Just go ahead and rain on my parade I seriously appreciate the help though.
Well, I went to a favorite website of mine to test what you stated. I tried downloading an embedded WMV, and it did indeed steam it. However, when I tried downloading an embedded Quicktime file, it downloaded completley, allowing me to fast forward and rewind at will, with no delay, as a streaming video would have. It also would not allow me to save it by right-clicking, despite the option being there (it was unclickable).
Is Quicktime the only video format that acts this way? Would this format work for what I’m trying to achieve?
Macromedia Flash streams, but at really high quality and speed, and you don’t need a special streaming server. And you can embed it into your pages a lot easier than other methods.
Of course, it does require the Flash plugin to view, which some may resent, but as it’s a standard pre-installed plugin in most browsers now, that may not be an issue.
I don’t know why that would happen… QT videos stream for me. The progress bar starts out empty and gradually fills up as the file streams in, and if you can download it faster than you can watch it, you can watch the whole file start to finish without waiting for it to download.
If you can find the link by viewing the page source, you can easily save the file.
Right again, however, I’ve read of methods to prevent (or make it difficult) to view the source code. Sure, if one’s dedicated enough, they’ll still be able to save the video, but as you stated, that applies to virtually any video format.
That happens for me to, but I don’t consider that “streaming”, at least in the RealPlayer sense. I mean, when the progress bar completely fills up, you now have a complete file in your internet files directory. It’d be no different than if one were to have downloaded it to the hard drive.
I think the best you can do is make the source code hard to read by removing line breaks and stuff like that. You can’t keep the user from looking at the code or finding the filename.
You can defeat that by turning off JavaScript: 5 clicks in Firefox. And even without doing that, you can still look at the source from the View menu, and view a frame’s source by pasting in the frame’s address, which is explained on the page you linked.
It may foil the casual (or stupid) user. Problem is, the casual, stupid users aren’t the ones who share stuff on P2P networks anyway.
I’d say just use a regular video streaming setup, and try not to worry too much about people saving the streams. (If you’re still worried, look into Windows Media DRM and hope your customers won’t mind.) If your prices are reasonable and your content is worth it, people won’t mind paying for it. Put your web site’s address in the video, so if it does show up on a P2P service, anyone who downloads it will know where it came from and where to find more like it.
The people who are downloading stuff from P2P are not the people who would join your site anyway. Technically you’re not losing out, they’re just getting some limited stuff for free. It sucks, but there it is.
But it’s also advertising for your site, especially if you plaster your brand and website address all over the video as a watermark.
Ok, one more question and hopefully I can wrap this thread up.
My movies are going to have to be fairly detailed. I visited a few random websites to see how their streaming videos look, and I was surprised at what I found. Here’s an example:
Is that about the quality I should be expecting my cable/dsl users see? If so, that’s going to be a problem. The video’s too broken up to really make out any minute details. If this is the maximum quality a stream can be viewed at, what other options do I have? Thanks (again).
Those streams use pretty conservative bitrates… looks like 150 kbps for “DSL/cable” and 300 for “T1”. Most DSL/cable users probably have at least 384 kbps downstream (my cable modem does 3000 kbps down), and a T1 is defined as 1540 kbps, so you have some room to crank up the bitrate while still letting your users stream the video.
The quality at any given bitrate also depends on the nature of your video. Smooth, natural gradients of color and long scenes with low motion will look better than sharp edges, fast motion, and a lot of scene changes (like a game or music video).
I seriously appreciate the help though.