DISCOVER THE  MOST ECONOMICAL WAY TO GET VIDEO ON THE INTERNET WHILE MAINTAINING FULL CONTROL.

If you want to put video on the internet, you have to host it somewhere.

Many sites will host your video. Popular choices include You Tube, Viddler, Revver or any one of a hundred other video sharing sites on the web.

However, some of these video sharing sites are falling out of favor, particularly for business videos. Business people are in search of a video hosting solution where they have better control and higher quality, yet still do not have to pay a fortune.

Limiting your hosting to sites like You Tube is severely limiting the control you have over how your video plays, how it looks, and most importantly, how it is branded.  For more on the advantages to a business in having some sort of personal video hosting, see this post.

Amazon.com created their web services S3 accounts to meet this need and it is extremely economical. If you have an Amazon S3 account, which is free to set up, you have access to unlimited storage, inexpensive bandwidth, and you have total control over what type of video player your video appears in.

S3 stands for Simple Storage Solutions. Anyone who needs lots of storage and bandwidth should consider S3.

Only problem with S3 is that the name is a tad misleading.

“Storage Solutions” is right but “Simple” is way off base.

I have heard very tech savvy webmaster folks gripe like hell about how UN simple S3 is.

Several services have stepped in to solve THAT problem.  One I’d like to recommend is the S3 Media Player software by Mike Stewart.

Mike Stewart is one of the most respected video “gurus” on the Internet.  He was one of the early adopters of online video marketing and he has traveled the world giving help and instruction to other folks who want to do the same.

I have met Mike at a couple of seminars and consider him to be one of my mentors.  He is extremely nice, approachable and honest.

One of his newer products is the Media S3 Player.  It’s software that you download onto your own computer and then use it to make the S3 upload process much easier.

If you want to put lots of video and audio on your website, this is one of your  best solutions. Amazon S3 has become the video hosting solution of choice for almost every business centered on online video.    I know LOTS of huge websites that rely on Amazon S3.

But unless you are a real tech savvy brainiac, I promise you need something to makle S3 truly SIMPLE.

Mike’s S3 Player is going to do that for you.

Now it’s not the only solution out there.  Regular readers of Video Production Tips know I have also recommended EZS3.

Both are good,  both will do the job.  The major difference is that Mike charges a one-time fee ($249) and has it bundled with some royalty free music.  EZS3 is a monthly, ongoing subscription fee. ($20)

Mikes’ is a downloadable application and EZS3 is an online, “in the cloud” service.

So decide for yourself.  One of the advantages of going with Mike Stewart is that he provides a wide range of advice and products for the online video marketer.  He sells equipment and has lots of how-to-make-video training.  Even if you do not need the S3 Media player, he has lots of other products that might be very beneficial.  If you are serious about online video marketing, Mike is a fantastic all-purpose resource.

Here is a blog post I did about his royalty free music.  If you need to build a library of royalty free music, that is one of the most efficient and economical ways to do it.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

If you need a comprehensive course in online video production, we recommend Web Video University