Any new ideas will be appreciated

[csaidi2000]

I have this site that i started a while ago.As you can see,i have a new category that says video ads coming soon,but thats all i can do.
I want to let people be able to upload upto 3 to 4 minutes clips of their auto ads,straight and simple.No video sharing (coz of bandwith problem)
Any ideas?
www.dimecars.com

[Eye for Video]

Unfortunately, I don’t see any way that this is going to be either straight foreword or simple. Wish it could be… but there are a lot of issues to deal with. OK, so here goes.
First, start with the end in mind. That is, choose the format of the video player you plan to put on your page. Set the dimensions, in pixels. Typically Web video is either Windows .wmv files or Flash .flv files. Flash is a better choice for cross browser compatibility. Forget about using QuickTime .mov, avi, or mpeg, your viewers will have problems having the correct plug-in in their browser to view the videos.
Set the dimensions. 320 X 240 has been the standard for awhile. Still used as the basis for YouTube video, but they stretch that video out over 450 X 330 or so pixels (which degrades the quality). But whatever size you choose, you’ll have to make that decision early on. If bandwidth is a concern then choose a smaller size.
Consider how you will display the playlist. With one video all you need is a player…simple. With 30 videos you will need to display a thumbnail or title from each of the 30 videos. This is another reason to choose Flash, it is designed to deliver Web content like that.
You will also have to set a bitrate at which you will be playing back the video. A bitrate of 400kbps will give you a pretty fair quality video over a highspeed Internet connection. However, dial-up at 56kbps or a 256kbps DSL line will struggle to play back. So you may have to reduce the final bitrate to 250 to 300 kbps. At that rate, stick with the standard 320 X 240. There are not enough bits of information to have a high quality video at any larger resolution.
Now that the final player format, dimensions, and bitrate are set, you can look at how to handle incoming videos. Unless you expect the uploader to only send Flash .flv files at 320 X 240, you will need to transcode the incoming files to match your player. Viewers will be sending in all manners and formats of video. Yet they will expect that through magic, it will display like a feature film. Google for “transcode to Flash .flv”, there are lots out there. For a commercial application like this, choose the very best you can afford.
It’s best to at least set some parameters for the video formats and dimensions that you will allow to be uploaded. Go to YouTube and Google to see some of the specifics on what they allow.
Set up a special contact page on your site and require people to login, with contact info, etc. Then they could be sent a special password to allow them access to your upload folder. Make simple instructions available on how to ftp into that folder.
Once their video file is uploaded, you will most likely have to transcode and/or resize to match your player format, player dimensions, and bitrate (and perhaps review content, hey.... sex sells cars too!). Then you will have to move the finished video to the videos folder for viewing and update your playlist. With a Flash player, this could be achieved with the use of an .xml file to hold the playlist.
Then, if all goes well, the video can be viewed Worldwide from you site! Wheww !!!…. Straight and simple…. not really, but it can be done.
Best of luck on the project,
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com

[csaidi2000]

Thanks for the info.I will try to do as you suggested and see if that will work for me.