The variety and attractiveness that videos add to the content of sites is undeniable. In fact, visual content is accompanied by sound, image, and emotion, and these are the parameters that give your content a sense of life. There are many users who, instead of reading a long post or article, prefer to watch a video related to the topic in question to find answers to their questions faster and more easily. If you also care about this issue and have decided to make your site’s exclusive videos available to users, wait! Just because you can upload videos to your site or host doesn’t mean you have to. There are many reasons for not uploading videos to the server, which show that using the self-hosting method, that is, hosting videos through a website server, can be detrimental to you.
People who intend to upload video files to the main server of the website face a series of limitations, the most important of which is the consumption of space and bandwidth, the complexity of the process of creating and uploading videos of different sizes and formats, and the problems of setting up the video player. are.
Now it’s time to learn about the problems related to uploading videos to the website server so that you can take necessary measures before it’s too late:
Table of Contents
- What is meant by hosting videos on a host or self-hosting?
- 12 reasons for not uploading the video to the site server
- The best ways to add video to a website
What is meant by hosting videos on a host or self-hosting?
Hosting the video on the server or self-hosting means that you upload the video file that you intend to make available to the users of your website on the web server of the website, right next to the same files that are the components of your website.
With this, not only the infrastructure and the place to upload the files are at your disposal, but the process of sending, care, and how to present them to the audience is under your own management.
In fact, more control over the appearance of the video, how to present them, personalization of the videos, and increase in traffic is one of the advantages of hosting the videos on the server, but this story also has a dark side.
In addition to the fact that self-hosting videos requires a lot of time, space, knowledge, and budget, there are many reasons for not uploading videos to the server that you must be familiar with.
Let’s get acquainted with the main problems related to uploading videos to hosts. After examining these reasons, we will provide you with alternative solutions that can be used to bypass the restrictions and provide the desired videos to the valuable users and audience of your site or application.
12 Reasons for not Uploading the video to the site server
However, hosting videos on your own server can give you control over the content and how they are presented. But according to the following reasons, self-hosting of videos can face you with a series of issues and limitations. Therefore, it is better to first consider the reasons for not uploading the video to the server and then make the best decision:
1. High bandwidth and space consumption
Unlike images and text files, videos require more space. An HD video file can easily be 100 MB in size. The story does not end here. This video is supposed to be available to users and audiences as image content, and every user who wants to watch it will use more bandwidth, and using or watching it at the same time can greatly increase the amount of bandwidth consumption. take away
On the other hand, the virtual server or host provider has also imposed certain restrictions on the use of bandwidth and other resources. If you completely consume the amount of dedicated bandwidth due to uploading large and large videos and downloading or viewing them simultaneously by many users, your website will suffer. In this scenario, in addition to the lack of resources and additional costs, users are also frustrated due to the disruption in watching the video or the lack of access to the site, and the frustrated and dissatisfied user is the weakness of search engines like Google. This can cause your SEO ranking to drop.
2. File size and storage space limitations
Most hosting or virtual server providers include specific policies and limitations for uploading files, and these limitations are for uploading video files that are longer than a few minutes and larger than a certain size (usually 50 MB). , prevent
On the other hand, if you frequently upload videos with less than the allowed size, the storage space provided for the server will be consumed by the videos, and if you want to back up your site frequently, the backup performance will be significantly higher. it takes time.
So, in addition to occupying more memory space, bulky data also complicates the backup process. Not being able to back up your website makes your site vulnerable to failure and hacking, and the risk of losing data and site files increases.
3. Slow loading of site pages
If you upload a video file to the website server, in addition to the site’s loading speed, increasing the number of simultaneous video visits can have an adverse effect on your server’s performance. A decrease in the response speed of the website server is a negative signal that can affect the position and rank of the website.
Even if your hosting provider allows you to upload large video files, the person who loses is you. Uploading a lot of files causes your server space to run out, and insufficient server space is equal to server slowness and disruption of site performance and speed.
