Do you need a CMS for your video site?

Before we can create a video site we will need to decide whether you need a publishing system or not. This page will help you make this decision by pointing out the pros and cons of both methods.

WordPress as a video CMS

WordPress is a very versatile content management system that can be used for pretty much any kind of website. If you are okay with having the bulk of your site be in HTML and you’re going to be publishing a lot of videos then this would be the way to go. An example of what an HTML interface for a video system would look like can be seen on this site we made for Atlantic Television. The player itself is created in flash, but the navigation between the different videos (represented as thumbnails on the right).

If you decide you don’t need a publishing system we can still build a custom video player from scratch in flash but we won’t need to do all the work of integrating it with a publishing system. The drawbacks are that you’d need to edit an XML file to add new videos or have us add them for you in some cases. The benefits are that since we’re making a flash site the transitions between videos are more fluid and customizable, as opposed to the HTML version above where you just load a new page with the new video in it… An example of a site we’ve made without a publishing system is moyercine.com.

Here more comparison between the two systems, let us know which you think will work best for you.

advantages of using a CMS

You would have a web based CMS (content management system) to upload and update your own content. To update the content on a site we make in flash, you would either have to send us video files to put on the site (which we charge for by the hour) or if you have a tech savy person on your staff who would like to handle the updating of content we could talk them through the process which isn’t very complicated.
With wordpress, instead of uploading your videos through the wordpress system you could also embed them from YouTube which would allow your videos to get more exposure.
If you’re going to have a site with a ton of videos you might need a Search feature: since you’ll be titling and adding descriptions through WordPress we could also program a search.
Each video would have a unique URL so you could email urls for your videos.
Makes it easier to integrate advertising

advantages of not using a CMS

It is easier to program the functionality and customize the look of a site that does not include a publishing system.
If we’re not going to be integrating a CMS we would be making the entire site in Flash which adds much more interactive feel

Either system would allow us to make a great website, the question is whether you need the CMS features or not. We’ve found that the WordPress system is best if you have a large amount of content you want to offer and you will be adding new content regularly, otherwise the costs could outweigh the benefits of the system.