Video Content Storage

[David Kaye]

Okay, I was going to go with Amazon, but then I started looking around, and
there are all kinds of pricing and storage sizes, and a lot talk about
"serving" files to phones, etc. All I really need is a place to put mp4
files. I'm not talking about any live content here, just the ability to
send files to the Roku platform from somewhere. Let's say that I have a 90
minute 2.5GB MP4 video file. That's not *really* streamed to Roku, is it?
Isn't it just downloaded by the Roku server and played back like any
conventional video?

In short, why can't I just use the conventional file storage I use for my
websites? The only thing I see that could be a deal-breaker is how fast the
file downloads and starts on the Roku player itself. Two seconds, no
problem. Twenty seconds, problem.

But I don't have to play 90 minute files. I can break things down into 15
minute files at about 60MB per file and run them sequentially. Given the
smaller files wouldn't that negate the need for a fancy file storage company
that specializes in video?

Heh...I'm getting there. My little Roku project is no longer hiccupping on
certain files.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye
Okay, I was going to go with Amazon, but then I started looking around, and
there are all kinds of pricing and storage sizes, and a lot talk about
"serving" files to phones, etc. All I really need is a place to put mp4
files. I'm not talking about any live content here, just the ability to
send files to the Roku platform from somewhere. Let's say that I have a 90
minute 2.5GB MP4 video file. That's not *really* streamed to Roku, is it?
Isn't it just downloaded by the Roku server and played back like any
conventional video?
In short, why can't I just use the conventional file storage I use for my
websites? The only thing I see that could be a deal-breaker is how fast the
file downloads and starts on the Roku player itself. Two seconds, no
problem. Twenty seconds, problem.
But I don't have to play 90 minute files. I can break things down into 15
minute files at about 60MB per file and run them sequentially. Given the
smaller files wouldn't that negate the need for a fancy file storage company
that specializes in video?
Heh...I'm getting there. My little Roku project is no longer hiccupping on
certain files.

LOL! Oh boy. You need to make your MP4 file STREAMABLE! Look it up. Many editing tools have an option to make the container streamable. There are also free utilities that do it. It's just a flag in the file! That will mean your 90 minute video will play immediately and it is not "downloaded" but streamed. (-;

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
LOL! Oh boy. You need to make your MP4 file STREAMABLE! Look it up.
Many editing
tools have an option to make the container streamable. There are also
free utilities
that do it. It's just a flag in the file! That will mean your 90 minute
video will
play immediately and it is not "downloaded" but streamed. (-;

C'mon; I don't make fun of you, do I? I'm asking legitimate questions which
I'm sure others in this newsgroup have also wondered about.

My question wasn't about changing the file; my question was about whether
there's a difference between storing video on Amazon and similar services
that are touted for streaming and just the conventional storage I'm using
for my web page. Is there some magic in Amazon or Vimeo storage that is
somehow different from what I get from my web service provider?

My gut instinct is that there's faster throughput at the storage companies
that specifically promote streaming video, but I've tried sample files on
Amazon, Vimeo, a couple others, and on my web host, 1and1, and 1and1
actually performed faster, something I wasn't expecting.

So, what gives?

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
LOL! Oh boy. You need to make your MP4 file STREAMABLE! Look it up.
Many editing
tools have an option to make the container streamable. There are also
free utilities
that do it. It's just a flag in the file! That will mean your 90 minute
video will
play immediately and it is not "downloaded" but streamed. (-;

C'mon; I don't make fun of you, do I? I'm asking legitimate questions which
I'm sure others in this newsgroup have also wondered about.
My question wasn't about changing the file; my question was about whether
there's a difference between storing video on Amazon and similar services
that are touted for streaming and just the conventional storage I'm using
for my web page. Is there some magic in Amazon or Vimeo storage that is
somehow different from what I get from my web service provider?
My gut instinct is that there's faster throughput at the storage companies
that specifically promote streaming video, but I've tried sample files on
Amazon, Vimeo, a couple others, and on my web host, 1and1, and 1and1
actually performed faster, something I wasn't expecting.
So, what gives?

I put videos up on my own site with a free swf player and played them there for years and then put most of them on YouTube instead. The key was setting the streaming bit. There's also FireFogg plugin for Fire Fox that will let you author web videos. You ought to play around a little with it if for no other reason than to expand your knowledge.

