So, I recently got a machine that transfers 8mm and super8 to digital and I’ve been transferring all my parents old home movies. I’d love to share these movies with family and friends but the email size limit prohibits a direct approach. I could make copies to SD card or flash drive and snail mail, but that seems like alot of work. Clearly the best option is some sort of file share service, but I really don’t have much experience with anything other than Google drive.
So, I’m asking for suggestions.
The parameters being:
These are MP4 files.
Authorized users only.
I’d like to be able to compartmentalize them. No need for everyone to see all the files (not everyone will be interested in our trip to the Dells!)
Dropbox is another alternative. Like google drive, they have a free version with a limited data size then charge more for larger capacity. Off the top of my head I don’t know their capacity limits or prices.
As usual, when Microsoft sees that something is popular they often want to get in on the action, and that’s exactly what they have done here. Microsoft’s version is OneDrive. Again, it has a free service with paid plans for more capacity, and once again I don’t know their capacity limits or prices.
However, it sounds like you are not necessarily looking for cloud storage but just to share large files for free. So the first thing that comes to mind is Resilio or Syncthing.
An option you may not have considered is an actual video sharing site, since those will let them stream the videos right away, without having to download them.
My first thought would be Vimeo. They allow you to set a video to private (which requires a URL to access), and you can even require a password. They will play the video, but they will also allow you to download the video. The main caveat is that the free version limits you to 500MB uploaded a week, and 5 GB of videos total.
If you don’t care about the ability to actually download the MP4 files, then YouTube becomes an option. You can set the video to Unlisted, which would require the direct URL to open it (which you can keep private). There is no password option, however.
These two are how I would share home videos. While file sharing sites will often include the ability to stream a video file, video sharing sites will make the video bandwidth friendly, depending on the connection quality. And they are designed for video, which means the experience is usually smoother all around.