It was suggested at the post-mortem meeting this evening that DrupalCamp funds be used to host DBN videos on Amazon S3 in perpetuity. We hosted last year's video jointly on Blip.tv and at DBN (http://dbn.ca/dcmontreal2009), and embedded the Blip.tv player on the individual sessions pages.
DBN is suggesting this hosting scenario because it gives them greater control over pre- and post-roll advertising of DrupalCamp sponsors, which is not something we sold to sponsors in the first place. This was the only benefit listed, but it could be inferred that the video quality of self-hosted videos would be better than that of Blip.tv at least.
Questions were raised as to the loge-term sustainability of the proposed for-pay Amazon hosting scenario, and who should be entrusted with paying this bill month after month for many years to come, no matter how nominal the charges may be. Case in point, the DBN videos have since disappeared from their servers (that link is dead, at least), but still appear on Blip.tv.
My vote is that we continue to leverage free video hosting solutions like Blip.tv or Vimeo, whichever gives us the best video quality. Whatever video quality tradeoff made will be made up with increased long-term sustainability compared to a self-hosted solution.
Comments
I agree
I agree with vimeo or Blip.tv. S3 can become quite costly over time. We can try hosting the videos ourself too and see if the bandwidth can keep up with it.
Don't forget about acquia!
I will look into acquia video hosting options tomorrow, as I heard that they offer to host drupal camp sites for free.
BlipTV is fine
We already have a Blip.tv for the 2009 videos and the quality is quite good and it will last for a very long time. Ryan have the login so we could publish the 2010 videos next to the 2009 ones.
As for funding and long-term, we need to set up properly a non-profit organization. This non-profit would take care of hosting the site and hi-res videos if required.
DBN.ca was supposed to host the 2009 hi-res DrupalCamp Montréal videos at perpetuity. Too bad these videos have been erased. At least, we still have all the Blip.tv ones. :-)
So my vote goes to Blip.tv, and no cost hosting. Acquia is fine for the Drupal site, but not for the videos.
As for a non-profit, I will call up for a meeting in the next few weeks.
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What about archive.org?
I really don't see an advantage to paying Amazon for this service. If vimeo or blip aren't acceptable we can request an account with the Internet Archive (http://archive.org/), a non-profit which hosts public domain and creative commons material for free. We'd be able to upload as much video as we wanted there and it would never disappear.
The 2009 videos have not been
The 2009 videos have not been erased. They have been mothballed until they can be properly integrated into the main DrupalCampMontreal website, where they belong.
BitTorrent
I know it's not the same thing, but for a long-term sustainability maybe a torrent with all the videos of the DrupalCamp 2010 could be a good option.
A other option is
A other option is http://www.archive.org/details/movies.
archive.org is certainly a
archive.org is certainly a very interesting option.
When integration of the 2009 and 2010 videos is done, we'll also integrate them on DrupalTalks.com, currently being built.
i vote for archive.org
i vote for archive.org
Luckily the free options are
Luckily the free options are not mutually exclusive. We can put these videos anywhere. But for embedding on our site, I've found archive.org to be quite terrible. Bad quality, a bad player, a bad interface on archive.org. Perhaps things have improved since last year, but I was quite unimpressed last year.
Here is what we absolutely
Here is what we absolutely want to avoid doing: http://www.mediacurrent.com/blogs/drupalcamp-atlanta-2010-%E2%80%93-all-...
They have uploaded enormous session videos to Vimeo which does not have pseudo-streaming capabilities, making it a pain in the ass to watch. We have a video quality in Montreal that completely outclasses them (all paid for by DBN Studios' sponsorship, which Atlanta had to pay thousands of dollars to substitute for), and we will not accept cutting corners on hosting and website design because those details count the most in the end.
For now, the two options on the table for hosting are A) take Acquia's offer of AWS hosting (supports pseudo-streaming) or B) use the enormous budget surplus provided by our sponsors and attendees to pay for AWS hosting, which in the end will barely make a dent in the budget. Archive.org and Vimeo are not options.
I don't think this is unreasonable. If we want Montreal's image to shine in the Drupal world and take a shot at DrupalCon 2012, this is a necessary expense.
Re: pseudo-streaming, luckily
Re: pseudo-streaming, luckily with Blip.tv this is a non-issue. The quality is also great. Example:
http://2009.drupalcampmontreal.com/node/354
I believe the community has spoken clearly as to the preferred hosting solution for these videos. I feel like this is more about making DBN look good instead of DrupalCamp Montreal, so if DBN is so vehemently opposed to this solution, they are free to champion this cause and pay to host the videos in perpetuity. We've all acknowledged the cost is minimal. This is more about continuity than cost.