Not usually in the habit of asking how people think I should carry out my freelance work but here goes. It's a video website for a small company that publish their own videos. Everything will be hosted on their server and streamed, the only people who are going to be adding videos are admin. It's not going to be like youtube where the public upload videos.

 

I immediately start thinking "html5 gracefully degrading to Flash". I was thinking about adapting a CMS I've made in the past for pic uploading, which could be possible, but the question is the usual one - are there any scripts that people would recommend that are "bolt on" that I could use? For example I seem to have stumbled across "PHPMotion" etc.

 

Just trying to evaluate my available options before I give them a quote. I guess the kind of site we're talking about is similar to

 

October films

 

Maybe something like this. Perhaps not as "involved".

 

Guessing some people might even suggest Joomla or Wordpress or something, but I'm trying to find something a little more specific. Or write my own. It's just that if there's a recommended one it might take the price down a bit.

 

Not trying to get my arse wiped for me here or anything, just trying to establish my available options in an efficient manner. You know how it is.

 

Cheers peeps.

I have heard good things about MediaCore but it may be a bit involved for what you need depending on how many videos they are putting up. It's less CMS and more Library Management.

 

http://mediacore.com/

Yep PHPMotion, Mediacore... there are dozens of Youtube/Video site clone scripts that have the functionality you could adapt.

 

Myself I'd go for Expressionengine (like you'd expect!), relatively quick and simple to add the basic functionality, though if you can't modify your server to accept large browser uploads there is an addon that will help.

Expressionengine

 

Does it have say SWFUpload built in or anything like that where we can use a flash uploader for large files? I guess that's the main concern here - filesize as you say.

 

And Glowbridge - mediacore looks pretty promising at first glance, thanks for that.

Out of the box EE has a native "File" custom field type, just use it to upload any file type to whatever directories/folders your specify or select an existing file.

 

There's also an addon called Channel files that has a built in widget for uploading large files (think that uses a flash based uploader) without having to mess about with server settings - http://www.devdemon.com/channel_files - also supports Amazon S3 and Rackspace cloud storage.

Hmmm.... I was playing around with a couple for scripts and html5 players etc. etc. and getting involved in what I can only describe as the slightly tangled ball of string that is html/Flash video, but think I might have got somewhere.

 

A slightly different question has arisen now, which is why not just get them to put their films on youtube and link to them? I'm finding it hard to keep up with whether youtube is displaying ok on Apple products currently - wasn't there talk of an html5 youtube version?

 

The client may be concerned about cost (which client isn't?). I'm interested to know what you lot think of a site that just links to youtube videos? Does this look unprofessional for a starting out film company? Is it bad for Apple users? Is it actually acceptable if the client wants a cheap option?

 

I must admit this one's stumping me a bit how to go about it, and I don't get the impression that the client knows what they want. The options can range from youtube embedding - cheap and cheerful to full on hosting it themselves, custom players streaming from their own server.

 

The thought of all the videos saying "youtube" on them struck me as looking rather amateur, but some people on here may disagree, and say that's a perfectly viable solution?

 

By the way this is just preliminary discussions between me and the client. I haven't given them a quote yet and don't feel I can do so until the exact methodology has been sorted out for this.

I think using YouTube is perfectly acceptable professionally. It's the de-facto place for video on the internet and honestly it's getting to the point where people don't know how to operate a player that isn't YouTubes.

 

On the point of HTML5, AFAIK any video uploaded since a certain date about a year ago ALL videos have HTML5 versions (Although I think the uploader can turn it off for copyright/piracy reasons)

 

I would also try and get into a conversation with the client about just how difficult self hosting video can be. You can't just chuck 'em up on some cPanel shared package.

Edited July 19, 201115 yr by Glowbridge

Just putting this out there: http://demo.tutorialzine.com/2010/07/youtube-api-custom-player-jquery-css/youtube-player.html

 

Your downside is the Youtube watermark. However, as a free solution...

 

I also don't believe the Youtube watermark makes it look unprofessional.

 

My concern is, if this site starts getting large volumes of traffic, surely their hosting costs will go through the roof?

Ahhhh thanks for the replies guys. The reason for me asking was that initially when the site was discussed, I was under the impression that this client was an established film productions "company" and therefore may have the budget and clout to warrant an independently hosted site.

 

Since then (again, I suspect this story is common) I've found out that they may be more of a starter after more what I'd call a "portfolio" site, and the budget may be less than initially thought. I had to rethink my original strategy as being somewhat over-engineered for their needs, and revert back to a more simple affordable solution.

 

I might accept this as more of a quick cheap job, and go down the youtube route, if they're accepting of this proposal.

 

Gah - hours spent yesterday investigating what Bluedreamer and Glowbridge had suggested (thanks guys) and mucking around with html5 players and code. But at least I guess I started to learn the basics in the process. "It's all gravy in the end" as they say.