Video format for a pay site
 

What would you recommend for a video format for a pay-site? WMV? FLA? MP4?

The desire is to prevent (for a lack of a better term) users downloading clips.

Why not go with embedded FLV's if you don't want members to be able to download..

Because those are easily downloaded. You're going to want to go with Adobe Flash Media Server and h264 encoded .mp4's to do what you're wanting to do. Then there are some extra tweaks that need to be done to stop the Replay software from grabbing them.

Stinkeyfingerz (Ryan) has worked on this and is the guy you need to talk to about it.

Unfortunately unless you are willing to use some sort of DRM, pretty much all video these days can be downloaded. Even flash video is easy to download now.

By embedding the files into the page and not allowing download links, you could prevent a few casual surfers from getting it, but that's about it.

Most people that used DRM have ditched it, so I think its kinda the norm now.

My videos can't be downloaded, and have methods to dissuade people from screen capture recording too. Feel free to email me at [email protected] to discuss it further. Thanks for the props Robbie. :thumbsup

doesn'y reallymatter these days. is the material quality or quantity ?


ashampoo btw

Is that a challenge? Where's the sample? :winkwink:

No problem Ryan, you have really done your homework on this and the tips you gave me and my programmer put us on the path to nailing it down too. :)
As I understand it you are now in a position to offer this as a service.
So if any of you out there are serious about being in control of your content, talk to Ryan. Don't make any replies about how it can be downloaded. Just let him show you. And let you try to download something of his using any software including replay and you will see for yourself how effective his techniques are. :)

You can't download his stuff. I've already used several guys with more experience than most and they can't touch it either. :)

Thats cool man, I'd be interested in the method. I'll hit you up.

The whole situation really sucks, cause on one hand we want to protect our content so its not floating around the web, and on the other hand, downloadable content that you can keep and use on other devices, is a big selling point for a lot of customers. I've done polls before where people basically say that they like the convenience of in-browser viewing, but that without the ability to keep the ones they like, they wouldn't sign up. :-(

Oh well.

How can that be? That StickyFingerz guy is a no talent clown from what some people say... :winkwink:

why even bother when the likes of ciaociao can do anything!!!

Who? lol :helpme

Hi Kelvin, the key is to be in control of your stuff. I stream h264 .mp4's at a nice quality and keep them from being downloaded as I said before. But then, I turn around and give my members a smaller resolution .wmv version that is way over-watermarked for them to download. And also I hired removeyourcontent.com to police our old stuff that was out there before I started this method.

It's kinda the best of both worlds for me. I keep my new high quality scenes off the tubes and torrents. Yet I still give my members something to download if they so choose. And if someone does upload one of the small .wmv's, then it is watermarked top and bottom to help against all the tube sites out there who pull that shitty trick of setting their encoder to clip off the bottom of the vids so your watermark is lost.

And then of course as soon as removeyourcontent dmca's them, then that gets pulled down from the offending site. :) It keeps our membership a valuable commodity for our members, instead of it being a situation where their membership is worthless because of the members area being ripped on every tube and torrent.

Just having back a little control over your stuff does wonders for sales and retention.

Nice, Yeah I could see how that defiantly would reduce the amount of your content floating around. So ridiculous that we have to double watermark our content just to keep it from being altered.

Thanks for the info, Always interesting to hear what methods people use to protect their assets. :)

There is such a thing as OVER protecting your content. If the masses don't know about it, they aren't looking for it, they aren't downloading it, they aren't buying it, and you probably aren't making any money off it. It was not too long ago when people were spamming their content all over P2P networks and newsgroups just to get some exposure that wasn't from a TGP/MGP. Now the new trend is tube sites, it's still the same concept.

:2 cents:

I would love to see that sample stickyfingerz. You can't say "my videos can't be downloaded" and not even offer a public challenge. ;) If someone proves that your videos can be downloaded it gives you something to improve on. If no one can do it, that gives you more business. What do you have to lose?

What about offering a download option for a small additional fee?

Lots to lose. Its a player ONLY for members areas. That lowers the risk of it being compromised. Putting it out there publicly A: allows someone to be able to try and crack it without paying a membership fee, and B: I am not going to give my ideas that no one else is using or has away to a competing company that has programmers with nothing to do to come out with a similar method. Thats why the demo isn't released publicly and its only show to program owners on a case by case method. And I would prefer if the samples that are released in the wild are the ones that I 'put' there. I agree completely you need to release some free videos out there, and that does get you exposure. Already do that. :winkwink:

I want to do something like this but I'm always worried about the user on the shitty connection fighting ::buffering::buffering::buffering::

I'm about to put up a new website that's all video and trying to find a simple way to offer it up. I'm not too worried about protection, I'm a strong believer in letting your users download full videos, etc.

Some people have no clue.

DRM is not the answer people.

There is 0 buffering with ours. They would have to be on a really terrible connection for ours to have issues. Plus we have HD video so really someone on a subpar connection shouldn't even really join an HD site lol I have to totally disagree with you on the download thing. If they were say paying 4.00 per video to allow them to keep the vids ok, but we are talking about hundreds of videos on a site and only paying less than 30.00 to 'view' them. Should always be a rental type agreement on a site that gives 1 months access for a fee. Would be like me walking into blockbuster paying 30.00 taking all the movies I want, and keeping them. Doesn't make good biz sense to let them dl them.

I don't like 'drm' either. :winkwink: Luckily we don't use it. Users don't have to put in a user or pw to view our vids other than to enter the members area. :upsidedow

Everyone will have their own opinion so there is no use arguing about it but I'm of the mindset watermark all your videos and let your users download them if they so choose.