Why is Storing your Video on Demand files so Critical?
Streaming has clearly been around for at least 10 years as we know it.
We are still and early stages of streaming for both Live and VOD (Video On Demand). So, you are a Church group, School, or you just have lots of videos to offer on the web and the question becomes, “Where do I store my media safely?”.
There are a great deal of people using Free or the cheapest places to host their media. Over time this becomes precious media. I have seen Churches especially gone down this path to save only to pay big later.
Some organizations have experienced painful downtime along with their own physical media file moves that have matured them into making more informed choices for Streaming solutions Providers and their support teams.
Why all the concern about storage? It is not today that you should be concerned with choosing where you can store them, it is when your web or media administrator moves on sometimes without clear instructions as to where and how the media is stored.
What are the the key things I have to watch out for?
Everyone has heard of the NFL or No Free Lunch. As an organization grows and your customers and viewers come to rely more on the media that you have stored and their unique links to those files. The unique URL or path to your media files are key to your impending or potential danger. Anytime you have Free or bare discount Anything, you run the risk of losing something valuable. How can you complain or request an explanation to a company that is not compensated for their services with Free?
Free things can be great for undetermined amounts of time, but when your Free service realizes they have to start charging you or go out of business, your views change and you become uncertain of the stability of your precious media. When it comes to your business or organization stability, you should not rely on the Free or almost free business model. Sometimes Free is not always free, yo have to pay by seeing ads you do not want to see. Afterall, the streaming business or organization you choose to work with cannot function without a clear path for compensation.
If you are in that position now, plan ahead today for the worst case scenario which can be extended downtimes, lost passwords, files, no backups. The key is to CYA (Cover Your bAckside).
If the worst happens, someone in your organization, maybe even you, will have to dig up any and all your media files you will have to reorganize, upload them to a new place, learn their URL path Structure, and get into each of your Flash files (which requires manually opening Flash swf or fla files) and rename the path and upload them.
Remember, if your streaming service is down, gone, or telling you they they have to move or close, YOUR STREAMING WILL NOT BE WORKING and potentially you lose your files. This can be a horrible position to be in. The blame can rest on YOUR development team that has to answer to the CEO or Organization head.
Selecting Streaming and Media Storage Services Summary -
- Look for a well Established service with history
- Tech support that clearly understands streaming and it’s challenges
- Multiple POP, peer, server, network, and publishing points.
- FTP Compatibilities
- Statistics for Viewer identification and Usage
- Administration tools would be a plus (automatic mount point generation)
- Live Streaming for Flash, Windows media, and Progressive
Feel free to comment….
YourStreamingHost.com offers all these streaming solutions.
800 250-1507 ext. 115
