What exactly is FLV Mate?

FLV Mate is easy to use desktop application that helps you to put streaming videos on your web site or blog.

FLV Mate converts video from your web camera, digital video camera or screen capture application to the online streaming format, uploads your video to Amazon S3 and creates an online video player for it; all using one, simple, wizard-like interface.

It is available for 32-bit Microsoft Windows XP or Vista and for Intel bases Mac OS X computers.

FLV Mate vs. free video hosting web sites. Why should I use FLV Mate?

With FLV Mate you get full control over your online videos. You control your video size and quality and keep your video free from third party branding and advertisements.

The quality of your video is not getting reduced when you embed it into your web site or blog. Your visitors are not forced to go to a free video hosting web site to watch a high quality version.

FLV Mate includes hight quality, royalty free, unbranded online HD video player. You might expect to pay hundreds of dollars just to license online HD video player to use on multiple web sites. With FLV Mate you can publish your video on any number of web sites or domains.

If you use online video for commercial purposes it is crucial to keep your visitor’s attention on you offer, demonstration or screencast. When you use FLV Mate with Amazon S3, you get a clean video player that doesn’t allow your visitor to click on third party advertisements or watch another third party video. Your visitor stays on you web site. You can also easily create a private video and put it in a member’s only area of your web site.

When you use FLV Mate with Amazon S3, you own your video. It will never be removed because, in free web host opinion, it is “inactive” (i.e. generate too little traffic to their web site). Your video will never be disabled because it has commercial purpose that conflict with the free video host policy (i.e. it is used for ad revenue generation on your web site).

When you use FLV Mate with Amazon S3, you can upload any amount of video, anytime. You don’t have to buy an extra bandwidth allowance upfront just to upload your data.

And last, but not least, there are no ongoing subscription fees to use FLV Mate with Amazon S3. With FLV Mate you buy a perpetual license with one single payment of $39.95. With Amazon S3 you pay only for data and bandwidth you really use (see next question).

What is Amazon S3?

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a web-service, provided by Amazon.com, that enables anyone to store and share large amounts of data online.

This is a free to join, pay-as-you-go service with no minimum fees that makes it very attractive to small businesses and individuals who need to host their videos online.

All stored data can be made available via the web-browser, just like any web site on the Internet.

Prices depend on location of your data and currently set to the following:

United States Datacenter

Storage
$0.15 per GB-Month of storage used

Data Transfer
$0.10 per GB – all data transfer in
$0.18 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.16 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.13 per GB – data transfer out / month over 50 TB

Requests
$0.01 per 1,000 upload or list requests
$0.01 per 10,000 download and all other requests

Europe Datacenter

Storage
$0.18 per GB-Month of storage used

Data Transfer
$0.10 per GB – all data transfer in
$0.18 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.16 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.13 per GB – data transfer out / month over 50 TB

Requests
$0.012 per 1,000 upload or list requests
$0.012 per 10,000 download and all other requests

Why should I use Amazon S3 for video hosting?

Here is just a short list of reasons why you should consider Amazon S3:

  1. It is simple and affordable web hosting solution. Amazon S3 system consists of thousands of servers with terabytes of disk space, all of them working together and sharing a load. No dedicated server, that may cost you thousands of dollars a month, can beat it.

  2. Only pay for what you use. It is pay-as-you-go service; you never pay for storage and bandwidth you don’t use.

  3. Never loose your data. You files are reliably stored in Amazon’s data centres in US or Europe.

  4. Scalability on-demand. Your video gets streamed fast regardless on number of users, trying to access it. Your web site is protected from unexpected spikes in traffic.

  5. Unlimited disk space and bandwidth. There is no limit to how much data you can store and how much bandwidth you can use.

  6. Get load off your web-server. Serving large video files to lots of people puts a serious load on your web-server. By moving your videos to Amazon S3 you protect your web-server from overload.

  7. Amazon S3 is backed by Service Level Agreement (”SLA”). Amazon guarantees the service to be available 99.99% of time; otherwise you are entitled to a service credit.

Do I need to have Amazon S3 account to use FLV Mate?

No, you don’t. You can still use FLV Mate to convert your video and publish it to a local folder. After that you can upload it to any web hosting account. Also, see the next question.

Can I use my existing web hosting account to host my videos?

Yes, absolutely. Just select a local folder as a destination and upload generated files to your web host using any file transfer client.

Be aware though, that most shared web hosting services are not designed to handle massive amounts of traffic you video might generate. Make sure to check your web host Fair Usage Policy, even if they claim to provide unlimited storage and traffic. Consider using Amazon S3 if you are after a highly available and scalable solution.

If you’d like to have FTP/SFTP/WebDav/iDisk/etc publishing functionality to be included in future versions of FLV Mate, join our support discussion at GetSatisfaction and say so.

I’d like to use Amazon S3. Do I need to have my own Amazon S3 account?

Yes. FLV Mate uploads video to your own Amazon S3 account and you need to register at http://www.amazonaws.com/ to use Amazons S3 publishing functionality. Registration is easy and can be done in just a few minutes with a credit card.

I can’t convert 3GP video file

3GP video uses a proprietary audio codec with strict licensing requirements. Licensing this technology would cause FLV Mate to cost at least several hundreds of dollars. We decided to drop the support of this audio codec to make FLV Mate more affordable to you.

You can still convert 3GP video file, just make sure to uncheck the “Enable audio” checkbox. Your video will be converted and published without an audio.

Will FLV Mate be available for 64-bit Windows and PPC Macintosh?

Join our support discussion at GetSatisfaction and raise your voice. If we see a critical mass of people wanting 64-bit Windows or PPC Macintosh support we will port FLV Mate to these platforms.

I think FLV Mate is a best tool ever…

Thank you. We strive to make FLV Mate the best tool on a market and your support is much appreciated. Please consider purchasing a license today to support the future development of the application.

Tell a friend about FLV Mate or blog about it. Also, please join our support discussion at GetSatisfaction, contribute you feedback and tell us what you’d like to see in future versions.

We would appreciate a written testimonial from you; just send an email to feedback@flvmate.com. If you’d like to give one but don’t know what to write, tell us and we will help.

I think FLV Mate is a best tool ever but I don’t have any money. Can I get it for free?

If you are a technical blogger or journalist willing to write an honest review of FLV Mate, send us an email with you name, web site address and a short pitch. We will send you a FREE license for proper evaluation which is yours to keep.

If you are a non-profit organisation, charity of any kind or run an open source project, send us an email with you name, web site address and a short note about your organisation and how you are planning to use FLV Mate. We will send you a FREE license.

I think FLV Mate is a worst tool ever. Give me my money back.

No worries. If you purchased FLV Mate already, we offer 30-day unconditional, hassle free, no questions asked money back guarantee. Just write an email to refund@flvmate.com from the name and email address you used to register FLV Mate. You will be issued a refund.

Although the guarantee is unconditional, we would appreciate if you write us why you didn’t like our product. We strive to make FLV Mate the best tool on a market and you feedback is very important to us.