User experience is also influenced by how the server works in responding to user requests. If the user clicks on the video play icon and the video doesn’t play immediately or continuously experiences unwanted pauses (buffering), all the user’s enthusiasm turns into disappointment and dissatisfaction. The weak internet speed of the user will worsen the situation, but the main loss will happen to you.
4. Need to create different video formats
In general, there is no standard format that is compatible with all browsers. For example, Firefox plays Ogg or WebM videos, but not H.264. Fortunately, Chrome browser plays all major video formats, but if you want to be sure that the video uploaded to the server will play in all major browsers, you should convert your video to mp4, ogv, and webm formats.
So with that being said, you will have at least 3 different video files, if you want to upload all these 3 files, the size of all of them will be above hundreds of megabytes, and this is where a video takes up more of your hosting, server space, and bandwidth capacity. It consumes more than you expected.
5. Video size compatibility with all types of devices
In addition to the fact that the file format is one of the reasons for not uploading the video to the server, the size of a video is also one of the important parameters in playing it correctly in different browsers and devices.
The size of the video file greatly affects its resolution. For example, a video with a resolution of 480p is suitable for mobile, but if you are going to watch the same video on your laptop, the resolution of 480p will disappoint you. If the video on your host is going to be played on a laptop, it must be able to play with 1080p HD resolution.
Your users have different preferences and expectations, and you should adjust the size and resolution of the videos to meet these expectations in the best possible way.
For this, you need to have different versions of the video and upload them all to the server, which also consumes more server space and bandwidth.
6. Need video player app
The video files you upload to the host need a video player program to be played. You should install this player on your site so that later when users want to watch the desired file, this program will automatically detect their device and connection speed and provide users with the desired video in the appropriate version and format.
Video players such as Video.js and WordPress plugins such as WP Video Lightbox and Easy Video Player can handle this task well, but installing, setting up and configuring such programs is a bit difficult and time-consuming and requires high technical expertise.
In order to go through this daunting process with ease, you should first know your needs and then research video player programs to finally choose a suitable option. If you do not have enough knowledge and expertise in the field of setting up video player programs, you must seek help from an expert.
7. Need additional codes
It doesn’t matter if you’re using an additional program or plugin, the important thing is that you need to define some code to determine the behavior and instructions of the players. This code will be roughly as follows:
<video poster="video.jpg" controls>
<source src="video.webm" type='video/webm; codecs="vp8.0, vorbis"'/>
<source src="video.ogg" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"'/>
<source src="movie.mp4" type=video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401E, mp4a.40.2"'/>
</video>This takes time and effort, and if you enter a letter or number incorrectly, everything breaks and hurts the user experience. Even with all these efforts, it is still not possible to be sure that it will display correctly and properly in all browsers and devices.
8. Different video quality in different browsers
We already mentioned that in order to properly display videos in different browsers, you need to upload different formats and sizes to the server. There are many programs that can do this, but they use different methods to do it.
The point is here. In this way, your desired program may create an MP4 video perfectly, but the OGG video file you see in Firefox looks noisy.
On the other hand, given that each browser handles the video playback process in a different way, a file that looks great in one browser may look terrible in another. Even if you spend a lot of time adjusting the software, the probability of achieving 100% results is very low.
9. Loss of traffic and more visits
By uploading the video to your host, only users who visit your website can see the video. Meanwhile, platforms like YouTube, which have reached global popularity, host various videos that often provide suggestions to users, and if your website’s video is one of these suggestions, it will certainly drive more traffic to your website. will be. This is where you benefit from the popularity of the platform in question.
In fact, when you host videos on your own hosting, you lose the opportunity to gain more visibility and traffic and rely on SEO or SEM efforts to increase traffic to your site. But by uploading a video file on a popular platform like YouTube and embedding its link on your website, you can help your video and website to be seen more.
