An answer to a question I posted on TwelvePoint.com
Question:
Can you give us some pointers as to the basic requirements for posting film/video on the web and whether it would be better to do this in a number of short clips as opposed to a longer reel?
Answer:
OK, there're two issues here:
Basic video posting
We've been able to post video online for well over a decade, but it's only in the last couple of years that it's really taken off. This is a three part equation: first of all, you need many people to have broadband, then you need a universal format for playing video, and then it needs to be really easy for people to do.
Broadband: This is just a matter of time and competition amongst the carriers.
Format: In the old days (pre YouTube!) to produce web video meant producing anything up to four versions to keep your users happy: Quicktime for Mac, Windows Media for PC, Realplayer if you were worried about people nicking your stuff (BBC) and finally MPEG for universal access (and universal piracy). There was also dithering around producing low and high quality versions and choosing bitrates and so on. This made it quite painful to put video online and take up slow (people don't generally know which version to click!).
The first part of the online video revolution was the software package Flash including a video codec that allowed developers to stream video into a Flash player. This meant that people didn't have to worry about their player as 99% of users have Flash installed by default. Player problem solved.
Ease of use: The second part was the provision of easy online tools to upload video. I don't know who had the idea but YouTube is built on this. You just upload your video in almost any format and the server does the rest (choose bitrates, sizes, format and convert the video for you). Also YouTube was happy to spend money hosting the resulting file for free. Bingo! Online video revolution...
This is a somewhat long description but it provides the clear answer: The best way to host online video is to have someone else do it for you! Therefore it follows that the best format you produce is the one recommended by the service that you choose.
The major players in online video hosting
There are many people who will host video for you but the three most often cited are: YouTube, Blip and Vimeo.
YouTube is obviously the best known site and has the best delivery as it is owned by Google BUT it has a hard limit of 10 minutes upload, which is to make sure that people don't copy entire television episodes. They recommend using MPEG as the upload file format. Here's their help page.
BLIP has an explicit show/channel metaphor and has a handsome player. There are no time limits that I have found yet. They think Quicktime Pro is the best format for uploading (I agree) but they will also take files in Windows Media Format. Here's the help page..
Vimeo says it is about socialising with video (?!) but it has a nice player and does gorgeous 'HD' clips (this is cycling video, sorry, but made by a decent short filmmaker:http://vimeo.com/3154519). They can take any kind of video and there is a limit of 500meg a month that you can pay to remove. Here's the help page..
As an example of how these three players differ in look and feel, here is a channel page on YouTube BLIP and Vimeo.
I would check out the three services above. You Tube is better if you want to 'go viral', BLIP for a channel metaphor and Vimeo for HD. Of course there is nothing to stop you using more than one at a time :-)
With any of these services it is easy to embed their player back into a page on your site - they then serve the video saving you the bother, all their services will almost certainly deliver the video stream quicker than your own website unless you have an expensive setup.
How long should your web video be?
Here's the irony. We are happy to watch a 3-hour DVD or download on a computer screen (I don't even bother with a DVD player anymore) but when we are in web-browsing mode, our attention span collapses to a few minutes. This is the reality, the victory of 'flea mind' on the internet.
If you have a short film to go online that is already ten minutes long, it doesn't make any sense to cut it into three minute chunks. A thirty-minute clip I would edit into (logical) chunks. A feature... well this should be delivered by DVD (i.e. the mail) or by the various bitTorrent systems (another topic). The BBC have found a fertile middle-ground with iPlayer where you can watch about an hour without too much strain but here the production values are terrific: it's unlikely that an hour of 'proam' footage would keep the average viewer engaged.
If you were starting a new web series, I would recommend sitting somewhere in the three- to five-minute per episode zone. A bad three-minute can seem like an eternity online (if you want proof, check out an episode of Pink which despite the pacey music, drags like a wet week due to terrible direction and cutting). If your material is good, stretching out over five minutes seems to be feasible.
The great thing about this field is that the mix of video and web is very new and it's all up for grabs...
* A short history of web series on Wikipedia
* A list of the top five web series cliches
