I have a couple of .wmv videos that I would like to post on my site. I know that using youtube is the easiest way to do this, but youtube will not allow me to upload the videos with the music.

I have uploaded the videos to my file vault. Can you tell me how to embed them onto a page?

Any assistance is appreciated!

Thanks,
Rhonda

First the legal stuff: We can't possibly police the content added to 11,000 web sites here, and therefore we don't. I don't know exactly what you're uploading, but if there's a reason you can't upload something to YouTube, then there's a pretty fair chance it's something you don't have the rights to use. Per our Terms and Conditions you are responsible for all content added to your own web site, thus if you're adding copyrighted material of any kind to your site, you do stand a chance of getting yourself in some trouble. So while we don't police content here, we also don't condone the use of any unauthorized material. Should we be contacted by the owner of any copyrighted material we would have to remove it.

Having said that, if you want to upload Windows Media videos to your web site, check out instructions for doing so such as this. If you need a hand getting that to work let me know.

Thanks for your quick response. The videos are slideshows of our middle school yearbooks. The classmate who made the slideshows purchased the music for them from iTunes. I am confused about why youtube would not allow us to post the videos with the music since we bought the songs..

If you have access to my file vault could you take a look at the videos to see if you think they'd be okay before I post them? I don't want to get in trouble, but I know my classmates would love to see them.

Purcahasing music from iTunes does not give somebody the right to redistribute that music. Which is technically what you're doing. So yes, you could get in trouble. Is it likely you will? No. It is possible you will? Yes. There have been several times in the past the music people has dragged ordinary people to court to make an example out of them. Do you want to change the music to something else before you embed on your site?

I will talk to the classmate who made the videos about changing the music before I embed them. How do we ensure that the songs we choose are okay to use??

The music would either have to be your own song, or if it's somebody else's song that is copyrighted, you'd have to have their permission to use it. Very little music can be legally uploaded to your web site. That's why people usually use things like Playlist.com, who claims to have the legal agreements in place to distribute copyrighted music.

Thanks for your help!

Brad, you ran some code to help Rhonda embed a wmv video file. If I were to embed a wmv to my website, wouldn't a # of my members be unable to see the video, if they didn't have Microsoft (or whatever s'ware was needed to run wmv)? I've been searching the web for s'ware that will convert wmv to Flash, allowing (so I hear) most of my members access to the video. Not much luck; the "free" s'ware I've run into is nothing but unworkable hooks to get me to buy the expensive program.
I've also been searching for s'ware that converts PPT to Flash, but have run into the same situation.
Ok, so I have to buy something. Can you lead me to a program that can do both conversions, that's not outrageously expensive?

The most universal video format of all is Flash, so if that's the format you have it in already, I definitely wouldn't convert it to something else. In answer to your question though, virtually all users will see Windows Media videos. Even Mac has a windows media plugin. Flash, Windows Media, and Quicktime are all pretty safe bets when loading video to your site. Given the 3 options though, I'd definitely use Flash. Our own home page videos are all in Flash.

I have one that's in wmv. Glad to hear it's very usable. Do have one from regular email that's from PPT,so I've been trying to get it converted to Flash, so far w/o success, even tho I followed your advice to the admin. just a couple of days ago. Got the conversion, but then couldn't figure out where it went (from the program). No clues on the conversion program where the video went so I couldn't exactly embed it if it disappeared.

Try doing it again and set the file to save to your desktop. Once there upload it to your File Vault. And once there let me know, I'll help you embed it.

Hi Brad,

Is it possible to use Class Creator's swf player to play a .flv file hosted somewhere else? Obviously, this would be via an embedded player with the link to the remote file.

e.g.:

object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="ClassCreatorSlideshow.swf" width="640" height="480"
   param name="movie" value="ClassCreatorSlideshow.swf"
   param name="wmode" value="transparent"
   param name="flashvars" value="http://blackham.info/shs72/SHS_HOMECOMING_ASSEMBLY_1991.flv"

NOTE: file is being uploaded so doesn't exist yet.

Lynn

Hi Lynn,

The security settings in swf files typically want the .flv to be on the same server as the .swf. I would recommend hosting both on the other server and simply embedding the results on your site. You will need to include the full URL for the other system in your embedded object URL since both elements will be loading from the other system.

Jessica
Class Creator Support

Hi Jessica,

OK, next question - how much space do I have remaining for uploads, if I wanted to host the file on my site? Enough for half a gig .flv file?

The problem is, that the hosting server is simply a file server and doesn't want to host the player. It would be a progressive download instead of a stream. Does this change the parameters any?

Anywhere in the system where File Vault space is used you'll see the current storage levels. For instance click on your Gallery Creator link and you'll see you're not even using half of your current File Vault space.

No, a half gig flv is huge. We do have a much higher storage option coming up but it's not available yet and will cost more. Better off hosting the flv externally.

It's actually not so much that the two files need to be on the same server, rather, both servers have to have the MIME types configured correctly. If that's the case you can host your swf here and pull in your flv from the third party host, successfully allowing your video to progressively download (stream).

The third party host will know how to allow MIME type flv files to work but you can tell them if necessary. Here are the directions for IIS:

Your host needs to setup the flv mime type as mentioned below:

1) Select the site to configure in IIS, right click and select "Properties"
2) Under HTTP Headers Tab, select "File Types" under the MIME Map section and select "New Type"
3) Type ".flv" as the associated extension and "video/x-flv" as the content type.
4) Select "OK" and you're ready to fly!

Thanks Brad and Jessica. Actually got it working. We have one more 'tweak' to add timecode metadata so the user can scrub forward, but it's cool. Check it out.. http://www.springville72.com/class_gallery.cfm?gallery_id=12239&community=y

Thanks again,

Lynn