10. Increasing the possibility of video theft
When you host your business’s valuable video content on a server, the likelihood of their illegal download and use increases. Especially if you do not implement security measures such as domain restriction, password, etc., this possibility becomes more and more.
Videos that are uploaded directly to the website are provided with a direct link that can be accessed by referring to the source code of the site. This makes it very easy to download and steal.
One of the reasons why it is recommended to use video publishing platforms is that your video files are protected under stronger security protocols, and this high level of security prevents unauthorized downloading and use of videos by suspicious people.
11. inode limits
An inode is a data structure that refers to the number of files or directories on the server and is used to control system resources. Due to the fact that each file and directory occupies an inode, if you upload a lot of videos to the server, the inode limit specified by the hosting provider or virtual server will be exceeded, in which case you will not be able to upload files. Or create a new directory. Even if you have enough disk space, you cannot upload another file to the server when the inode limit is over.
12. Increasing the cost of server maintenance
Increasing the cost of maintaining the server is another reason for not uploading videos to the server. When you are going to host video files in different formats and sizes, disk space and bandwidth limitations prevent you, and to solve this problem, you have to think about more costs to upgrade server resources.
Moreover, creating different video formats and sizes requires enough time and knowledge that if you don’t have enough knowledge in this field, you may have to hire an expert to do it for you.
So if the reasons for not uploading the video to the host are so important and bold, what should we do? Shouldn’t we put any video files on our site? No. Certainly not.
You should care about the stability, security, performance and speed of your website server and protect important server resources such as disk space, but this is not the reason to upload any video files on your site.
The best thing is to take seriously the reasons for not uploading the video to the server and think of other solutions that do not have a negative impact on the performance of your server.
The best ways to add video to a website
1. Use embedding services or video link placement.
It is completely logical that after learning about the reasons for not uploading the video to the server, you are thinking of other solutions. Using video hosting platforms is one of the best solutions you can use. In fact, these platforms are a way to indirectly embed a video on the site.
In this way, you upload your desired video to the video hosting platform. Then you embed the link on the desired page. Although this video is not located on your website’s server or host, users have access to that video when they visit your website and can easily watch it.
The video player of this platform automatically does all the work related to the identification of the user’s device, browser and internet connection speed and then provides a suitable version of the video to the user. With this, you don’t need to install another plugin or additional program or include the source code in the desired page.
The best part of the idea of using a video hosting platform is that these platforms use a huge network of world wide web servers (CDN) and the video content you upload is placed on each server of the CDN content distribution network. With this, the content is downloaded and displayed from the server closest to the user, which increases the quality and speed and, as a result, improves the user experience.
2. Use a CDN
If you have the necessary skills to work with video players and plugins, using CDNs can also be a good idea to deal with the reasons why the video does not upload to the server. These networks are used to improve the speed and transfer of content and have a very noticeable effect on the loading speed and improving the user experience.
So, if you need to host a large amount of video content and you would like to have more customization capabilities for how to present videos to users, using content distribution networks is a very good idea.
By doing this, you not only reduce the amount of lag and delay, but also optimize the load of the main server and reduce the amount of bandwidth and server space consumption. Also, playing video from the closest server to the user’s location improves the user experience.
3. Use a separate virtual server to upload your video content.
If your video content is not so much that you need a CDN, but you don’t want to occupy the space of your main server with your bulky videos, buying a virtual server for uploading website video content can be a very good idea.
By doing this, you not only bypass the limitations of web hosting services, but also prepare a completely safe and free space for your video content, which you no longer need to worry about consuming the bandwidth and space of your main website server for uploading. .
Conclusion
Videos play an important role in enhancing the image of businesses, and if you also want to benefit from the benefits of using videos in your website content, it is better to first familiarize yourself with the disadvantages of uploading videos to the main server of the website and then make a decision. If you have given up after reading the reasons for not uploading the video to the server, we recommend that you consider the practical ideas presented in this article.