You can consider a Media Streaming Server as a special server which is having a specialized application installed on it which is required for streaming video files and broadcasting it over the internet so that all visitors can view them smoothly without waiting for downloading of video files. Streaming servers are capable of handling large traffic loads and multiple requests for video files. They can detect internet connection speed of user viewing them and thus can provide appropriate files. They are also used for broadcasting LIVE Events such as sports matches, Live events, news, shows etc.. over the internet.

Using streaming server you can setup your radio station or can broadcast live events where all website visitors can viewer can listen your media files in ? real-time? so you can attract more traffic to your website and thus can increase your business/revenue. But setting up and maintaining a streaming server is not a easy job, you should be familiar with all technical aspects of video hosting and server management, thus its always recommended to get a web host who is expert in hosting such media servers. Before paying for getting streaming server make sure you would get enough server resources with good processor, may be dual core or quad core processor along with huge harddrive space and RAM. Processing of video files requires huge server resources so its better to start with highly configured server having good RAM and Processor.  Setting up a online video streaming facility requires onetime huge investment and usually used by big organizations.

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In conclusion, using video on your website is a good way for promoting and getting popularity for your video website but you will have to pay good hosting fees such video intensive websites. Usually dedicated server would be the best option if you your website have huge video files and have heavy traffic. Dedicated servers have huge server resources at your disposal hence can serve all video processing requests and can run smoothly without any errors.

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Camtasia is a video screen capture program using which you can easily capture and edit anything you see on your PC screen. You can grab videos and can save them in most popular video formats like AVI, streaming media formats (WMV, RM, MOV), and
animated GIF. Using its advance feature you can also pinpoint cursor movements with special visual effects, it also have wide range of effects such as highlighting, zooming, and panning, etc.

Basically Camtasia have two inbuilt programs, the Camtasia Recorder which is used to record Windows desktop activity into video format and Camtasia Producer which is a non-linear editor used for editing videos and for creating streaming videos and AVI files. Thus using above tools you can you can capture all screen activities and can save them in video format which can be of good quality and is highly compressed.
There are many advance features such as splitting/trimming/splitting AVI clips, AVI format conversion (e.g. frame rate, color depth, codecs), audio compression, smooth scaling (interpolation), hundreds of transition effects and many more which can be used with your video.

Such Online Video Recorder will save your precious time and thus you can concentrate more on building video website.

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• They are specially designed for handling large traffic for all video embedded sites.
• They can detect users internet connection speed and will accordingly send data at your user end.
• They are capable for broadcasting LIVE VIDEO events such as Live Sports Matches, Live Shows, Live Presentations etc?

You have two different ways for getting a Streaming server, either you purchase/lease your own dedicated server and set it for streaming video files by installing some video streaming software or you can signup with a host offering you video streaming hosting package for fixed rent.
If you are planning to get a standalone server which can be used as streaming server then you need to get and install some streaming server software on your server or on your existing server. You have range of Streaming softwares which can be installed on both Linux and Windows Hosting Server platforms.

Following are most common video streaming software which are widely used by all webmasters

*) Helix Universal Server from RealNetworks : This server supports a variety of formats, including RealMedia, Windows Media, Quicktime and MPEG-4.
*) Apple Quicktime Streaming Server : Support few video formats which includes MPEG-4 and 3GPP.
*) Macromedia Communication Server : Commonly used for all Flash-based video and interactive multimedia presentations.

Each of above streaming technologies have their own proprietary server and types of media files that they use. Each have their own corresponding server designed to stream files in a preferred formats.

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Note : in the above code you will have to provide proper video file name which you have uploaded on your web hosting account in place of ?videofilename.wmv?
If you want you can also customized Windows Media player which would be appearing on your webpage. You can set option to show the playback controls, status indicator, size and dimension of player which would be on your webpage etc.
you should be sure that you have enough Diskspace and bandwidth, server resources allocated for your webhosting account so that all video files would be played smoothly.

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YouTube : Youtube is most popular and widely for sharing and finding video. You can upload any number of videos at Youtube but there is limit on file size and its duration, your uploaded video clip should not be beyond ten minutes. Due to its tremendous popularity you can spread your video far and wide across the globe.

Vimeo : Similar to Youtube but don’t have much popularity as like Youtube have so expect much views for your piece of work over here.

Revver : If you are trying to make money off your video work then this is the place for you, it’s not much into social community rather offers you and option for getting some extra revenue from your work. The Revver service will match ads to your video, and give you a piece of the action from whatever the advertiser pays. Most important thing is that when your fan plays the video on their own site, they can earn money from it too. Thus its all about making Money, money, money from your video.

Dailymotion : Dailymotion offers you some more advance features and capabilities, its heavily focus on social networking by offering you the ability to create groups, leave comments, and ratings. So if you are looking to get reviews for your creativity you can consider to have a account at Dailymotion.

iFilm : If your video is good enough, VH1 may select it to appear on its Web Junk 20 program.

MySpace Video : Brandname goes with it hence its popular but their service is not much impressive. You should just know that MySpace video exist and you should know about it.
Grouper : A unique service from SONY using which you can edit your videos and can easily upload them directly onto your site, they provide you desktop software using which you can play with your video file [ capture, edit and upload ] Good service if you just want to have basic cuts for your videos and want to get them onto your website easily.

AOL Uncut Video : Like other major search engines AOL also offers you to upload and share your video creativity by offer you AOL Uncut video services. Its much similar to Youtube but not in popularity and stability.

There are many other video sharing website but above listed video site are more popular and are reliable.

Enjoy and share your media creativity

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If you have many flv flash video format video files which you want to convert to some other video format in one go then you can use following bash script developed by Jake Hilton

If you are using ffmpeg on your dedicated server then you can use below bash script for batch convert of flv files to other required video format.

#!/bin/sh
for f in *.flv;
do
echo “Processing $f”
ffmpeg -i “$f” -target ntsc-dvd “${f%.flv}.mpg”
done

Thus using above script all flash video files having flv extension will get converted into a ntsc dvd format with file extension mpg. You can tweak it for required video format you need.

Vote of thanks to Jake Hilton http://www.jakehilton.com/?q=node/41 for sharing such excellent script

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