[matvp]

That's a very primitive approach. Once you're dealing with adaptive formats (DASH, HLS) containing multiple renditions (different bitrates) and/or codecs, it gets more complicated. I get that a single h264 codec/mp4 (webm) container file is easy enough as it is widely supported but once you're dealing with larger video's and getting them served over different connection types/speeds, it gets trickier. Atleast with services like Vimeo/YouTube, you don't have to bother too much.

[judge2020]

Well, that's what they sell. Vimeo charges reasonably for transcoding and storing all these different versions of videos. YouTube does it for free to stifle competition and stay the only place advertisers can go if they want a captive audience (with TikTok and Facebook, both also free, being their only real competitors).

If I had to actually recommend a service it'd be Cloudflare Stream[0], which allows you to upload videos, CF transcodes them, and you get a link to a page with just the video player[1], and they offer options like only allowing embeds on certain origins and disabling/enabling MP4 downloads. The pricing is fairly reasonable as well at $1 per 1,000 watch minutes and $5 per 1,000 minutes of stored video.

0: https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare-stream/

1: https://watch.videodelivery.net/b9d528d5eece459b80113823cefd...

[chii]

> Once you're dealing with adaptive formats (DASH, HLS) containing multiple renditions (different bitrates) and/or codecs, it gets more complicated.

but why does it need to have all these different formats and bitrates?

[gruez]

>different formats

varying devices/platforms support varying formats

>bitrates

so some guy on watching on a 3G connection doesn't need to watch your 4K stream.