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
I put videos up on my own site with a free swf player and played them
there for
years and then put most of them on YouTube instead. The key was setting
the
streaming bit. There's also FireFogg plugin for Fire Fox that will let
you author
web videos. You ought to play around a little with it if for no other
reason
than to expand your knowledge.

There's a specific reason for using Roku and possibly Amazon Fire and Apple
TV. That's because those platforms have all kinds of penetration due to
their promotion.

I must say it's cool to see my BarTV logo appear next to CBS and Netflix on
the Roku main page. However, this is just a private channel at the moment
with 5 short videos on it in order to test the presentation, screens,
content rotation, etc.

The concept is to provide short, snappy videos to the bar-going public.
It's not as easy as it sounds. I go through dozens of hours of video to
come up with maybe 10 minutes of usable stuff. And then there's the
licensing of video and audio, etc., where I have some expertise. (Licensing
can be a minefield in itself.) I've distributed some freebies to bars I'm
familiar with to test them, and I know I have a winner on my hands with the
content I have.

So, now it's a matter of finding the audience. The trouble is that there is
no good marketing channel for this niche.

[sms]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net

Post by David Kaye
Okay, I was going to go with Amazon, but then I started looking around, and
there are all kinds of pricing and storage sizes, and a lot talk about
"serving" files to phones, etc. All I really need is a place to put mp4
files. I'm not talking about any live content here, just the ability to
send files to the Roku platform from somewhere. Let's say that I have a 90
minute 2.5GB MP4 video file. That's not *really* streamed to Roku, is it?
Isn't it just downloaded by the Roku server and played back like any
conventional video?
In short, why can't I just use the conventional file storage I use for my
websites? The only thing I see that could be a deal-breaker is how fast the
file downloads and starts on the Roku player itself. Two seconds, no
problem. Twenty seconds, problem.
But I don't have to play 90 minute files. I can break things down into 15
minute files at about 60MB per file and run them sequentially. Given the
smaller files wouldn't that negate the need for a fancy file storage company
that specializes in video?
Heh...I'm getting there. My little Roku project is no longer hiccupping on
certain files.

LOL! Oh boy. You need to make your MP4 file STREAMABLE! Look it up. Many editing tools have an option to make the container streamable. There are also free utilities that do it. It's just a flag in the file! That will mean your 90 minute video will play immediately and it is not "downloaded" but streamed. (-;

There are channels on Roku that do exactly what I think David wants to do.
<http://mashtips.com/stream-roku-from-dropbox-and-other-cloud-services/>

Since it sounds like he will be providing the hardware to each bar,
there's also the low-tech option of sticking in a memory card with the
video into the Roku. Not all bars may have a broadband connection for video.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by sms

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net

Post by David Kaye
Okay, I was going to go with Amazon, but then I started looking around, and
there are all kinds of pricing and storage sizes, and a lot talk about
"serving" files to phones, etc. All I really need is a place to put mp4
files. I'm not talking about any live content here, just the ability to
send files to the Roku platform from somewhere. Let's say that I have a 90
minute 2.5GB MP4 video file. That's not *really* streamed to Roku, is it?
Isn't it just downloaded by the Roku server and played back like any
conventional video?
In short, why can't I just use the conventional file storage I use for my
websites? The only thing I see that could be a deal-breaker is how fast the
file downloads and starts on the Roku player itself. Two seconds, no
problem. Twenty seconds, problem.
But I don't have to play 90 minute files. I can break things down into 15
minute files at about 60MB per file and run them sequentially. Given the
smaller files wouldn't that negate the need for a fancy file storage company
that specializes in video?
Heh...I'm getting there. My little Roku project is no longer hiccupping on
certain files.

LOL! Oh boy. You need to make your MP4 file STREAMABLE! Look it up. Many editing tools have an option to make the container streamable. There are also free utilities that do it. It's just a flag in the file! That will mean your 90 minute video will play immediately and it is not "downloaded" but streamed. (-;

There are channels on Roku that do exactly what I think David wants to do.
<http://mashtips.com/stream-roku-from-dropbox-and-other-cloud-services/>
Since it sounds like he will be providing the hardware to each bar,
there's also the low-tech option of sticking in a memory card with the
video into the Roku. Not all bars may have a broadband connection for video.

