Creating a password protected website with video

[Tyler.Carr14]

My teacher asked me to create a website for him to store all of his
football videos, so that they would be easily accessible to all of his
players. Although he doesn't want anyone (such as other schools) to be
able to look at them so he wants them password protected. Starting to
use Publisher i realized videos are fairly hard to put on. Every site
i look at says something different about whether you can or can not
put videos on publisher. Just placing links on the site to Youtube or
somewhere i thought could be an option but i need a spot where the
videos would be password protected, any suggestions? Other then that
im not really sure what my other options are. I dont know anything
about embedding video or any Html codes. I'd prefer if i could play
the videos on the website but if its easier linking them, that will
work too. What should i do!? Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[DavidF]

Every web host provides a mechanism for creating password protected
directories or subfolders where you can store the files, but it varies by
the host. Go to your host, and look in the support section or the FAQs and
you should be able to find a solution. Uploading your files to that password
protected folder on your host is the easiest solution. At the same time it
seems to me that it would be pretty easy for that password to get out, and
then anybody could download all the files.

Embedding a player in a webpage is more challenging, but with all the new
web services available today, there should be a site available to host your
videos and provide good security. I don't deal with video files much at all,
so haven't paid much attention to it, but I would start Googling for such
sites. Finding such a site would probably be best...and perhaps someone else
who is reading this can make a suggestion. Alternatively, keep googling for
information on embedding a video player.

And one other suggestion...here is a Publisher site where the user has
inserted a Google video player. View the source code to see what this person
did. Do you have the option of restricting access to a youtube site from the
public...and then link the videos to your site like this person did? Or
perhaps the same would be true of Google video site? Once again, I don't
have any experience with videos...sorry.

DavidF

 

[Tyler.Carr14]

Every web host provides a mechanism for creating password protected
directories or subfolders where you can store the files, but it varies by
the host. Go to your host, and look in the support section or the FAQs and
you should be able to find a solution. Uploading your files to that password
protected folder on your host is the easiest solution. At the same time it
seems to me that it would be pretty easy for that password to get out, and
then anybody could download all the files.

Embedding a player in a webpage is more challenging, but with all the new
web services available today, there should be a site available to host your
videos and provide good security. I don't deal with video files much at all,
so haven't paid much attention to it, but I would start Googling for such
sites. Finding such a site would probably be best...and perhaps someone else
who is reading this can make a suggestion. Alternatively, keep googling for
information on embedding a video player.

And one other suggestion...here is a Publisher site where the user has
inserted a Google video player. View the source code to see what this person
did. Do you have the option of restricting access to a youtube site from the
public...and then link the videos to your site like this person did? Or
perhaps the same would be true of Google video site? Once again, I don't
have any experience with videos...sorry.

DavidF






- Show quoted text -

Thanks a lot.

I searched around and I found you can upload a video onto google video
as "unlisted" and then there's actually a link on the site to embed
the video into your own site.
Im not sure if your interested, but i noticed this type of question
gets asked a lot here, i found all of this out at
http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48320&topic=&useful=1&expand_useful=1&#helpful

 

[Tyler.Carr14]

Ok so now I have my site with embedded video and i also used an Html
Password lock to put a password on my site. Will either of these
create problems when I publish my site to the web? And ive never
published a site to the web before so i was wondering if you could
help me out. Do you have any recommended free FTP software, or Web
hosts? And when i was looking for Web hosts i found many that said
they had no forced ads, but isnt that how these places make a profit?
Should i worry if I use one of these bannerless web hosts that they
may close down? Thanks again. Oh, and i swear these are my last
questions

 

[Don Schmidt]

As for password protecting some pages on my website, I use the procedure
outlined by my ISP, items, 21 and 22.

http://www.iinet.com/support/faqlist.php?cat=web hosting&PHPSESSID=fb00b05cf3baac38ce5b271172e35894


As for a very nice free FTP, FileZilla version 2.2.32
There is a version 3.xx available but it is under development and at this
time lacks some of the functionality of 2.2.32.

If you are unable to find version 2.2.32 email me and I'll send you a copy.

dschmidt AT iinet DOT com


--
Don
Vancouver, USA





Ok so now I have my site with embedded video and i also used an Html
Password lock to put a password on my site. Will either of these
create problems when I publish my site to the web? And ive never
published a site to the web before so i was wondering if you could
help me out. Do you have any recommended free FTP software, or Web
hosts? And when i was looking for Web hosts i found many that said
they had no forced ads, but isnt that how these places make a profit?
Should i worry if I use one of these bannerless web hosts that they
may close down? Thanks again. Oh, and i swear these are my last
questions

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for sharing the information.

