Web Site Idea - Wish input on it please

[mcrapo]

Hello everyone.

I have been thinking about an idea for a additional web site dealing with engraving. This one that I have been thinking about would be a web site that would host video's related to engraving techniques. It would allow fellow engravers to upload a video of some technique that they would like to share with the community. The site would stream the video instead of being a download site, so that there would not be any wait time for viewing a video. This would allow people to share instructions on how to do some technique better than photo's would.

Some of the difficulties that I can see are.
1 - Development of web site
2 - Host location of web site (cost money each month)
3 - Host location of streaming video (cost money each month)
4 - Having people willing to upload videos to the site (???)
5 - International viewers having problems seeing the video due to distance and lag in the internet.
6 - Security - make sure someone can not just take all the videos

Solutions may be
1 - This is not a problem since I am a web developer and have developed sites like this in Flash before.
2,3 - a) could have people have to become a member of the site with a small monthly fee to view videos
b) could have the amount of cost displayed and take donations each month to cover this cost.
4 - a) could hope that people would be willing to upload there videos for free
b) could require payment for some videos that have owner who wish to get paid to show them (ie commercial videos), and link that payment owners paypal account - What I mean is we may be able to get people who have made videos (dvds) that are for sale to allow us to host them on the site and allow people the purchase the ability to view that video for some small cost. (Example [and I hope you don't mind this example Sam] - If Sam was willing to put his sharpening video on the site, we could split up the sections into multiple videos, that way a person is able to pay for the part they wish to see, or they can purchase the entire dvd and watch it on the site. - This may allow for added revenue for these videos (dvds)). This would allow users to access videos faster than waiting for a dvd to arrive in the mail.
c) a combination of A and B
5 - This would not be a problem if we hosted the streaming video on a place like VitalStream. They have servers around the world for hosting the same video, so people in different regions on the world can view a video without worries of distance.
6 - VitalSteam also has secure connections to the videos, that is someone will not be able to just start streaming the video without going through the site. This means people can not share a link and have it start streaming without paying for a video, if it is a pay video.

I would love to be able to add this as another part of this site. But that would be up to Sam. I appreciate that Sam was willing to create a site like this, and is willing to bear the cost (I would be willing to donate to help offset his cost), and I don't want to take away from this site at all. I just would like to add to it, to help make it even better. But that would be up to Sam.

Note sure if anyone would be interested in getting a site like this going. Would love feedback, especially from Sam.

If you are interested in seeing something that is like what I am talking about go take a look at My.Melaleuca.com. This is a Flash site that I created that streams video/audio/pdf's to customer of Melalauca.

Hope nobody takes this the wrong way. I am truly just trying to see if there is anything that I can contribute to this community. I have a lot more skills programming than engraving right now. So that is what I am trying to offer.

Any input would be most appreciated.

Thanks
Mike

 

[mcrapo]

By the way if you go look at the my.melaleuca.com web site. Click on Melaleuca University/Business Training center - Then Product Updates section to see some videos that non-members can view. Also there are some videos in Product Training section that non-members can view.

 

[beegee]

One major problem I see is that many of us are still stuck in the dial-up world and I, for one, can't download videos or flash or even do streaming at 45 kbps unless I have many hours to wait for it to load.

 

[mcrapo]

That is a very good point. It would take at least a DSL or Cable to be able to use a site like that.

I just wonder how many people are still on dial up and would not be able to use a site like this.

Mike

 

[Robert W Waters]

Pretty impressive video quality. It makes U-tube video look like junk.

Some day, broadband wire-less networks will be everywhere. I try to imagine a "cost free" wireless world, but is probably just a dream. Then again, if someone told me ten years ago there would be something like The Engraver's Café, I would not believed it was possible.

 

[vilts]

I love that idea, it would be very useful to many people. If this thing has enough support and will take off I'd like to help out too, if possible. In my previous life I was a web programmer too, so there might be something I could help with.

I cannot speak for other countries, but here in Estonia I believe the dial-in is already a history. I know no friends or acquaintances that have net slower than 1Mbps. At the end of the month I'll have myself 5Mbps connection and at country home we already got Digital TV with 12Mbps net connection.

Any of you master engravers want to move in to Estonia? We got fast and cheap internet

 

[beegee]

It's strange that Estonia could have universal high-speed, and even though I live next to a major US industrial site with its own T-1 lines, I can't get high speed of any kind, except satellite which is way expensive. No DSL no cable and no prospects of getting it, even though I have a fiber-optic CATV cable buried in the right-of-way in front of my house.

 

[Sam]

There are still plenty of dial-up connections in the USA.

For this project to work you'll need engravers who can shoot macro close-up video at very high quality levels, and then know how to edit video and audio, optimize and upload the footage, etc. Not an impossible task, but not a simple one either. Efficient video editing requires computers with plenty of horsepower, tons of RAM, LOTS of hard disk space, and the time necessary to complete the work.

 

[mcrapo]

There are still plenty of dial-up connections in the USA.

For this project to work you'll need engravers who can shoot macro close-up video at very high quality levels, and then know how to edit video and audio, optimize and upload the footage, etc. Not an impossible task, but not a simple one either. Efficient video editing requires computers with plenty of horsepower, tons of RAM, LOTS of hard disk space, and the time necessary to complete the work.

Sam.

That is correct on the ability to do macro close-up video. What I was thinking about with the video editing and converting was to have people upload there raw video's, or send them through the mail, and I would get them edited and formated to be displayed on the site. I have done a lot of video editing over the years, and have the hardware / software to do it.

The main problem that I have right now is coming up with the people who can and are willing to make the videos. I can start everything else. The only place I am lacking is in with the engraving skills to be able to help anyone else by demoing.

Mike

 

[jmcutting]

Mike,

Your web site idea is very interesting... The concept isn't too difficult but like you say getting the videos is the hardest part. I manage a web development and marketing department and also have a business where we put together videos for horse sales. You can take a look at the site http://www.digitalhorseservices.com. I have a genereal hosting account that allows us to do this using Active X in ASP pages. It is pretty simple process where you can upload a video and it automatically is added to the site. The videos progressively load and work out great for what we do. You still want to keep your files down to under 50MB. Flash video works great but they are harder for everyone to produce the FLV files needed to stream within flash. We use WMV and M1V files for our online video.

I will be interseted in hearing more about this and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments...

-justin