There are probably many ways of doing he wants to do but he didn't provide enough information. It's a good idea to take some baby steps and learn a little about the streaming side of things and options rather than to dive in whole hog head first. But some people do. I just completed a game conversion to Android for a client who dived into the game industry without doing their homework. It was like it was a bucketlist item.

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
There are probably many ways of doing he wants to do but he didn't provide
enough information. It's a good idea to take some baby steps and learn a
little about the streaming side of things and options rather than to dive
in whole hog head first.

You're not understanding this at all. I can play back my videos through my
Roku test app NO MATTER WHAT I USE for storage. My question involves WHY
some companies advertise that their storage is for video streaming and
others say that their storage is for web pages. I've said this 3 times now
and so far nobody has come back with an answer.

All I can say about you is that you're 100% left-brain and I'm 50-50 left
and right brain. By this I mean that I can see not only the tech issues but
can also put things into perspective. (Actually this has worked very well
for me in writing software documentation and in explaining difficult tech
stuff to non-techies because I can use metaphors to real-world experiences
they already know. Not many techies seem to be able to do this.)

What I've done is present a very straightforward situation several times and
haven't gotten anywhere near an answer to my question. In fact, I suggested
a couple answers, but nobody responded to those, either.

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
There are probably many ways of doing he wants to do but he didn't provide
enough information. It's a good idea to take some baby steps and learn a
little about the streaming side of things and options rather than to dive
in whole hog head first.

You're not understanding this at all.

Bullshit. I mentioned I have made sites that served video even from my own host account. Currently I want to play around more with DASH encoding as the last time I tried some of the experiments I couldn't get things to work on my local network (neither could other developers).

Post by David Kaye
I can play back my videos through my
Roku test app NO MATTER WHAT I USE for storage. My question involves WHY
some companies advertise that their storage is for video streaming and
others say that their storage is for web pages. I've said this 3 times now
and so far nobody has come back with an answer.

Really? It should be obvious. Web pages take far left of a hit bandwidth and storage wise than video. I would also suspect that video hosts use a different configuration than those that just serve web pages.

Post by David Kaye
All I can say about you is that you're 100% left-brain and I'm 50-50 left
and right brain.

LOL! You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a jazz musician who writes computer code. I spent the first part of my life as a professional musician but also had an interest in electronics. In the late 1970s I almost bought my first computer but didn't so until 1983 and started coding games and music apps. To me writing code is like writing music.

Post by David Kaye
By this I mean that I can see not only the tech issues but
can also put things into perspective. (Actually this has worked very well
for me in writing software documentation and in explaining difficult tech
stuff to non-techies because I can use metaphors to real-world experiences
they already know. Not many techies seem to be able to do this.)
What I've done is present a very straightforward situation several times and
haven't gotten anywhere near an answer to my question. In fact, I suggested
a couple answers, but nobody responded to those, either.

No you didn't. You were very vague and those here who know the field well realized you left out a lot of detail in your "spec."

This also gets into the ongoing argument where these days companies are looking for "software engineers" instead of "programmers." To me, an engineer is someone you hand a problem to and have them solve it. They are technicians and good at nuts and bolts. I hired those for systems engineers for our games. The programmers were the creative types. Computer engineers write terrible games. Games are an entertainment medium not a engineering medium.

But I see all these confused young kids thinking they wrote an original game when all they did is another platform game knock-off. And too many companies (such as Google) hire kids fresh out of college using the 200 monkey sandbox paradigm hoping one of them will hatch a golden egg. Fortunately VCs are finding this isn't working anymore. Kids learn from professors with no experience in the industry. So they need a year of mentoring before you turn them loose.

I wish you well with your project.

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
Really? It should be obvious. Web pages take far left of a hit bandwidth
and
storage wise than video. I would also suspect that video hosts use a
different
configuration than those that just serve web pages.

Now, we're getting somewhere, BUT my experience in using 1and1's web storage
versus the big puffed-up Amazon (that serves Netflix and whatnot) is that
videos I stored on 1and1 loaded faster than the same videos on Amazon.

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
LOL! You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a jazz musician who writes computer
code.
I spent the first part of my life as a professional musician but also had
an interest
in electronics.

