Add Streaming Video to Your Web Site

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Add Streaming Video to Your Web Site

You have two choices when you place digital video clips on your Web site:
Digital video from a Web server. At worst, 100% of a video file on a Web server will have to download before playing can begin. Some formats and players allow progressive download, also called HTTP streaming and fast-start (QuickTime jargon), which allows the viewer to watch the first portion of a movie before all of it has downloaded.
Digital video from a streaming video server. True streaming is designed to provide real-time delivery of digital video over the Internet. If you are at Indiana University and you need to deliver high-quality video over the Internet then you can implement this option by means of the I. U. Digital Media Streaming Service, which has a RealVideo streaming server and a QuickTime streaming server. I much prefer RealVideo streaming over QuickTime streaming. Find out why in the sub-section “Place Digital Video on the Web” of the “Digital Video” section of this Web site. Click here to get information about the I. U. Digital Media Streaming Service. What follows is a brief guide for implementing streaming video on the I. U. Digital Media Streaming Service.

1. You need a Veritas or Champion account.
You have to have a Veritas (veritas.ucs.indiana.edu) or Champion (champion.iupui.edu) account to use the I. U. Media Streaming Service. Even if you don’t plan use a Veritas or Champion Web site as the location of your Web pages, you still need the account as the location of your streaming video files. If you have a Web site of the type www.indiana.edu/~foobar then you already have a Veritas account; If you have a Web site of the type www.iupui.edu/~foobar then you already have a Champion account. If you don’t have either type of account, apply for one at www.webmaster.indiana.edu.

2. You need to apply for streaming video capability.
You apply for the streaming video option on your Veritas or Champion Web site by using the form on this link. When your request has been approved you will find a folder called wwwdm on your Veritas or Champion Web site. You will place your RealVideo or QuickTime files in the this folder. Keep in mind that the wwwdm folder will not be visible when you use FrontPage for working on your Veritas or Champion Web. You will have to use FTP or SSH to move files from your local computer to the wwwdm folder.

3. How do you convert your digital video clips from other formats into RealVideo?
I am not a fan of streaming QuickTime because of several clunky setup features, courtesy of Apple, but I am fond of streaming RealVideo, which is the format of all the digital video clips on this Web site. There are several fairly easy ways to convert your digital video clips to RealVideo clips of assorted qualities (transfer speeds) . See the sub-sections “In a Hurry? Digital Video in a Nutshell” and “Prepare for Distribution” in the “Digital Video” section.

4. How do you create links to your streaming video files?
After you place your QuickTime or RealVideo in your wwwdm folder you create links to them in any Web page anywhere. See details in www.indiana.edu/~video/streaming.html. Here is the URL link to one of my RealVideo clips:
http://video.indiana.edu:8080/ramgen/ip/aainfo/Hayes-RV8-300Kbps.rm
Your link would look as follows if your your Veritas Web site is www.indiana.edu/~iuprof:
http://video.indiana.edu:8080/ramgen/ip/iuprof/YourRealVideoFile.rm
For RealVideo, that’s all there is to it. For QuickTime, you need to insert a bit of HTML code into your Web page, and you have to worry about whether the QuickTime player of each of your customers has the proper Streaming Transport setting. Please congratulate the geniuses at Apple.