Video Teaser

Recently I went down the street to a local CVS pharmacy and bought one of the one-time use camcorders, the ones you can hack to get your videos onto your computer. I actually have a videoblog that I recorded with the camera about hacking the camera, for a nice bit of recursion. I documented the process of getting the cables, doing the soldering and then using the programs to extract the files. Just today, I used the program that lets you change the resolution and record time on the camera, which as you buy it are both set artificially low.

However, it will be a little bit of time before I can have the video posted. I edited it in iMovie but because I made some rookie mistakes (and because the default settings blow) I need to get it redone. The biggest mistake I made was not changing the setting that requires it to be fully downloaded to start playing. I joined OurMedia to post it, and uploaded the first cut but it was a really painful and slow process. I’m not so sure about using this service. You create an OurMedia account and an Internet Archive account and tie them together. At this point, I have an OurMedia username, an associated email address and a password, plus an email address and password for the IA. Doing practically anything was a confusing mess of figuring out which of these sets of credentials were required at any point. I think 3 was the minimum tries to log on to do anything substantial. Then, after I finally got it uploaded it was unbelievably slow for anyone else to try to download. As someone said to me about it – you get what you pay for. Just this morning, I got an email asking videobloggers to not upload anything to OurMedia for the next week. Sigh.

I’m worried about the hosting, because this runs the potential to get slashdotted or Make-dotted or name-your-inadvertant-denial-of-service-via-blog. I don’t want to use up the bandwidth on my regular box on this, I don’t want to put it on a system where bandwidth overage charges will cost me money, yet I also want it to be downloadable in under 17 hours. I suppose I could just put up a torrent of it and let it ride, which also will not be zippy at least at first. What to do, what to do. Any suggestions?

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.

13 thoughts on “Video Teaser”

  2. If you do torrent it, I’ll commit to keeping a seed running here for as long as it’s actually sucking any b/w. Here’s the stats for the 19/8/05 show from here:
    …
    sharing: oo (5213.7 MB up / 50.5 MB down)
    …

  3. how large is the file? i’ve got a libsyn acct which, as you know, has unlimited bandwidth…i’ll throw it up there if it’s not too ungodly large… email me if you’re interested 🙂

  4. Try FileFront. I can’t see any catch to their unlimited bandwidth promise, and the download speed is pretty decent. They have a download queue during peak hours but it’s all free… 🙂

    http://www.filefront.com/

  5. Dave, I have an Ourmedia account as well, and yeah, they’re definitely going through learning/growing pains. I see a lot of potential, though.

    Another option might be Google Video (https://upload.video.google.com/); there’s an approval process (I think mainly to determine that it isn’t copyrighted material not authorized for distribution), and I don’t know how easy it would be to link directly to the video itself (for an RSS feed, for example). But it might be worth looking into.

    I definitely want to try the CVS camcorder hack, too. I was into CVS last night, and they were out of ’em…

  6. i use http://www.audioblog.com for my simple family video stuff which i post to http://glemak.blogspot.com – it’s flash so quick and simple for viewers (like grandparents)…

    i also have used my blogmatrix account for video as well as audio, which is available both as bt and direct files…

    finally, there is a very robust video service coming to market soon – but probably not quick enough for what you’re trying to do currently dave – my only suggestion is to not sign any long-term agreements 😉

  8. Dave,

    I have two virtual private servers, one with GoDaddy and the other with EV1Servers. I use them to mirror Linux distro torrents for the Linux Mirror Project ( http://www.tlm-project.org/ ) They also seed from your show torrent feed.

    My servers have a bandwidth allotment of 3000 GB per month, 10 GB per day, which I am nowhere near filling. My average is 75 GB per month.

    Even with 20 Linux CD images seeding away day after day, I have plenty of storage left on those servers. I’d be happy to seed anything you produce. Make a separate feed of the video content torrents, tell us what the URL is, and I’ll seed ya. I might even watch! 🙂

  9. By the way, regarding the video teaser.

    I take it you are experimenting with doing more video content.

    Here’s my 2 cents:

    Can’t wait to see what crazy stuff comes out of this experiment!

  10. Dave:

    I’ve got an account light on disk (1GB) but with unlimited bandwidth. If that can be used in the interests of provisioning new TWAC-related activities, give me a shout.

    –Ken–

  11. TE, you’ll see in the video. I’m fairly certain if a soldering numbnuts like myself can do it, 90+% of the population can.

    All, thanks for the offers of hosting and such, all of you. I’m also looking for sustainability, as I will probably do some kind of ongoing videoblog (less often than the podcasts, no doubt.) I might go Libsyn myself. I talked to Eric Rice (who told me the magic settings that cut the size from 40M to 20M while making the quality improve) about Audioblog.com hosting, but they have bandwidth overage charges and I definitely don’t want those. I’d rather have it cut off and be unavailable than happily rack up a higher bill.

    If I don’t come up with something by tomorrow, I will indeed just slap up a torrent and we can go from there.

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