I plan to make some music videos for my family and friends. Me and my guitar doing my best to sing in tune. I recently bought a Zoom H4N recorder that can record 4 tracks to a flash card. I plan to record a couple guitar tracks, a vocal, and maybe harmonica or dulcimer on the 4th track. Multitrack recording in a box not much bigger than my pocket. Modern audio tech is awesome.
Some of my older relatives would have problems downloading a video and then playing it. I’d get quite a few phone calls. My dad used to dl stuff and then didn’t know where to look to find it. I’d have to try and help him over the phone. I know other relatives will get confused too.
Streaming video seems like the easiest option. Are there any web hosting sites that offer this feature? How well did it work? Is it like youtube where they just click a link and it plays?
I have thought about embedding a youtube video on my web page. But I’d have to make it private. I don’t want to hold myself up for public ridicule on youtube. What about the youtube copyright police? Are they going to bust my balls for performing a 40 year old pop song? This will be entirely my own performance. I won’t be using anyone else’s prerecorded music.
So what are my options? Roughly at what cost per month?
Also, I need a site with very easy templates for creating my web page.
Pretty much any web host will allow simple HTML5 pages, for which embedding video is trivial. We’re a few iterations past requiring a server-side streaming host.
I believe all the “builder” hosts have video as a drag-and-drop item, making the actual technical implementation irrelevant. At least some of them should be free, limited only by the size of your file set and the bandwidth of any accesses to them.
I pay about $8 a month for 10-domain hosting with virtually no limitations, so there’s one cost datum.
I may have been too technical in my thread title. Streaming video is the magic that allows a video to be played as it downloads. Done right its seamless. For example playing a youtube video with music. Most of the time the music plays smoothly just like it was on your IPod. People don’t realize its stored on a computer two thousand miles away.
I haven’t hosted a web site before. I wasn’t sure what video options were available. Really all I need is for the video to play smoothly. Theres nothing more aggravating than a video that starts, pauses, starts, pauses. I’d hate for a video that I spent four to six weeks preparing to do that. People just close the Tab and never see it.
I never have liked html. Our office hired a Grad student to design our web site in PHP. I got roped into maintaining it afterward. Just very minor changes to keep the information up to date. I just don’t like messing with it anymore than I have to. I much rather write SQL reports, or create Access databases.
Right, I completely understood you. It used to be difficult to stream video from an independent site, as there had to be server-side code to manage the paced delivery of the data stream. If you didn’t have pretty deep coding abilities and access to server-side code, you had to use a third-party site for stream hosting and all kinds of other mucking around.
Now, it’s as easy to put video in a web page as a JPEG. HTML5 replaces all need for separate video handling code.
If you’re going to use a builder site, all that is masked yet further; you will have to perform the difficult and intricate step of dragging a video block onto your page template.
I have considered a youtube channel. I need to look into how private youtube videos work, I’d guess access has to be granted to each username. I’ll do some research.
I’d guess youtube doesn’t like private vids. They don’t get enough views to generate them any $$$.
Nobody will probably even notice to ridicule or bitch. Name it something like “Aceplace song 1234” or email them a link to a channel. Making your own website is kinda cracking walnuts with a pile driver.
Huh, I thought personal web sites were the norm for Internet Savvy people. I feel like a dinosaur not having one. AT&T used to offer personal web space free with their Internet Access accounts. But they dropped that a few years ago.
If you still want to go the streaming web page route, consider squarespace.com. They have a suite of very easy to use tools for building web pages. The best part is, you can sign up for 30 days for free with no credit card required.
PS, I’m not affiliated in any way, I was just very impressed when I set up a page for my brother last year.
If you don’t have a business facet to present, even a small one, a website is a tech toy luxury. You can do some fun things with them, but not if you don’t want to learn some coding and such. The canned sites like FB, Instagram etc. are far more “fun” and accessible.
The one advantage to a personal web site is that it comes with a personal domain - which gives you 100% control over your own email instead of relying on a third party’s good graces. (You can do email hosting only on a domain registration, but it will cost you about the same - may as well hang out a one-page site to backstop your email.)
A couple days late, but I’d still strongly suggest YouTube for this. No cost, no bandwidth limit, compatible with every device out there. You just need to make it “Unlisted” when you upload it, and then share the link with only the people you want. Nobody else will see it. They won’t need a password or login to view them. The URL itself is secret.
If you have several videos you want to share, you can also make an unlisted Playlist and share it the same way, only with the individuals you choose.
They’re not going to come after you for copyright concerns since they’ll never even see the video. And since you’re covering it, it is extremely unlikely any automated algorithm would pick it up.
As for websites… Facebook does for most people what personal websites used to do, including for videos. It’s very weird to see a personal website these days (unless they’re hosting a portfolio or resume or some such). For the most part the web has moved to a hub-and-spoke model where bloggers and social networks act as hubs, and individuals provide content on those hubs to others of their community. It’s the only way to get exposure because your personal website would never get a high enough PageRank on its own.
I also think Squarespace is a good choice for easy website building, but it’s overkill (both in complexity and cost) for a simple music video.
I’d agree with Reply. If all you want to do is put up videos for a select audience, an unlisted/private YT channel is the simplest and most efficient answer.
I recently bought a Zoom H4N recorder that can record 4 tracks to a flash card. I plan to record a couple guitar tracks, a vocal, and maybe harmonica or dulcimer on the 4th track. Multitrack recording in a box not much bigger than my pocket. Modern audio tech is awesome.