Posted on: Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Store, share your videos on the Web
By Kim Komando
Digital videos are a great way to share memories, but they consume gobs of storage space, which makes it a challenge to share them. What do you do when your video is too large to fit in e-mail or even fit on a single DVD? The Web provides several storage alternatives.
For instance, consider using a photo-sharing Web site. Many let you share video with family and friends in addition to still images. The fees to use these sites vary depending on how much storage space you need.
Neptune Mediashare is one example of a service that lets you post video albums. When you sign up, Neptune gives you a Web page where you can share videos. You can password protect the page if you want to restrict access to only the guests you designate. Neptune's fees range from $59 per year for 150 megabytes of space to $599 for 10 gigabytes. While Neptune makes it very easy to upload your videos, remember that they are large files so you'll need a high-speed connection, such as cable or digital subscriber line.
Digital Silo offers a similar service, but it also will convert your tapes and DVDs to digital files, and post them in your space. Invited guests can enter the space and watch the movies.
Conversion costs $44.95 per hour of tape. Film is $249 per hour, and DVDs run $34.95 an hour. These are one-time fees. The only other charge is a $9.95 annual membership fee. And you get enough storage for 240 hours of video.
Consider setting up your own peer-to-peer (P2P) network on the Internet. Several programs make it easy.
Take ShareGear, for instance. This $49.95 Windows program can convert video directly from a digital camcorder. Then, you place the resulting file in the appropriate folder and let others know where to look. They link directly to your PC and download the file or files they need.
Grouper and Qnext are two more Windows programs that are free and contain no spyware. You can use them if your video files are already prepared. They allow you, family members and friends to set up shared folders on your respective hard drives.
Mac OS X owners can use Personal Web Sharing, which is built into the operating system. To set it up, click System Preferences and Sharing. Select Personal Web Sharing. Note the computer's address. Give that to the person you want to share with. In the Finder, click Go and Home. Put the file to be shared in the Sites folder. Recipients should put the Mac's address in their Internet browsers. They do not have to be using a Mac.
If you don't want to mess with P2P software, you can use a video-sharing site. Streamload and Xdrive are two worth considering.
Streamload also offers subscription plans with unlimited storage. The Basic plan, at $4.95 per month, allows downloads of 1GB per month. The Standard plan, at $9.95 per month, raises that to 10GB per month.
At Xdrive, $9.95 per month, or $99.50 yearly, gets you 5GB of storage. You pay $299.50 annual for 50GB of storage. There are no limitations on the amount of data you can download.