Part of the reason I have not invested any time in learning about this is
that I make do with a dial-up internet connection in most cases. This means
that trying to view any video takes way too much time to download.

After I posted the link to the Pub site that does have the embedded google
video player, it occurred to me that perhaps this whole idea of posting game
films for the football team to study is not very practical. I say this
because it seems to me that in order for this idea to work the video would
have to be much larger than the example in the site, or the details would
not be visible. This would make the already large video file way too large
to upload and download...even if the team member does have a high speed
internet connection. I can't image how many bytes a full game film shown at
full screen resolution would be. I guess I am saying that this whole idea
just doesn't sound practical when you start thinking about how large the
files would have to be....even with broadband.

Perhaps I am not understanding your goals, but before you invest much more
time in this teacher's project, you should try uploading one of the films
they want to make available to the Google video site, and test out the whole
idea. How large are the video files? Furthermore, if that proves workable,
perhaps you should just provide links to the videos rather than try to build
a Publisher site to view them on...seems much faster.

Just some things to think about...but I do appreciate you telling me and the
others in this group about what you found out about Google videos.

DavidF

- Show quoted text -

Thanks a lot.

I searched around and I found you can upload a video onto google video
as "unlisted" and then there's actually a link on the site to embed
the video into your own site.
Im not sure if your interested, but i noticed this type of question
gets asked a lot here, i found all of this out at
http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48320&topic=&useful=1&expand_useful=1&#helpful

 

[DavidF]

I concur with Don's suggestion about a FTP client...

As per a host, I would consider my other reply to you today. How big are the
video files this teacher wants you to post? If they are as big as I expect,
then I doubt that you will find any free hosting services that would allow
for that much content. I can make recommendation about possible hosts, but
before we go further you need to know how big these files are. And I would
try uploading one of them to the Google video sites as a test, and see if
that is going to work for teacher. Somehow I doubt it...but if you want to
pursue these questions, post back after finding out how big the video files
are. I and the others on this group will be happy to answer your follow up
questions.

DavidF

Ok so now I have my site with embedded video and i also used an Html
Password lock to put a password on my site. Will either of these
create problems when I publish my site to the web? And ive never
published a site to the web before so i was wondering if you could
help me out. Do you have any recommended free FTP software, or Web
hosts? And when i was looking for Web hosts i found many that said
they had no forced ads, but isnt that how these places make a profit?
Should i worry if I use one of these bannerless web hosts that they
may close down? Thanks again. Oh, and i swear these are my last
questions

 

[Tyler.Carr14]

Ugh. That is actually a great point, possibly a point i didnt want to
hear, but I'm glad you mentioned it now. I'm also on dial-up and don't
really have much idea about uploading or downloading video. My teacher
had suggested we upload a video this monday so ill have to post back
when i find out if the size of file is do-able, I'm not sure if he
wants to upload games or not, but that definitely could be an issue
(im hoping it might be something smaller like drills). Also, my
teacher seems pretty keen on the whole website thing becaue he's
thinking he could also put up game schedules, and stuff like that. I
believe the majority of the players will have fairly fast internet,
many people in my area do, (I unfortunately live in the middle of
nowhere surrounded by walls of trees), But like you said with files
this big it might be a problem. Also i was under the impression that
Embedding a video into a site didnt really take up all that much
space.... although like i might have mentioned before im pretty new to
all of this. If i upload a file to google video then embed it to my
site on a different host, how much space does that take up on my
website host? If I wouldnt be able to find a free host with that much
space, then i think i should definitely consider just posting the
links on his site. ill have to post again when i find out the length
and size of these videos, but thanks again for all the help, I'm glad
yuo notified me of this now.

 

[DavidF]

Look, I am no expert but I believe that you should design a webpage to the
lowest common denominator...in other words, it should work for those with a
dial-up connection. However, it does seem like many designers simply don't
care about the dial-up viewer, and are building sites that take a broadband
connection to view properly...to each their own. But it seems to me that if
this site is supposed to target the local community it should be inclusive
of those who can't get or perhaps can't afford broadband.

Find out how big the files are. It takes me about 5 minutes per meg, and I
can't imagine that the files are less than one meg. In fact I would bet they
are many megs. This means I would not be watching them...nor would you.

As far as how that file size affects your website size, it doesn't. Google
servers are hosting the file, not you. You would be embedding the video
player and linking to the file. When someone tried to view the video, it
would be downloaded from the google server via your site.

