Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking on several panels at PubCon 2009, an industry trade show put on by WebMasterWorld that is programmed specifically for web professionals and website site owners. My favorite, was a session titled, ”Best Practices for Video Creation, Integration and Marketing” where I presented along with our friends Gregory Markel of Infuse Creative and Michael McDonald of WebProNews.
I was asked to cover how best to integrate internet video within your website and I discussed everything from file formats and players to hosting (self-hosting, online video platforms,”social video platforms”) to general best practices for internet video publishing. Below is my presentation – enjoy
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Video Publishing & Website Integration Best Practices
To Host or Not to Host – 3 Options for Website Video Publishing Environments
Self-Hosted
Online Video Platforms (OVP, e.g. Brightcove)
Post & Embed (Social video, e.g. YouTube)
Things to Consider
Purpose for video?
Sales & Marketing
Customer Service, How-to
HR, Internal Marketing, Training
# Videos
Monetization strategy (ROI)
IT resources?
Need deep integration?
Advantages / Disadvantages
Self-Hosted Video
Use-Cases
Few videos
No need for integration
Good technical resources
Advantages
Complete control
File formats, delivery, players, monetization
Disadvantages
Need resources for:
Storage
Delivery
Integration
Video File Formats
Use Flash Player/Container – Ubiquitous
SWF NOT a movie – player only
File Formats & Compression?
Flv vs. mp4 vs. m4v vs. mov vs. wmv, etc…?
.h264 vs. MPEG-2 vs. Vorbis, etc… ?
Recommendations
Mp4 .h264 codec w/AAC (audio)
Highest quality for file size
Supported by:
Mac, PC, Flash 9+, iTunes
Mobile devices (iPhone, etc…)
Broadcast
Blue-Ray
Tools for Transcoding
Sorenson Squeeze
Macromedia Flash Media Encoder
Handbrake (free)
Encoding.com
VideoRX.com
Delivery Best Practices
Lots of video? – You’ll Need a CDN (content delivery network)
Recommendations
Amazon S3 + Cloudfront✔
Akamai
Bitgravity, etc…
Players
Custom branding, interactivity, analytics?
Recommendations:
JW Player/Longtail✔
Flow Player
Macromedia Flash
Video Hosting Platforms
“An online video platform is a free or fee-based self-service platform that offers hosting, encoding, customizable & embeddable players, and metrics for organizations that wish to upload and distribute their own video content.”
Dedicated Video Hosting Platforms – Shopping for an Online Video Platform
Evaluate Options
Monetization
Customization
Interactivity
Analytics
DIY or plug-n-play
Plugins & API
Get under the hood – test-drive
Most offer free trials
Month to month agreements
What’s their migration policy?
Dedicated Online Video Hosting/Delivery Platforms
All-Purpose
Brightcove
Vzaar
Fliqz
Bitsontherun
Ooyala
Kaltura
Sorenson 360
60 +
Sales & Marketing
Veeple
Wistia
Live
Ustream.tv
Livestream.tv (formerly Mogulus)
Justin.tv
Wordpress
Tons of plug-ins available (JWPlayer, Kaltura, etc…)
Video press
Post & Embed – “Social Video Platforms”
Advantages – Less Expensive, simple to use, social nature
All – Social nature, destination sites…
YouTube = Free, easy to use, large audience, etc… (rights->YouTube)
Vimeo= Inexpensive, HD, customizable player (no products)
Blip.tv = Cheap, customizable players, ad support, syndication, iTunes
About the Author -
Mark R Robertson
Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com. Mark has had extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Local Search, Video Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow Mark on Twitter @markrrobertson
In reguards to MP4 and .H264 (AVC/AAC) are they one in the same?? Do both formats contain both AVC and AAC? I'm making product demonstration videos for our company and the software i'm using allows me to render in either format but i'm not sure if AAC is a part of the formats. (I'm using Cyberlinks Power Director. I will be hosting these on our website so the .h264 format seems to be the way to go but i'm still wondering where the AAC fits into all this and how would i integrate it.
No problem Jeff.. MP4 is a file format/container. .H264 is a compression/codec for video. AAC is the compression for audio.... Does that help....?
gerryoginski
Mark- again a great and timely topic. I like your best practices note about the single video/ single url. Not enough people are taking advantage of the hot buttons so users do not need to click away from the video to get what they want.
Thanks Mark. You introduced a few options that I had not previously considered. I'm an online video content producer (cameraman and editor) and I find that my clients often look to me for advice on how to best publish, that's because the average website developer serving the SMB marketplace lacks the knowledge about effective video publishing. Its in my interest to see that the client is going to get good results with their online video because I want the video content production work, so I'm often educating web developers in order to get the client's order just to produce video content. I wonder how many other video producers out there are forced to do the same? The clients that I produce video for have a wide range of situations and its a moving list of publishing options, so its good to have expert opinions like that given in your presentation.
Thanks Bob. Im sure there are a good amount of folks out there in the same position you are in and hopefully they find my site cause I would love to help them out. Thanks for the kind words.
rowby
Great slideshow, Mark.
For my clients who want to post on YouTube or similar sites I always recommend that they include their web address on the video itself -- so in case their video ends up embedded "who-knows-where" their main web address will be clearly visible.
That is a great point that believe it or not, I never thought of ;-) Ha... I usually including branding elements but that is a real good point. Thanks Rowby
amanichannel
Mark-
Very informative post. I didn't see Mpegstreamclip in your presentation (http://www.squared5.com). Do you use it? It seems to be one of the best free compression/file conversion programs out there. I really enjoy your posts.
Good point. I actually do use it on my mac when I get files from a videographer that are encoded with apple codecs that my PC cant handle. It is a great program so thanks for reminding me about that one.
Good stuff. Thanks, Mark! I'm constantly wresetling with the hosted/self-hosted debate. I'm still using YouTube just because it indexes well in Google and it's a high traffic site, but the limitations do frustrate me sometimes. Guess I'll stick with it for now...
Thanks Tim. Yeah, I prefer hosted with a video platform or self-hosted vs. YouTube but I agree with the benefits. It's hard because with regard to a blog, YouTube is so easy. There are some good alternatives though, as you know.
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About the Author -
Mark R Robertson 