Okay, you've got me there. I just added a new band to the weekly jazz show
I produce at the Atlas Cafe; a vibe player named Dan Neville. Plays with
Adam Theis, Joe Cohen, that crowd.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Post by David Kaye
Okay, I was going to go with Amazon, but then I started looking around, and
there are all kinds of pricing and storage sizes, and a lot talk about
"serving" files to phones, etc. All I really need is a place to put mp4
files. I'm not talking about any live content here, just the ability to
send files to the Roku platform from somewhere. Let's say that I have a 90
minute 2.5GB MP4 video file. That's not *really* streamed to Roku, is it?
Isn't it just downloaded by the Roku server and played back like any
conventional video?
In short, why can't I just use the conventional file storage I use for my
websites? The only thing I see that could be a deal-breaker is how fast the
file downloads and starts on the Roku player itself. Two seconds, no
problem. Twenty seconds, problem.
But I don't have to play 90 minute files. I can break things down into 15
minute files at about 60MB per file and run them sequentially. Given the
smaller files wouldn't that negate the need for a fancy file storage company
that specializes in video?
Heh...I'm getting there. My little Roku project is no longer hiccupping on
certain files.

The MP4 container is based off the antiquated QuickTime File Format. It
doesn't support streaming but two pass packaging can make it
progressively play back. You'll need to select "fast start" or "enable
streaming" when creating the file.

Serving over HTTP requires a server supporting the "Range" header
efficiently. Without this, seeking will not work or the player may
simply refuse to run.

[David Kaye]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
Serving over HTTP requires a server supporting the "Range" header
efficiently. Without this, seeking will not work or the player may
simply refuse to run.

Well, so far, both my use of Amazon's S3, which is supposed to be the bee's
knees for serving video on things like Roku and my regular web storage at
1and1 are both working fine. (Roku wants http.) So, it goes back to what
advantage a particular kind of storage has over another.

As I write this at 2:40am I'm trying to upload about 12GB to Amazon and it's
crawling at about 700kbps where I have a maximum upload speed of 5Mbps.
When I use 1and1 I get upload speeds of almost 5. So, it seems that this
Amazon service which is *supposed* be all great for video is really kind of
lackluster.

So, due to lack of any answer from anybody about the differences between
conventional web page storage sites and specialty streaming video storage
sites, it seems that all one gets from the super-duper storage site is the
illusion of greatness.

What's more, I can't use my regular FTP client to upload files to Amazon; I
have to use their dumb web interface. Sheesh...

[Steve Pope]

Post by David Kaye
As I write this at 2:40am I'm trying to upload about 12GB to Amazon and it's
crawling at about 700kbps where I have a maximum upload speed of 5Mbps.
When I use 1and1 I get upload speeds of almost 5. So, it seems that this
Amazon service which is *supposed* be all great for video is really kind of
lackluster.

I know it's a different product, but Amazon cloud has excruciatingly
slow transfer speeds.

Steve

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
Serving over HTTP requires a server supporting the "Range" header
efficiently. Without this, seeking will not work or the player may
simply refuse to run.

Well, so far, both my use of Amazon's S3, which is supposed to be the bee's
knees for serving video on things like Roku and my regular web storage at
1and1 are both working fine. (Roku wants http.) So, it goes back to what
advantage a particular kind of storage has over another.
As I write this at 2:40am I'm trying to upload about 12GB to Amazon and it's
crawling at about 700kbps where I have a maximum upload speed of 5Mbps.
When I use 1and1 I get upload speeds of almost 5. So, it seems that this
Amazon service which is *supposed* be all great for video is really kind of
lackluster.
So, due to lack of any answer from anybody about the differences between
conventional web page storage sites and specialty streaming video storage
sites, it seems that all one gets from the super-duper storage site is the
illusion of greatness.
What's more, I can't use my regular FTP client to upload files to Amazon; I
have to use their dumb web interface. Sheesh...

Yup, maybe the better solution would have been a local CDN where you could just walk in the files on a hard drive. Did you think of that angle?

[David Kaye]

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
Yup, maybe the better solution would have been a local CDN where you
could just
walk in the files on a hard drive. Did you think of that angle?

No, but getting the files to run on Roku is not the problem. There is no
problem. Whether I stick the files on Amazon or 1and1 or Sonic.net, Roku
reads them just fine. It's not a matter of setting any bits; apparently
Roku just takes files via http and uses them the way I uploaded them.

No, the thing I was wondering about is why there are differences in the
marketing between "web hosting" and "video CDN" when they look to me like
exactly the same thing.