I probably shouldn't say this, but I think your teacher is expecting way too
much of you. If the whole class wants to take on a website for a project,
that is one thing...especially if the teacher or the school is willing to
pay for the hosting. But to put all of this on you seems unfair and
unrealistic. It sounds like your teacher has no concept of what they are
asking of you. Is this for a computer class? Are you getting credit? Or does
the teacher just want someone to build a site for him for free? Just my 2
cents worth...my rant is over.

DavidF

Ugh. That is actually a great point, possibly a point i didnt want to
hear, but I'm glad you mentioned it now. I'm also on dial-up and don't
really have much idea about uploading or downloading video. My teacher
had suggested we upload a video this monday so ill have to post back
when i find out if the size of file is do-able, I'm not sure if he
wants to upload games or not, but that definitely could be an issue
(im hoping it might be something smaller like drills). Also, my
teacher seems pretty keen on the whole website thing becaue he's
thinking he could also put up game schedules, and stuff like that. I
believe the majority of the players will have fairly fast internet,
many people in my area do, (I unfortunately live in the middle of
nowhere surrounded by walls of trees), But like you said with files
this big it might be a problem. Also i was under the impression that
Embedding a video into a site didnt really take up all that much
space.... although like i might have mentioned before im pretty new to
all of this. If i upload a file to google video then embed it to my
site on a different host, how much space does that take up on my
website host? If I wouldnt be able to find a free host with that much
space, then i think i should definitely consider just posting the
links on his site. ill have to post again when i find out the length
and size of these videos, but thanks again for all the help, I'm glad
yuo notified me of this now.

 

[Tyler.Carr14]

Actually yeah your right, my gym teacher really doesnt have any idea
at how much work it is to build a site, or anything about computers at
all, which is why he asked me to make it for him. I am getting my full
40 hours of community service i need to graduate high school from this
(and according to him my name will go down in the school's football
history forever), although i guess i might end up spending more then
that after its all said and done. So far i havent really minded the
extra work, im trying to keep the site as simple as i can, and not
spend too much time on design or anything like that.

I haven't yet found out the exact sizes of the video files, Apparently
my teacher meant he'd get the videos the next next monday, but he said
they would be games, but they could easily be split into the four
quarters, which would make them approximately 12 minutes long. As far
as making it dial up friendly, I think he is planning on having other
stuff on his site, so at least the video won't be the entire site and
dial up users will be able to get something from it. The site is meant
only for the football team so the dial-up users might be able to get
the videos from the coach by bringing in a USB storage device. Either
way the dial up users will unfortunately be excluded from the video
section of the site, the sad reality all people running on a few kb/s
must accept i think. I know ive never been able to load a video more
then 5 seconds in length without waiting over an hour. On the bright
side, I think the majority of players that access the site will have
high speed internet and it shouldn't be too big a problem.

Also im glad that embedding doesnt take up any space on my site, you
had me worried for a bit. Does this mean i can find a free web host if
i dont need the storage space? A quick search i did showed a list of a
couple that were free, some with ads on them some with out. Can i
easily upload my website to one of the free web hosts? ( I don't need
the storage space or any of the other features i saw on hosts that
costed money). And then should i worry if i pick one that is
bannerless or without ads?

I am trying to teach my gym teacher all of this so that he will be
able to edit it and maintain the site without my help in the future,
so hopefully once i have it uploaded and working ill be done with it.

 

[DavidF]

I still think the idea of making game films available on a website is not
practical, but I guess you will find out for yourself whether it is or not.
I am just guessing that the files are going to be way too big. Making the
files available to copy on a thumb drive makes more sense....if the thumb
drive is large enough.

Don't forget that I said if you use Google then you don't store the files on
your severs, but I don't know that Google will even allow you to store files
of the size. I also don't know if free hosting services allow you to import
data from other servers....

I would have your teacher spring for the cost of the host, as you are going
to turn it over to him anyway. And then use one of the free web building
modules that come with almost any hosting service. That way any future
"webmaster" can manage the site without the need for Publisher. Or perhaps
find one of the free hosting services that has website buidling module, and
use that...if there is one. Perhaps
http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/GetOnline/WebSite or check out the free
hosting on Yahoo...I think that also has free website building tools.

Good luck. I don't think you will have any trouble getting your 40 hours,
and if nothing else it will be a good learning experience for you.

