Suggestions for handling video storage

[craigw]

Hi there - looking to see if any one has any novel ideas on how they are handling the large amounts of video we are starting to see fill up our network shares.

 

Firstly - I know storage is cheap and throwing more storage at the problem will make it go away for a while...but when you consider backups and long term storage then this is not really my ideal solution.

Anyway - the problem we had 5 years ago with cameras taking larger and larger photos "by default" resulting in jpg files going from 128Kb to 8-10Mb per photo is know moved onto video. Every teacher seems to have an digital camera nowadays and "video evidence" is all the rage. The problem is the default file format on these cameras is HUGE. The worst culprit seems to be MTS video files - great quality along with huge file size.

 

One folder I just found has a typical 4 minute video at 600Mb. I just ran this through the Anyvideo Converter with iPad MP4 as the output format and the result 27Mb....and for what they want to use it for - the quality is perfectly acceptable.

 

Now - I have better things to do with my time - as do the teachers - than to reformat videos - but I can't see this as sustainable. I am thinking of setting a Media server that is not backed up - but getting staff to put media in one spot and lesson plans etc in another seems counter productive. Pumping all this video up to the cloud also seems a bit pointless - so any other ideas?

 

Wally

[3s-gtech]

You may be able to set up a batch converter with a scheduled task to convert all videos in a location, skipping ones with a certain extension. This should reduce the space requirement and workload. Not tried this myself - we do have the same issue with huge space taken up by video files and it'll get worse, so I'll be looking into it.

 

http://www.ffmpeg.org/

 

Best Free Video Converters | Digital Trends

Edited February 18, 2015 by 3s-gtech

[pcstru]

How about Mediadrop.

[Grey-gear]

How about Planet E-Stream Planet eStream - Video on demand, Live Streaming, TV & Radio Recording, Digital Signage and More...

[Norphy]

If you have an Office 365 subscription, it may be worth looking at the Video section on that. Sort of a cross between YouTube and SharePoint.

[digone52]

I had a go at some of our video stores, and took down the space utilised from 300GB to about 100GB, so probably worth it.

 

I used the divx converter, in batch mode, going through folder by folder. It has a queue, but you unfortunately need to go through a folder at a time, so is time intensive.

 

I also found that some .wmv files ended up with a time lag with audio, so I put them back to the originals.

 

A reliable tool to do this in one hit would be excellent - *even* if we have to pay!

[craigw]

Have considered the scheduled task option - in fact this is what we do with the jpg problem using the excellent PhotoResize utility - but jpgs are less risky as there is the one file format. The problem we have with video is the multitude of file formats (mpeg, avi, mts, mov, mkv, mp4 etc etc )- often with the same extension but using different codecs. Doing this unattended could end up with some dodgy results. Maybe worth a shot though...

[craigw]

I had a go at some of our video stores, and took down the space utilised from 300GB to about 100GB, so probably worth it.

 

I used the divx converter, in batch mode, going through folder by folder. It has a queue, but you unfortunately need to go through a folder at a time, so is time intensive.

 

I also found that some .wmv files ended up with a time lag with audio, so I put them back to the originals.

 

A reliable tool to do this in one hit would be excellent - *even* if we have to pay!

 

I would pay in an instant...the time spent managing it would be offset easily.

 

We tried pushing the teacher videos into Clickview as this is a great platform for searching and sharing the content - but they have a very finicky(..horrible) video importer. As most of the cameras nowadays record in other formats we then have to convert to a codec that clickview is happy with first and then import again - all becomes a bit too hard for little gain.

 

Thanks for other suggestions - Mediadrop looks interesting (even as a clickview alternative)- I guess the main problem is that for teachers the easiest thing is still to attach a USB cable to their camera or iPhone, Click next when the video / photo wizard runs and bang, all the photos are on the network for easy use. I can certainly see why they do it...

[unixman_again]

We use helixmedialibrary which is great for short clips but rubbish for films, where Clickview is far superior. The longest videos we host are 45 minute lectures. It is very easy to upload a video, although we do it for the teachers as most of them have difficultly in pulling something off a camera. There is a nice add-on which some universities use, where-by a lecturer clicks the big friendly record button, delivers the lecture, hits stop and the voice over and what was displayed on the computer screen, are automatically uploaded to the library.

 

Great support from these guys too.

[MarkSixsmith]

Hi, We are ex-clickview users and now are very happy estream users. Take a demo of each and compare, estream is hands down the better product with far better support.

 

Planet eStream - Video on demand, Live Streaming, TV & Radio Recording, Digital Signage and More...

[daveyboy]

We drop a couple of cheap 2TB drives in old workstations, install ubuntu server with samba. Raid the 2TB drives. We create iso's of everything and drop them on the server. Using Daemon tools and a hta, our staff pick what they want and a script mounts the iso ..... simple.

 

up to about 15TB of media so far.....When a drive goes we just pop anther drive in, rebuild the array overnight and robert is your fathers brother.

 

Easy......and cheap.

[dhicks]

Pumping all this video up to the cloud also seems a bit pointless

 

Google Apps For Education offers unlimited storage for schools, and seemingly automatically transcodes uploaded video to its own preferred format - you could use GAFE as your backup location and use the auto-transcoded version to save space.

[WebBot]

Another vote for Planet eStream. We had our own solution based on Windows Media Server and WMVs. When we switched to Chrome browsers, WMVs won't play. Faced with converting 2000+ videos, we bought Planet eStream and everything converted and usable almost overnight.

 

It's not just about the file size, you've also got to take into account file organisation, conversion, staying up-to-date with latest standards (H265 will soon start being everywhere), ease of use for end user etc...

 

Planet eStream isn't cheap, but it's totally worth the money

[markofealing]

Take a look at Emby (formerly known as Media Browser), it's similar to Plex but it's open source and free.

 

It's cross platform, is web based but also comes with free APPS (iOS and Android), can record live TV and is visually attractive. It also includes a metadata editor. You can create local logins and assign them permissions.

 

https://emby.media/

 

Having looked at all the options out there, we are currently testing it to replace Windows Streaming Media Server. If money was no object then Planet eStream would be our second choice.