Sensibly Managing Clipstream Video Hosting

The Leader in Secure Video Delivery Software

Uploading and hosting a single Clipstream® Video is easy. Managing a dozen or more requires some sensible management. In this page learn about codebasing and file management.

Single folder video hosting: all needed files are in one spot

Single folder video hosting
A Clipstream® Video applet embedded in a page requires the videoclipstream.zip, a buttonset graphic and the .vcs files existing on the same web server.

You can upload and host easily by simply uploading all of your .vcs files, the videoclipstream.zip and buttonset to the same folder on your webserver. You learned to do this in the Uploading and Hosting Clipstream® Video quickstart page.

Upload and Host Clipstream® Video v3

As long as you don't move any of the files from that folder, you are fine. However, if you have more than one project, you may want to create new folders to help organize your files.

Common resources and linking

The Clipstream® Video Applet contains parameters that identify what the resources Clipstream® Video needs and where they are located on a server. By default the applet only refers to the resources as if they were located in the same folder. But by rewriting the parameters you can refer to the resources by relative or absolute hyperlinking. This means that you can place commonly used resources in one location on your server to save on duplication, file size and for simplicity.

Resources that can be shared commonly are:

clipstreamvideo.zip
buttonset (panelimages.jpg)
title images/end images
codekeys.txt (KeyURL licensing)

Multiple folder hosting

By keeping your common resources in a central location on your server and then uploading your separate .vcs projects into subfolders, you can cut down on complication and also make updating the common resources a one-step process.

The diagram below illustrates this organization.

Multiple folder video hosting

Codebasing

If you are relatively linking to a resource, note that it is relatively linked from the location of the videoclipstream.zip mini-player. This is why you should place individual projects in subfolders below the common resources. The location of the videoclipstream.zip is specified in the codebase statement.

To show the applet where the videoclipstream.zip is located:

Open up the page with the applet embedded in it.
View the source in Notepad or other HTML editor and find the applet code.
Find the very top line where the applet code starts:

<applet
Make a space and type codebase="http://[yourserver]/[path to the folder where clipstreamvideo.zip resides]"

The top line of the applet code should look like this:

ex.
<applet codebase="http://www.clipstream.com/test/" archive=clipstreamvideo.zip' cabbase='Clipstream® Video.cab' code='videoclipstream.class' alt='Clipstream Video Player' name='Clipstream Video' width='390' height='238'>

Relatively link buttons, movies, title/end imaging

Once the codebase has been written out then all other links in the applet code can be expressed as relative links to the codebase location. A relative link is a link that is expressed relative to another file or folder, in this case the videoclipstream.zip location.

ex.
Relatively linking a .vcs file:
<param name="VideoURL" value="modem,0,thesunday_movie/testmovie_60.vcs">

Relatively linking the title image file:
<param name="VideoTitleImageURL" value="thesunday_movie/testmovietitle.jpg">

In each of these examples, the files reside in a folder below the codebase (thesunday_movie/). From these examples you can see that it is easy to set up multiple folders for each individual project, with each folder varying in the movie files, graphic files, while keeping the same videoclipstream.zip and buttonset.

Updating common resources

The advantage of this method is that you can upgrade common resources. A new videocipstream.zip? Simply upload over the old one. Changing your branding in the title or end image? Upload new ones over the old filenames. You will not need to update any of the code.