DavidF

Actually yeah your right, my gym teacher really doesnt have any idea
at how much work it is to build a site, or anything about computers at
all, which is why he asked me to make it for him. I am getting my full
40 hours of community service i need to graduate high school from this
(and according to him my name will go down in the school's football
history forever), although i guess i might end up spending more then
that after its all said and done. So far i havent really minded the
extra work, im trying to keep the site as simple as i can, and not
spend too much time on design or anything like that.

I haven't yet found out the exact sizes of the video files, Apparently
my teacher meant he'd get the videos the next next monday, but he said
they would be games, but they could easily be split into the four
quarters, which would make them approximately 12 minutes long. As far
as making it dial up friendly, I think he is planning on having other
stuff on his site, so at least the video won't be the entire site and
dial up users will be able to get something from it. The site is meant
only for the football team so the dial-up users might be able to get
the videos from the coach by bringing in a USB storage device. Either
way the dial up users will unfortunately be excluded from the video
section of the site, the sad reality all people running on a few kb/s
must accept i think. I know ive never been able to load a video more
then 5 seconds in length without waiting over an hour. On the bright
side, I think the majority of players that access the site will have
high speed internet and it shouldn't be too big a problem.

Also im glad that embedding doesnt take up any space on my site, you
had me worried for a bit. Does this mean i can find a free web host if
i dont need the storage space? A quick search i did showed a list of a
couple that were free, some with ads on them some with out. Can i
easily upload my website to one of the free web hosts? ( I don't need
the storage space or any of the other features i saw on hosts that
costed money). And then should i worry if i pick one that is
bannerless or without ads?

I am trying to teach my gym teacher all of this so that he will be
able to edit it and maintain the site without my help in the future,
so hopefully once i have it uploaded and working ill be done with it.

 

[Mike Koewler]

David,

Since you have dial-up, can you check
http://www.stjamesotv.com/film.html and see how it works for you? You
will have to click the button to start the movie.

It is a film about the cornerstone of a school being laid back in about
1940. A lady found an old home movie and had it converted to a digital
file, which I then converted to a flash video/html page. I've never
viewed it via dial-up but it does stream so you will not have to wait
for the entire movie to download.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[DavidF]

Hi Mike,

The page loads quickly as does the video player. It initially says "Ving the
Cornerstone at the Sch" with John Henry Reese below the cropped title, and A
film from April, 1940 below that. It also has a play button superimposed
over that text. After waiting a couple minutes, I clicked the play button
and the first frame of the film loads quickly, and then it appears that I
get a new frame about every 3 or 4 seconds. It looks like it is a viable
method except for the download speed for a dial-up connection, though if
that person wants to watch the whole film, they could walk away from their
computer, or do something else while it downloads. It takes me about 5
minutes to download a 1 meg file, so you can probably use that rate to
calculate how long it will take the dial-up viewer to download the entire
movie, though many dial-up viewers will connect at a higher connection rate
than I do. Also, once a video is downloaded in full, I can go back and play
it at regular speed. I assume this will be true of this video.

And by the way, it threw an error sign in the status bar when I viewed it in
IE6, but I suspect that is because I have an older version of Flash
installed on this machine. And thought the error sign was there, the film
did still stream. I didn't get the error symbol in FF2.

I am curious...how many real time minutes is the film length, and how big is
the file?

Interestingly, I have had the film downloading as I wrote this reply, and
now when I look at the film, it seems to be streaming more quickly with a
new frame every 1 to 2 seconds, which makes it more interesting to watch
while it loads ;-)

DavidF

 

[Mike Koewler]

David,

The movie, on the DVD, is 195 megs. 40 megs of that is additional stuff
because the .mov file is only 152 megs. The .swf file I converted the
..mov file to is 28 meg. But, the html page is only 11K.

Serif sometimes bundles a program called KoolMoves with its software and
it allows me to create Flash files. I then have the option to export it
as a .swf file or an html file. The html somehow links to the .swf so it
stays small.

That's only the second time I used this option, normally I just add
audio (Sunday sermon) to a still image and upload that file and link to it.

I learned that if I go adding 2-6 pages every week to a web file, it can
get huge in a hurry. The file I used for April and May's issues of the
paper (9 issues) is 60+ pages. I'm starting a new one for June!

Mike

 

[DavidF]

Mike,

I think that given the subject, there are going to be people in the church
that will love to see the video. Hopefully they will have a fast connection.
Your iframe/koolmoves/flash approach works well.

I did notice that the menu drop downs, drop behind the iframe, so you might
want to tweak that.

Thanks.

DavidF

 

[Mike Koewler]

David,

Thanks for that heads-up. I don't usually do nav bars so they are an
afterthought!

Mike