Video uploads on Polycount?

Eric Chadwick

One of you asked for webm support here on Polycount. We can probably tweak the uploader to allow video formats.

However you should know webm is not universal to all browsers yet. If you want everyone to be able to view your vids, you need to serve fallback formats... http://diveintohtml5.info/video.html#what-works

That said, we're interested in maybe hosting videos. Internally, we've lamented about how easily tutorial video links die on the open web. One of our aims for the wiki is to catalogue and preserve good art learning resources. Hard to do that when vids keep disappearing (or moving).

This in theory could also allow you to embed your own video files, served from your own portfolio hosts. If for example you didn't want to use Youtube or Vimeo, because they push ads and end-thumb video suggestions you don't like.

So, who's for (or against) video hosting here? And what's your reasoning?

R3D

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

A resource library of up to date, user created, video tutorials that won't die on some strange fringe website would be great. Also I find webm a much better format to show off work than animated gifs.

Also user controls!

For example, that captain picard gif is nearly 2MB
while this full minute video of a canadian fighting a robot is just 2.3MB
https://puu.sh/njdr6/af2d642a1c.webm

Eric Chadwick

Wait, that's a GIF.

Revolutionart

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

WebM is a container format especially created for Internet streaming. This open source video container is developed by Google based on Matroska and encoded by VP8 and Vorbis (updated to VP9 and Opus since 2013).


MP4, abbreviated term for MPEG-4 Part 14, is also a container format following ISO/IEC standard, but more widespread and compatible (than WebM or other formats). Audio, video, subtitles and still images can be contained in a single MP4 file. Moreover, some advanced content like 3D graphics, menus and user interactivity can also be held.


Winner of File Size (Which is Smaller): WebM
Winner of Video Quailty (Which is Better): MP4
Winner of Video Compatibility (Which is More Friendly): MP4

Base your opinion off from these facts.

Eric Chadwick

I've encoded multiple formats to serve videos on my portfolio, and I noticed webm required 2x the bitrate to get equivalent visual quality to h.264 (mp4).

That's unacceptable to me. Chunky noisy video is a non-starter for art presentation IMHO.

If you guys really really want it, we'll make it so. Just make sure you actually test it out, with your own source video. Not just 4chan loops, or some article written by a non-artist.

Revolutionart

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

@Eric good point, if that is the case, MP4 is probably better. MP4 supports alot more aswell. Art wise you want quality, mp4 delivers quality.

MP4 (H.264/AAC) video can be played on any frequently-used devices, e.g iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android, Xbox and PSP, as well as browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari, some of which don't support WebM (VP8) at all.

Bek

Unrelated to video, but since it's along a similar line: Have you looked at the .bpg image format? I tested it out recently and it might be a good optional-extra; you can get large (2560x1440) high quality images in the 50-200kb range - the main downside being the website needs to host a javascript decoder as no browsers support the file format natively. The other downside is you need to manually convert your images to that format using the web-based converter or a commandline utility. But say if polycount could auto-convert uploaded images, perhaps within a certain demension+filesize range to .bpg automatically, then you won't need to police the WAYWO thread at all. But there's also the risk that something goes wrong with the .bpg format or the decoder and suddenly you've got pages and pages of broken images.

As for Polycount hosting videos — what would make PC a more reliable video host than youtube/vimeo? I feel like most of the time broken video links would come from the author taking the video down; changing host wouldn't fix that (unless by uploading a video to PC wiki you lose control of it. Which IMO would be bad).

Anyway, before any of that nonsense, get marmoset embed working. That's wayyyyy more useful for critiques than anything else. That should've happened as soon as it launched. I don't know what your relationship is with the developers of the site (since you said they won't support marmoset embed); if that's the case another forum solution needs to be found. Are you paying for developers time? If so how can they say they won't do something? The best forum software I've seen is discourse, but it's radically different from current polycount, and the column widths aren't the best for sharing lots of images - maybe that can be changed though. Purely based on features though, it's a winner. The "have you seen this similar thread" when creating a post would be worth it alone to save on repetitive post in tech talk.

Eric Chadwick

We're working on an automated solution for the big slow images issue. Should have more info on that shortly.

Marmoset embed is a huge issue for us. Vanilla has many client sites, and their dev decisions apparently are weighted more towards their strategic goals than towards individual clients. Moving to another forum system is a difficult task, but it's one of the options we're considering.

Bpg is still too new, but it does look promising!

thomasp

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

mp4 please.
my take: only stick with standards, conversion and compatibility headaches are not worth the performance advantage of some fringe format in the big picture.

Joopson

Aw hell no.

I voted no because of webm's relative lack of compatibility compared to gifs, but mp4 would be pretty cool.

My main issue with video files like those, as opposed to gifs, is that, on the phone (iPhone), I have to click on them to get them to play, which forces them to open fullscreen. It's a whole clumsy process just to see, for example, a 4 second video that doesn't loop automatically. But on desktop, assuming the implementation is good, it should work alright.

Tekoppar

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

GIF's should be left behind in the dust where they belong, they've got bloated file sizes and a quality that's laughable. They ruin data caps for anyone browsing as they auto play and take up a stupid size. WebM on the other hand has a really good quality to size ratio, I use them all the time because I mostly show case 15-30 second videos, and you can get some really good quality well below 3Mb in that range. I don't see why my data cap should have to suffer because someone bought an Apple product.

And I'm all for getting MP4 support.

Edit: Here's a WebM I made a while back and you can not get that quality with gifs. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9876544/StrategyGame/Unreal Engine Demo 2016.11.11 - 20.40.11.01.webm

RN

Yes, host/embed custom video URLs.

Google Drive is a storage service but it allows you to embed the video files that you make public. The embedded player seems to be the same one used for YouTube so it's pretty solid -- but it's just the player, without any community features like knowing who the author is or video suggestions etc.
It spits out an <iframe> to be embedded.

- https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2423694
- http://kmwebsolutions.co.uk/how-to-embed-videos-on-your-blog-from-google-drive/

Eric Chadwick

I've been testing GIFV, which we already support.

Limited to 15 seconds, and 720 pixels wide, and not hosted here. But it serves up Webm or Mp4 depending on your browser, which is nice. Also it's pretty easy to use.

1. Upload your video to the web somewhere, like Google Drive or Dropbox.
2. Go to Imgur's Video To GIF and paste your video URL.
3. Choose the start and end times, then press "Create GIF"
4. When it finishes hover over it, press the "v" button, choose "Get share links".
5. Go to "Markdown (Reddit)" and press the "Copy" button.
6. Paste into your post on Polycount, and remove the "[Imgur](" prefix and the ")" suffix. 

• For example, change this:

  [Imgur](http://i.imgur.com/IIRWFRP.gifv)

• Into this:

  http://i.imgur.com/IIRWFRP.gifv

PyrZern

I'd say only GIFV and WebM.  
GIF is outdated now.
As for a real video, just use Youtube.

Eric Chadwick

GIFV is WEBM, and its MP4. But, it's resolution- and length- limited, which makes it less than ideal.

I'll submit it to Vanilla, see what they say about allowing mp4/webm uploads to our own servers, as well as custom urls for people who want to host their own (Google Drive, ISP, etc.)