and controlling file sizes to ensure reliable playback can be difficult. But if you understand how video on the web works, it's not as difficult as it may first seem.

Certainly putting videos on YouTube, Vimeo or other free video-hosting services is a quick and easy solution, but there are drawbacks.
 
Most free video hosting services superimpose logos on your video, which muddles your brand. If you don't have access to high-quality digital files for upload, video quality will suffer, resulting in washed out, blurry images. Plus, the free sites have time limits, so if your video is longer than, say, 10 minutes, your video will be arbitrarily broken up into smaller parts.
 
What’s more, if the content of your video is proprietary or targets a specific audience, you may not even want it available to the YouTube masses.

There's also a common myth that you have to host web video on separate video servers. Not true. Separate video servers are only needed when:
 

You have scores of videos that many users might play at the same time.

You have one video that willl be watched thousands of times per day.

You have a few videos that need to play simultaneously to hundreds of users.

If this is NOT the case, then your current web host should work fine.
 
The keys to hosting your own web-video are using the right video compression, web player, and streaming method. Doing this lets you control the quality and length of the video as well as the reliability of playback.

Advanced compression codecs and formats like H264 and MP4 make files small enough to play at varying internet connection speeds, while maintaining image and sound quality. You also don't need to use any special streaming hardware or software. Adobe Flash Player allows videos to start playing after only a few seconds have downloaded. This is the same method YouTube uses for it's video streaming.

Adobe's Flash Player now natively supports most codecs and formats, including MP4, and since it's installed on over 90% of computers, including PC, Mac, Linux, and others, using it as your web player almost guarantees videos will play for site visitors.

At Magnetic Image, we've been compressing web video for more than a decade and know how to make your files small without sacrificing quality. If you use a lot of video on your website, we can set up and manage your video hosting for you. We’ll compress your video, upload it, and provide  the necessary links or web code to get it onto your site -- and we’ll do it all for one reasonable fee, far less than what is charged by commercial video hosting services.

Even if you just need help or advice and want to do it yourself, call or email and we'll guide you through the process of getting video onto your web server or video hosting service free of charge.
 
To read more about our encoding and video hosting services, or to just learn more about how it works, click here.