Online Video Storage and Hosting-Amazon S3
By Internet Video Gal in Online Videos, Video Production Tips
For some time now, the advice on storage and hosting for Internet video has consisted largely of, “YouTube is free, so store all your videos on YouTube and embed them from YouTube onto your site.”
Now I am hearing video “gurus” say, “If you embed your videos from You Tube, people will think you don’t know what you’re doing!”
So what gives? Why the drastic change?
First of all, I do not think it is true that the majority of people will assume you don’t know what you’re doing if you host your videos on YouTube. Granted the early adopter folks are drifting away from You Tube but the majority is still there.
Aficionados believe that You Tube quality is weak and they do not like the file size and time limits imposed by You Tube. They also don’t like having the You Tube player on their sites, mostly because it pops up with “related videos” when your video is finished. That makes it easy for your website’s audience to abandon you for other You Tube videos. These complaints are perfectly valid. However it is also true that You Tube by far still has the most traffic, so posting your video on You Tube automatically exposes you to a huge potential audience.
As online video grows, more video hosting options become available. Viddler is an extremely popular alternative. Veeple is also a great solution and allows you all kinds of cool ways to make your videos clickable for better monetization.
Another popular alternative to You Tube is the Amazon S3 account services. There are many reasons to consider an Amazon S3 account.
Amazon created S3 because they believe that “quality Internet-based storage should be taken for granted.” Sounds like a great premise to me!
S3 stands for “Simple Storage Service.” Amazon developed it to be not only simple, but very inexpensive as well. They give you virtually unlimited storage and have multiple data centers to help ensure the storage is safe and reliable. (It’s really not that simple though, unless you know multiple computer languages. Read this post for more information about how to overcome that problem.)
Amazon S3 uses a system where you only pay for the storage and bandwidth that you actually use. There are no upfront fees. There are also no minimum fees or overuse fees.
To store files, Amazon S3 fees begin at 15 cents per gigabyte per month. If you get over 50 terabytes of storage, the fees start to go down per byte.
To transmit files (bandwidth) S3 charges range from 10 to 18 cents per gig, depending on overall usage.
Fees are slightly higher for storage and bandwidth usage in Europe.
Amazon.com has been a leading pioneer on the Internet since its inception. The S3 storage service seems mighty ambitious to me. Reading though their service specs I got the impression that they want to become to online file storage what Wal Mart is to retail.
Nothing wrong with that. I have an S3 account and recommend that you look into one as well.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips
Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
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5 Comment(s)
By scott broomfield on | Reply
Hi Dave -
Thanks for the mention. Two quicks things:
1) We use AWS S3 as our CDN backbone.
2) We do not charge for their delivery costs. We view those costs as part of our cost of sales, which is one of the reasons why our service is so compelling.
All the best,
Scott – CEO of Veeple
By Internet Video Gal on | Reply
Hey Scott.
I didn’t know veeple used amazon S3. I guess that is a pretty good testimonial for the quality of the service.
My new webiste, video marketing express, is going to be on S3 as well.
Lorraine
By Normal Joe on | Reply
Good stuff Dave…found your site through a preview copy of an ebook we are both featured in.
I have a question for ya! I have an s3 account…but…I don’t really understand it lol.
I’m usually pretty good at figuring things out, but I just haven’t taken the time to figure out how to actually get my videos streaming from their service.
Is there an easy way to make it happen? Like a plugin or something?
Normal Joes last blog post..Using Mindmaps So You Don’t Have To Remember Your Ideas
By Internet Video Gal on | Reply
Hi Joe.
Why be normal?
Lots of people have issues with S3. It is NOT easy, even though the name says it is.
Get EZS3. There’s a small banner at the bottom of this website that will take you there.
Thanks
Lorraine
By Normal Joe on | Reply
Thanks! I will check it out, especially could be useful for a few products I have in the works.
Normal Joes last blog post..President’s Day Update In Joeville