As a filmmaker showcasing my work on my website, I'm wondering if directly uploading videos to my server and using the video tag to display them is considered bad practice. Paying for Vimeo embeds isn't appealing to me, especially if my current setup works fine. What are the pros and cons of self-hosting videos?
1 Answer
Self-hosting videos isn't inherently a bad idea, but it can lead to some significant issues. You'll want to ensure your hosting plan can handle the bandwidth, especially if your videos start getting a lot of views. If traffic becomes heavy, it could strain your server and even lead to additional costs depending on your host's policies. Most importantly, consider using a proper streaming format instead of just dumping MP4s on your server; techniques like HLS can significantly improve playback and save bandwidth by only loading necessary portions of the video.
I think it's essential to streamline video encoding for web playback. Did you know using WebM format can be even more efficient than MP4? Just be sure to check browser compatibility.