The Flip UltraHD – Meet My New Camera

I just returned from DV Expo in Pasadena and I have a lot to report! Whew! First off, the night before the expo opened I bought a Flip Video UltraHD pocket camcorder at the Pasadena Best Buy so that I would have a small camera to make quick … Click here to continue reading

In Search Of The Perfect HD Camera

One of my main quests on my recent trip to DVExpo was to get information about which new HD camera to buy. Many of my readers are shooting in HD already, but I haven’t made the … Click here to continue reading

Wade Into Video Publishing, The Water Is Fine!

Come on in, the water is fine!

Last week at this time we were driving into beautiful Lake Tahoe for a few days of rest and rejuvenation. As Mark Twain put it so eloquently: “Three months of camp life at Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor.” He was right! Click here to continue reading

We Are Sold On Amazon S3 and eZs3 For Hosting Videos

Putting video on your site is as easy as can be with eZs3.

Last year we would groan every time we had to upload a video. Consequently we didn’t load too many because it was a pain…and we consider ourselves pretty web savvy. Plus we were concerned about all the bandwidth our videos were using.

Then we discovered Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) which is an online service provided by Amazon.com, that allows web designers to store large amounts of data online.

S3 is free to join, and is a pay-as-you-go service, meaning you only ever pay for any of the hosting and bandwidth costs that you use, making it very attractive for small companies such as ours. We just received our bill for last month. It was a whopping 81 cents.

The nice thing is there is no limit to the amount of storage and bandwidth you can use on your Amazon S3 account, meaning it is a fully scalable to your needs.

Amazon has also built the S3 service to be very reliable, and guarantees server uptime of 99.99%. This claim is backed up by a service level agreement, whereby the user is entitled to a service credit if the service ever drops below this guarantee.

But there was still the problem of getting the media files onto our website.

Enter eZs3!

eZs3 is a service which allows you to fully manage your own S3 account, including uploading and downloading files and folders, and creating players and wrappers that you can easily use to embed media files on your website.

It is truly what its name implies – EASY! And although it is not free, at $20 a month it is so worth it in time savings alone.

What we like about it:

There is a simple uploader applet which allows you to navigate through folders on both your local PC, and your hosting account at Amazon S3, and use drag-and-drop to simply transfer files between the two.

Since S3 allows you to create up to 100 individual folders within your account to help organise your files. eZs3 makes it easy to create these folders, including choosing the location.

When you’ve finished using a file or folder on your S3 account, and are sure that you will no longer need it, eZs3 makes it a straightforward process to delete, so you no longer have to pay for hosting you do not need.

S3 combines inexpensive storage with full access control for the files and folders stored on your account. eZs3 allows you to easily modify these access policies giving you complete control over who can view your content.

eZs3 allows you to create players and wrappers for you media files, and easily embed them in your website using a simple javascript command. eZs3 currenty supports Flash FLV Videos, Mp3 Audios, Windows Media Videos, Quicktime Movies, Adobe PDF Documents, and Camtasia Studio Productions.

eZs3 tracks how many times your video has been viewed, on any website it has been embedded on. This allows you to track the popularity of your videos and make changes to your online marketing strategy to suit.

It also allows you to quickly identify whenever someone else has embedded your content on their site, so you can ask them to stop, or open up a whole new business channel.

Did we also mention how easy it makes the process of uploading your videos?

We are sold on Amazon S3 and eZs3.

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone And Get Started Selling

We did it! We stepped outside our comfort zone and planned and gave a free teleseminar earlier this week. Click here to continue reading