Fitting A Square PEG Media In A Round PEG Media Hole

PEG Media is a site hosted somewhere on the Internet. (It was started by a cable access station in Maine somewhere.) They solved the problem of media distribution to lots and lots of cable access stations (CAS) by creating a library of media. At first, it was free. Then, they started charging for downloads. (Producers, like us, could upload for free.)

The problem with free is you get what you pay for. Recently, we’ve found that our uploads sometimes get stuck in the some kind of limbo there. (They actually us Amazon.com’s distribution backbone network, or something like that, or we’re hallucinating.) So, to get a video out into the wild, you have to upload it to their site, it has to be recognized. You have to add information about it, then it has to be read or transcoded or had pixie dust applied. Whatever happens, if it doesn’t happen just right, the video never makes it to it’s final resting place.

We’ve had no trouble distributing our low-rez videos (for Internet streaming on sites like Vimeo or Blip.TV). We don’t go through PEG Media for that. But, for other CAS’s out there, we need to.

There’s a Massachusetts only distribution site we also use. So, for local stations, it’s accessible. (Assuming they know how to use it.) We’ve also kept our video on our own website (which live out in the ether). We don’t like to have that as a primary pull site because it could affect our monthly usage from the ISP provider. (Although we’re probably way below any reasonable limit.)

So, what to do.

Well, we don’t know yet. We’ll give PEG Media another chance, although uploading our video a third time to their site probably isn’t the best idea…but it’s all we have.

If you are a CAS and have inquiries about our videos, just send some email. We’d love to hear from you.

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