Self Hosted Video Vs Cloud Video Hosting

Have you ever made a video that you wanted to post immediately on your website? Well, that’s great, what did you do next?

Log in to the admin settings, upload the video to the server, and that’s it, right? 

What happens in a situation like this? The site visitors cannot load the video, and the page takes a long time to load.  Some of the users want a lower bandwidth suitable video format. What if someone directly goes on and downloads the video and puts it somewhere else without credits? 

All of the above scenarios are bad. As it is said, “Just because you can host your videos doesn’t mean you should.”

But before we go into the many technical details of solving this problem, let us understand the basic terminologies for video hosting.

There are two ways to host a video on your website. One is a self-hosted video, and the second is to embed the video into your site. 

Self hosted video means that you are not using any third-party storage or server implementations. You host the video directly on the base service provider or your website. Embedding a video, also known as cloud video hosting, means to upload a video on a third-party cloud video hosting service provider and then use the link on your website. The video still appears on your website, but it is not on the website’s server. 

So, which is the best to use? Let’s find out. 

Slow-loading

When you upload the video on the server where your website is hosted, the users will experience slower loading rates than they do on YouTube or any other cloud video hosting service provider. The problem here is that they need to wait for the video to be downloaded, which is stored on a single server. The situation may be worse when users have low internet speed. 

Video Format Issues

The standard HTML formats do not provide specific guidelines as to which video format should be supported. The result is that browsers have now selected one suitable design for them to provide, making it impossible for one type of format to work across all the browsers. This is where a cloud video hosting service can help you out. There is no need to take care of the formatting issues. All you need to do is supply the video, and everything else will be taken care of by the provider. 

Variable Video Sizes

One of the biggest concerns with self-hosted videos is the quality of the video. For instance, if you shot a video in 720p and uploaded it to your website, your users will need bandwidth to load a 720p video. But it may not be possible. Hence, you need to go for a lower quality video, but at the same time need to keep good quality for some higher-end users. For that, cloud video hosting will be better. Although it is possible for you to manually convert the video into all formats and handle the requests accordingly, it depends on your website's time-frame and what you need. 

Piracy

If you are running a business with your videos, or even if you are just concerned about securing your content, you need to address this issue of video piracy. Any of the self-hosted videos can be downloaded with hacks or some plugins. It would help if you made sure that doesn’t happen. As a company with primary income through video, you cannot let the content get pirated. Movies and show businesses lose around 50% of their earnings owing to video piracy issues. Yes, some of the cloud video hosting services cannot offer something like piracy protection, but that is why you need to choose the best. 

The Server’s Distributed Bandwidth

Many times, if you are using a server to host your website, it is obvious that you are not the only one. There are going to be many such websites there. So, the server provider will split or distribute the server’s bandwidth in multiple channels. The bandwidth along with other resources is limited, and hence, if a video is uploaded on the same server, it may be possible the server speed will slow your users down. It is not only because of that, but also that the video files' size is way bigger than images or other HTML content. It must be taken into account while selecting the option for hosting. 

Storage Space Issues

If you need to put a lot of videos online, there will always be a problem with storage and uploading.  Many server providers limit the size of file uploads on their website. It may create trouble, especially while hosting video files. In this, the cloud video hosting service can make your life easier. 

Conversion Codes

You may think that all of the above mentioned can be done by embedding additional code on the website. Well, that certainly is true, but it can take time. Usually, the video hosting process is trickier than thought, as there are many things you need to look out for. If you want some additional features like forwarding/backward functionality or maybe changing the quality, many new lines of code will be needed to address that. But with a cloud video hosting service, the hassle can be reduced.

Browser capabilities

We have already talked about the browser supports for various file formats. But let us discuss the real problem while dealing with multiple browsers. Some file formats may not work on some browsers, but if a format is supported, how well is it going to do? For example, the OGG file format will look great on Microsoft edge, but it would look weirdly grainy on Mozilla Firefox. Although the video will run, it will noy be of the same quality, even though the actual file quality is untouched. 

Visibility 

Are your videos already out there, or are you still getting started? This question needs to be answered while you decide between self-hosted video and cloud video hosting. If you need better visibility, you must use a cloud video hosting service. But, why does cloud video hosting mean better visibility? Here’s an example. YouTube has an enormous library of videos, and whenever someone wants to see something, YouTube is the place they go to. But if the video is hosted on a website, chances are fewer than getting it on YouTube because nobody searches the browser for videos. 

With that as an example, it does seem like a strong case for business video hosting. But there is one thing to be cleared before we move ahead. If you run your business on the videos you upload, something like an online video platform, cloud video hosting is the choice to go for. But if you are not concerned with the audience that is going to or not going to view your videos, you may be okay with self-hosted video.  If you are going for cloud video hosting, which one do you choose? 

Here are some must have video hosting platform features you need to have:

DRM encrypting streaming: 

Video privacy is quite prevalent these days, having a DRM encryption ensures that your content can not be pirated easily and being shared by users.

Watermarking:

To avoid screen captures or any other ways to capture any static content, a dynamic watermark helps to secure your content.

AWS Powered Server, Transcoding and CDN: 

Many video hosting sites offer good servers, but seldom have systems that can give great performance around the world. With a good server and CDN infrastructure you can ensure smooth playback across six continents. 

Video Player: 

A video player on the website, with features like speed change, quality change, forward/backward capabilities, and subtitles. Also, when this is combined with a DRM encryption it gives you added security.

Usability Across Devices: 

With HTML5 player, users could be using any device, Android, iOS, or desktop to enjoy the same smooth user experience.

Next Step!

Make a better choice; think of the users and applications. If you need a private video hosting service for your content, let VdoCipher the stress of maintaining one. Let us help you focus on what you do best – create the content, and we will manage the hosting.