Streaming Video

**mark the shoeshine boy** · 01-16-2007, 03:56 PM

Does anyone know of an inexpensive way of sending streaming video in an email...

I can buy this service for 40 bucks a month, but I have access to my own server and so forth, so if I can save money, I will.

Here is the scenario....customer emails me with a purchase quote....with a webcam i record a message that I will be with him in 15 minutes with the price quotes and etc...

I upload this message and send it back to the client with a link in the email that would produce a video without downloading and passes the filters.

Then with a cam I take a one minute video of the actual product and send that with the customer requested info....but this client is blown away with an actual walk around of the product that they are interested in....

Does this make sense, the way that I described it....

Is there any software like that available that is real reasonable...

mark the shoeshine boy

**wa_bacchus** · 01-16-2007, 04:51 PM

Youtube or google video. Both use a flash based player. You could upload the video to either one (youtube provides realtime recording of a video via flash, but it isnt too pretty) and then send the link to the user to visit the page.

It might be possible to embed the video into email also, like on webpages. It would still live on youtube, but the user would see it right in the email and be able to click the start button to play it.

With the just the link in the email, you could do a plain-text email, which would pass most virus scanners. An embedded video email would need to be html, and might be flagged on some virus scanners.

Only other option is sending an actual video, which means a large attachment that no customer would appreciate. You could try to create your own self-playing, self-enclosed flash video, but the technical requirements to do that may be beyond all but a pro - not to mention you'd probably be tagged by virus scanners.

-Steven "spam man"
(used to work at classmates.com in the "mass mailing" department...)

**jbovee** · 01-16-2007, 05:06 PM

The answer depends on what your current platform is. Windows, Mac, or Linux.

You need to stick to one of the major formats so you ensure that your client will have the required software to play your video. Sadly, Windows Media is the most prevalent, but then your Mac customers will have trouble. Quicktime is a good multiplatform choice, but requires your
Windows users (90%+ of the market) to install software. Flash may be a good compromise.

Here is a doc on how to use OpenSource tools for flash:

http://klaus.geekserver.net/flash/streaming.html

If you are running Windows here is some good information:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...r/version.aspx

and

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...treamserv.aspx

Finally, if you are an Apple shop:

For Mac OS X Server:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/

or Mac OS X Desktop edition:

http://developer.apple.com/opensourc...ing/index.html

Sorry for the long post. Can you tell I am an IT guy during the day???

**wa_bacchus** · 01-16-2007, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by jbovee

Sorry for the long post. Can you tell I am an IT guy during the day???

MOVE!!!
Nick_Burns.jpg

**jbovee** · 01-16-2007, 06:26 PM

Well, I would say I walked right into that one.

**vasco** · 01-17-2007, 09:21 AM

This it what I would do, it's simple and cost effective:

1) Record your video
2) Process it with SwishVideo
3) Upload the video to your site, send your client the link via email, and you're done.

The Swish video player has all of the controls (play/stop/fast forward, etc) so it should be easy for anyone to use.

- Rob

**wa_bacchus** · 01-17-2007, 09:33 AM

Originally Posted by vasco

3) Upload the video to your site, send your client the link via email, and you're done.

I think the point is he doesn't have a site... And is trying to reduce complexity and hosting costs..

-S

**vasco** · 01-17-2007, 09:37 AM

Hello S,

Mark said "but I have access to my own server and so forth". So I'm assuming he has one. If not, your suggestion of YouTube/Google would do the trick.

- Rob

**wa_bacchus** · 01-17-2007, 10:02 AM

Forgot about this, Comcast offers free video email. They seem to host the whole thing, so basically all you do is take the video, put in the email address, and you are done..

http://www.comcast.net/videomail/

**mark the shoeshine boy** · 01-17-2007, 01:26 PM

thanks guys...

comcast is only free to thier subscribers, however this is exactly what i am looking for....

the $40 bucks a month will get me this...Since we have the servers available, i was trying to find out how what software to do it with and if the cost is feasible...yes we have a website...and we actually have a team of webbuilders but they have come up short on the solutions.

Helloworld is the company that has it....$40 monthly

what is great about the link in the email, it usually passes through the filters and then the customer is blown away by the video message, instead of the printed email.....

if you can come up with something, let me know...

mark tssb

**wa_bacchus** · 01-17-2007, 02:38 PM

The extra details make a big difference. The hard part is getting the video from your system to the web and in the proper format.

I know I could write a perl or php web-based application that would do something like that. Basically you would record the video. Go to a webpage with a text input for users email, the text message you want, ("Plese click here to hear more from Mark"), and a button to upload the video.

You'd click okay, and the video would be converted to an embedded flash player, a temporary website would be created, and an email would be sent out to the user with a link to the website with the custom video.

Of course you are talking of several thousand dollars of development time. Unless the "web development team" are your employees, it might be cheaper just to go with the 40 bucks a month...

-S

**perry** · 01-17-2007, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by wa_bacchus

-Steven "spam man"
(used to work at classmates.com in the "mass mailing" department...)

Ahh.. so you're the source of all that junk! Don't feel too bad, I have a friend that worked for doubleclick

I think that FlowPlayer would probably help out a little. Flash video player that can be embedded in to webpages. Has a bit about encoding in to FLV format.. I'd think that your web developers could come up with a PHP program to play files based on the filename in the URL. Give the files obscure names (based on MD5 hash maybe?) and it'd be doubtful that one customer would be able to track down the name of another customer's video.