Hosting Videos on Websites
I’ll keep things relatively short this month, suffice to say that there are more ways than ever for hosting videos on Websites. But does YouTube still hold the lead and what options do you really have?
The issue around Video is known as Streaming… the website server set-up has to allow a file to be ‘opened’ or ‘streamed’ for video so that you can start watching it before it is fully downloaded. With most files or documents on the Internet, it’s necessary to download the file fully before it can be seen. Video is different it has to start playing straight away.
YouTube led the way probably 20 years ago now, a simple website that just stored Video took over the world and it was not until the last 5 years or so of Netflix and DisneyPlus that YouTube territory was in any way threatened. However for the purposes of this article that is another story.
You needed a server set up for streaming to be able to play Video. These days many if not all browsers can recognise a file type and the Browser can start working straightaway if a video is detected. In other words, most websites could in theory host Videos and play them on their websites.
Bandwidth
Few websites are particularly limited by bandwidth these days, but if a 100 MB video, which is relatively small, a few minutes long at most, was to be requested from the server on a regular basis you can see just through simple maths the server is going to be delivering a lot of data.
The crunch problem occurs when files are requested simultaneously, i.e. 3, 4 or 5 users try to download the same file at the same time. Servers will find this increasingly difficult… and if that 3, 4 or 5 users becomes a hundred then the server will fail.
So – websites can host their own videos, but the scope for servicing many users at a single time is vastly reduced. It’s basically an inefficient way to host a video.
YouTube
Google bought YouTube from the original creators, but YouTube was always the place to upload video content, with an easy-to-use interface at absolutely no costs, excellent playback, there quickly became no reason not to use YouTube.
In fact, YouTube has now grown to be the 2nd largest search engine on the Internet after Google and along with Google, YouTube is bigger than all other search engines combined. Thus YouTube is a website that is used every day by millions.
It’s not free – these things never are. YouTube is funded by adverts and probably to some extent by Google itself. However, a key feature of YouTube is that video is low views don’t get adverts placed on them. YouTube tend to focus advertising on popular videos more than unpopular ones.
How YouTube Works
Upload the video to YouTube and complete all the information you can about the Video, then adding Video to a website is as easy as copying a small piece of ’embed’ code. This code can be modified to a small extent allowing looping or disabling related videos at the end.
Here is a list of options taken from FreshySites.
- rel=0
This disables the suggested videos at the end
NOTE: As of 9/25/18 – this will not disable related videos. Instead, rel=0 will show related videos from the same channel as the video that was just played. - controls=0
This hides the bottom portion of the video known as the control bar area - showinfo=0
Hides the title
NOTE: As of 9/25/2018 – this parameter is deprecated and will be ignored - modestbranding=1
Hide the YouTube logo in the control bar - autoplay=1
The video will automatically start playing - loop=1
The video will replay once finished
Adding Parameters to the Video links is easy enough, just amend the links with the right code or use an Embed Generator such as this one: https://www.onetools.me/youtube-embed-generator/
Competitors
Vimeo, VideoPress, Dailymotion, Twitch and now TikTok are all viable ways to host video and all provide options to host videos and be displayed on websites. Some like VideoPress are paid for, and others like TikTok are breaking boundaries in other ways. All have some element of controls, branding or other features.
It is only possible to experiment.
Conclusion
At this stage of tech and Video hosting there is one major difference between all Video Hosting options and that is the ability to be found. Video is expensive to produce and should carry a message that forms part of a Brand or website or product.
It should be on YouTube. Otherwise, you are effectively just hiding the Video from most people. YouTube’s instant recognisability suggests there is no other real option for hosting video at this time. Definitely, there is no advantage to hosting on the website server, possible only TikTok is vying for YouTube’s dominance.