Online Video Storage

[Chaosrider]

Now that I can create videos that I'll want to keep and display, the next issue is online storage.

Google Drive is easy to use and seems to work well, but I'll want to store more on a regular basis than their free option provides for. My requirements for a storage service are, in priority order:

1) Reliability. I don't want a site that has trouble keeping it up...

2) Ease of use. Google makes it simple to copy a link to an uploaded video, which I can then share with others. I want that process to be quick and painless.

3) Privacy. I want to be able to restrict who can see which videos, and I want that process to be easy. And reliable. I want a service that has a good reputation for respecting and protecting privacy.

4) Cost. As a reference use case, I'll probably want to keep an hour or two of video up at any one time. 1080 p. Can I do that for not more than $25/mo?

I welcome site suggestions from Those Who Know!

Thx,

TCS

 

[tck444]

My first suggestion is to use all the sites that give you free storage first; DropBox, OneDrive, Google, Amazon. Most of these sites allow some minimal free storage and you can share a single file or folder and grant permissions.

I that is too much trouble, then check out the costs for other sites. Personally, I use Amazon because I share files with my friend in China. Amazon is the only one ( that I know ) is accessible in China.

Amazon' Paid storage: 100 GB $19.99 / year​

Just for good measure, I also use an external USB drive. 2TB prices start about $50.

Good Luck!

 

[gothi]

Is there any reason why you don't want to use Youtube?

After I'm done editing a video I upload it to Youtube and set the sharing permissions to 'Unlisted' which stops it showing up in searches or on my profile but allows me to send a link to people to see it. This allows for hosting 4K videos at decent quality for free.

I keep the original files in one of several places:

1) iCloud - I have the family plan with 2TB of storage so often the original file of the Youtube video ends up here and removed from my Mac storage, it still appears in file listings and can be downloaded by clicking on it. I can easily share these files with people.

2) a USB RAID - I tend to put the original files and the Final Cut library bundle here. Its 2 4TB USB drives set up as a single drive RAID (appears as a single 4TB drive to my Mac) so that if one fails my files are still safe. I can't easily share these files with people.

 

[Dave Maine]

VIMEO is an excellent site and provides the highest quality streams, and has all the content control features you need. The site gets expensive quickly, but the cheapest choices will probably work for you.

 

[Chaosrider]

My first suggestion is to use all the sites that give you free storage first; DropBox, OneDrive, Google, Amazon. Most of these sites allow some minimal free storage and you can share a single file or folder and grant permissions.

I that is too much trouble, then check out the costs for other sites. Personally, I use Amazon because I share files with my friend in China. Amazon is the only one ( that I know ) is accessible in China.

Amazon' Paid storage: 100 GB $19.99 / year​

Just for good measure, I also use an external USB drive. 2TB prices start about $50.

Good Luck!

I'm not into scavenging around a bunch of different sites looking for tidbits of free space, but Amazon may be a good answer for me. I already have Amazon Prime. I'll check it out!

I have plenty of external storage, so that's already covered. What I'm looking for now is my "display" storage.

Thx!

TCS

 

[Chaosrider]

Is there any reason why you don't want to use Youtube?

After I'm done editing a video I upload it to Youtube and set the sharing permissions to 'Unlisted' which stops it showing up in searches or on my profile but allows me to send a link to people to see it. This allows for hosting 4K videos at decent quality for free.

I keep the original files in one of several places:

1) iCloud - I have the family plan with 2TB of storage so often the original file of the Youtube video ends up here and removed from my Mac storage, it still appears in file listings and can be downloaded by clicking on it. I can easily share these files with people.

2) a USB RAID - I tend to put the original files and the Final Cut library bundle here. Its 2 4TB USB drives set up as a single drive RAID (appears as a single 4TB drive to my Mac) so that if one fails my files are still safe. I can't easily share these files with people.

That's a good question, to which I don't have a good answer. I've never had the need before, but YouTube strikes me as insecure space. Still, that's just an impression, and not based on real data.

How much stuff will YouTube let you store?

