Creating your own video channel – Introduction -revised

Atmosphere Videos screenshotSetting up your own video channel sounds expensive, a lot of work and really complicated, but it is not as hard as it sounds and it certainly does not cost a lot of money. In fact, it is very cheap if you know where to go and how to do it! Apart from creating your videos (obviously), it consists of 4 steps which are explained in great detail.

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Definition of a video channel

I sometimes refer to YouTube, Brightcove, VideoJug, MySpace etc.. as video channels, but they are actually Video Portals (or networks if you like), containing video channels. In the context of this tutorial, I mean that you can have your own video channel, like you can have it on YouTube, with a couple of differences:

  • You are in total control over the quality.
  • No redirects to the video portal as is the case with YouTube and most others if you click on the view window in the player.
  • You are in total control over the video player, which has the same options as most video channels.
  • You are in total control over the look of the site and you add features as you see fit.

To be fair on the video portals, there are downsides to having your own channel:

  • You do not get traffic from your favorite video portal, unless you create special promotion videos which you upload there (I would recommend that in any case).
  • You do not get into the featured videos of your favorite video portal, unless you keep creating specials for that portal in order to get traffic to your site (again, I would recommend doing that).
  • If your videos are immensely popular and therefore use up more then 5 Terrabytes bandwidth per month, you may have unexpected extra costs.

5 Terrabytes is like having 100 videos of 10Mb each and those can be watched once by 5,000 visitors during a month. Depending on the compression and size, a video of 10mb can contain about 10minutes of video, to give you an idea. So, in normal circumstances, if you are not a famous star, you have enough reserve to have about 100 videos on your site and given the fact that not every visitor is going to watch 100 videos, you probably can say that about 20,000 visitors a month will not exceed 5Terrabytes bandwidth. Does that sound good to you?

Here are the steps that need to be taken, I explain every step in detail:

  1. Open an account with a hosting provider which allows you to play streaming video & setup your domain.
  2. Press a button to install WordPress or Joomla.
  3. Look for a good template to use. Download a script and a Flash video player to stream your videos.
  4. Upload your own videos to your web space and brand your video player.

The reason I spread this over several parts is that there are a couple of things that take time to get used to and I do not want to rush you into this, so you simply can adnvance to the next tutorial at your own pace.  Working with Joomla or WordPress requires a bit of study too because you have to dig a bit deeper into the system then you are used to. But don’t be afraid, there is no coding stuff to do and I’m here to help you along the way. If you havez questions, just write a comment in one of the related tutorials and I will respond.

I use video tutorials and text to make this work for you.

Again, if you want to make sure you do not miss out on any of the steps involved, you may want to subscribe to the newsletter by email with the latest posts and as a result, get some bonusses you will not regret.
You can find all finished tutorials on this series here below and in the member area or in the topic: Video channels/networks (on the left).

7 thoughts on “Creating your own video channel – Introduction -revised”

  1. Thanks for the great introduction. I will go through all the the series completely ! I’ve been searching on the internet for a web hosting company that allows the playing of streaming video, as well BOTH Joomla and WordPress installations. Can you make any suggestions as I’m very new at this. Thanks, and also, if you know of anyone that works with Joomla and WordPress, please send their link.
    Thanks again.

    Reply
  2. Hi Alfred,

    A lot has changed in the meantime. Currently, DreamHhost does not perform very well because they accept too many sites on the same server and as a result, the performance is below standards. At the same time, YouTube has improved incredibly. You can now upload High definition video with really great quality.
    That said, the series are still valid, except that I would use the Flash player to incorporate uploaded videos from YouTube.
    I should actually update the series in that respect. Such a lot happens in a half a year, you won’t believe it 🙂
    As for easy installation of WordPress and Joomla offerd by hosting providers, there http://www.midphase.com and http://www.knownhost.com. I still use DreamHost for experiments and tutorials. They have an impressive vault of applications, but as I said, performance is poorly these days.

    Hope this helps?

    Reply
  3. Another good host that has WordPress and Joomla on auto-install is FusionHost. They also have a script ‘No Overloaded Servers’ policy as well.

    We’ve been using them for over a year now and they are awesome!

    I don’t like DreamHost either.

    Reply
  4. Thanks Marketeering. We do have to take those “No overload server policies” with a pinch of salt, though. After all, you can’t expect too much from cheap hosting.

    Reply

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