Bill Cammack

So now, for the umpteenth time, I’ve de-constructed my site. :/

I wanted to change the way my videos were served, so the first thing I did was add the vPIP (videos Playing In Place) plugin by Enric Teller. The plan was to have the videos pop up in whatever format was selected (flash, quicktime…).

At some point, I decided to put my videos on Brightcove. I like their ideas of “lineups” and “players” and “syndication”, so I thought I’d check it out. Apparently, they just added mac upload capability, and they use this beta “Brightcove Publishpod”. The first time I used it, I decided to send flv files up, and it just sat there @ 0% and never moved. I stopped the process, and decided to upload mp4s and MOVs. When you do that, you get an encoding layout that you have to fill in to your specifications. The suggested bit rate was 500kbps, so that’s what I used to encode to flash and upload the files… meaning I dropped an mp4 in the Publishpod and let it do its thing. I had noticed a check-box that said “delete flv when finished?”, and I thought that was really RETARDED, because the whole point was to CREATE flv files, not delete them.

What I didn’t know was that the Publishpod works in two sections. The first section, which takes a VEEEEEERY short time, is when they create an el-cheapo flv file ON.YOUR.COMPUTER in the same directory as the mp4 you dragged to the program… and then the second section, where it actually uploads that file to Brightcove. That’s why the progress was stuck @ 0%. There wasn’t anything to be done, because all they had to do was upload the file. When you put an mp4 in, the first 50% blazes by (as they create this flv file on your system), and then the rest of it takes a long time, because of the upload.

So when I looked at these videos, they stuttered the whole way through, because even though it said 500 kbps was recommended, it didn’t LIMIT.THE.FILES to 500 kbps! :/ So the time was spent uploading files that were encoded @ 625 kbps that looked horrible and played even more horribly!

After that, I invested my time in making an On2 VP6 version of my first video. That looked WAAAAAAY better than the encode that the beta Publishpod made, and came in @ 512 kbps instead of 625 kbps. I’m trying an even lower data rate encode right now, because I’m not sure that being over 500 is going to work on Brightcove for lower-end computers or lower-end broadband subscribers.

I like the whole idea of the hierarchy that Brightcove has set up, so I’m going to stick with it and see what happens. In the meantime, I decided to see if there was any difference in putting the same video on Revver.

The Revver sign-up process was a little faster. The Revver upload process was A.WHOLE.LOT.FASTER!!! :D Apparently, Revver will accept mp4s of any data rate as long as the file size isn’t over 100 meg. While Brightcove asks for limited bandwith videos, and then doesn’t LIMIT the bandwidth of the videos in their beta publishpod application, Revver takes what you give it and actually encourages you to use the best quality files you can create! :D We’ll see how long it takes Revver to get to my video and approve it. There’s no approval period for Brightcove, apparently. I was able to play my videos immediately by placing their code on my site.

Anyway… Today’s been a learning experience with these “revenue-sharing” sites. Not that I actually intend to see any revenue, since I have about 30 viewers for my podcast, but it’ll be interesting to see the differences between how Revver and Brightcove deal with the same videos.

--

Follow Bill on Google+