I'm still slumming around with 1080p video, which may continue to be the case until I get a 4K TV! But once I get some editing experience, and start producing videos of better quality, I may go the 4K route.

Other sites won't let you host 4K?

Thx!

TCS

 

[Chaosrider]

VIMEO is an excellent site and provides the highest quality streams, and has all the content control features you need. The site gets expensive quickly, but the cheapest choices will probably work for you.

Another one to check out. I've had VIMEO recommended before.

How much do they charge for 100 GB of storage? The Amazon rate of $20/yr seems pretty hard to beat.

Thx!

TCS

 

[gothi]

That's a good question, to which I don't have a good answer. I've never had the need before, but YouTube strikes me as insecure space. Still, that's just an impression, and not based on real data.

How much stuff will YouTube let you store?

I'm still slumming around with 1080p video, which may continue to be the case until I get a 4K TV! But once I get some editing experience, and start producing videos of better quality, I may go the 4K route.

Other sites won't let you host 4K?

Thx!

TCS

Youtube's secure in my view.
Your account:
Very secure, set up 2 factor auth and it's unlikely your account will be compromised during it's life.

Video privacy:
Unlisted videos are accessible to anyone with the link, if you're not filming anything extremely sensitive and trust the people you're sending the link to then this works great as it means people aren't having to create accounts to view your videos.
Private videos can be limited to being viewable only by people you add to the videos sharing list but they must have a free Google account to view the video.

As for upload limits, they're a bit coy about this. It depends on what country you're in and whether your account has been caught uploading copyrighted material. You'll need to verify your account to upload videos longer than 15 minutes and there is an upper limit of 12 hours runtime/256GB per video.
It's also a daily limit so if you somehow do manage to hit a limit you'll be able to continue uploading the next day.

I'm not a prolific uploader but I've never hit any upload limits so far. Youtube's free offering stacks up really well against paid competitors, the 2 main trade-offs being:
1) you need a Google account which is off-putting for some but it appears you already have one?
2) Some of the paid-for options have higher bitrates, most people won't notice this at all but if you're pushing out professional videos (like a professionally shot show or high quality training materials) then you might want to consider the paid platforms like Vimeo.

Other sites will let you host 4K, that's not specific to Youtube.

If you let us know more about your use-case then we might be able to focus in on the best option but right now based on what you've put so far Youtube feels like a good fit with the only caveat being that how much you trust Google to respect & protect your privacy is absolutely a topic of debate (as it is with all tech companies).

 

[Chaosrider]

My first suggestion is to use all the sites that give you free storage first; DropBox, OneDrive, Google, Amazon. Most of these sites allow some minimal free storage and you can share a single file or folder and grant permissions.

I that is too much trouble, then check out the costs for other sites. Personally, I use Amazon because I share files with my friend in China. Amazon is the only one ( that I know ) is accessible in China.

Amazon' Paid storage: 100 GB $19.99 / year​

Just for good measure, I also use an external USB drive. 2TB prices start about $50.

Good Luck!

OK, I just went to check out AWS, and the pricing is completely opaque. They have the 100GB storage that you mention, free for a year, but they don't clearly show the $20/yr after that.

And they offer services without obvious definitions:

Standard service
Data transfer out (WTF?)
Storage
Any combination of general purpose (SSD) or magnetic (WTF?)

Since it's free for a year, it's hard to see the downside of just giving it a shot.

If I set up an account and upload a file today, will it conveniently give me a URL that I could then post here?

Thanks, I greatly appreciate the help!



TCS

 

[macfawlty]

IMO, one of the most important issues is protecting against data loss. I have probably over 20TB of personal video/photo content and even more work content. Backup your data at all costs. I use Backblaze, which costs about $5/mo. unlimited data including external hard drives, which most backup services do not offer. The catch is the externals each have to be plugged in at least every 30 days for a short period. For only a little more $, Backblaze will retain the data permanently. The backups are running in the background, so you don’t have to manually upload anything. Files and folders can be shared for download. This is however, a backup service, not a site to display content.