# Do you allow video uploads on your Discourse forums?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [March 2, 2020, 10:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135 "2020-03-02T22:17:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jord8on](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jord8on)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2020, 10:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/1 "2020-03-02T22:17:51Z")
Hey DiscoFam! I have a best practices type question…
I’m not sure whether I want to allow and encourage video uploads on my forums. While there may be some really good vid content that’s added, there will likely be a lot that is not really timeless.
The audience for our forums come from Facebook where almost every post has a pic or video attached. about 2 out of 5 posts are timeless posts.
I want to encourage folks to use Youtube and Facebook as the main source for video hosting and then just plug the link into their post. Obviously this is making an extra step for members who are used to it being one step, in Facebook.
If cost were no issue I might just turn off the restrictions and allow large file types, including videos. But I’m personally footing the bill for hosting and managing the community right now.
I’d love to discuss some pros/cons to allowing video uploads vs. encouraging members to use other best-in-class video hosting tools, and linking to the vids.
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### Author:  [@Remah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Remah)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/2 "2020-03-03T00:07:32Z")
No ⛔ , for longer videos. Primarily for this very important con:
> [@Handling uploaded videos](https://meta.discourse.org/t/handling-uploaded-videos/79917/7):
>
> Discourse isn’t meant to be a video sharing solution – and there are dozens of very mature and free existing video sharing sites which are video sharing solutions. So the rather complex engineering described above (which would also massively increase your CPU and RAM requirements on the server, by an order of magnitude or more) is unlikely to happen for the forseeable future.
Yes, 😃, for very short videos:
> [@Video player for uploads](https://meta.discourse.org/t/video-player-for-uploads/104764/8):
>
> It already works this way, try uploading a short mp4 clip and it will work fine, as you can see here: You’re simply going to run into upload limits because videos are HUUUUGE. Upload those clips somewhere that specializes in hosting video and then link to them, like everyone else does, which also provides a built in player .. wink
Maybe, 🤔 for anything in between.
We’re using Discourse to replace email storage, so we can potentially receive a video attachment which is larger than the default Discourse limit. If we really wanted to keep the video content then I guess that we also have the option to edit it into multiple shorter videos or to keep only the relevant content.
> [@jord8on](#):
>
> The audience for our forums come from Facebook where almost every post has a pic or video attached
If you read in this forum then it soon becomes obvious that the more your forum characteristics approach a clone of Facebook or something similar then the less appropriate Discourse will be. [A really bad example here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/paid-plugin-9gag-clone-for-discourse/28075)
Many of the pros and cons of video uploading aren’t going to be the same for every Discourse site. From my perspective, the Discourse limitation on upload size, which you see as a hindrance, are a clear and positive benefit because it helps to prevent my users from posting ephemeral or pointless videos from social media.
I don’t understand what you are trying to do with your forum but I think that the rationale for deciding “Yes” should be based, first, on what is likely to drive success in your forum. Then look at the potential benefits so you’re clear on what you will likely win if you go for it and forego if you don’t. Only then look at the costs. Cost is just another constraint - even when a make-or-break constraint - that I will have to try to manage and overcome.
I guess that if the storage and processing costs couldn’t be reduced enough then I would consider developing or contributing to different solution. Maybe a plug-in to automatically upload videos to a video service so they never get stored in Discourse.
From [https://forums.pickleballist.com/](https://forums.pickleballist.com/) I assume that you mean _forums_ as one Discourse instance/website with multiple “forums” rather than multiple instances of Discourse as different websites. But if I did have multiple Discourse forums then the cost equation probably changes considerably. Video storage configuration would be significantly more complex to setup but would offer greater economies from scaling storage to keep your unit costs low.
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2020, 2:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/3 "2020-03-03T02:55:33Z")
I’d use [https://joinpeertube.org/](https://joinpeertube.org/) and encourage everyone to mirror videos. Then, it’s timeless, cheaper, and technically fair use because you are literally a discussion forum to discuss the things you link to.
🕶
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### Author:  [@Remah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Remah)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2020, 3:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/4 "2020-03-03T03:24:08Z")
For anyone who is interested in this topic, the OP, @jord8on, has created a more detailed topic post at Feverbee:
[https://experts.feverbee.com/t/to-allow-or-not-to-allow-video/9979?u=remah](https://experts.feverbee.com/t/to-allow-or-not-to-allow-video/9979?u=remah)
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### Author:  [@ti0](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ti0)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/5 "2020-10-29T21:37:23Z")
@jord8on yesterday I released a plugin that let’s Discourse users upload videos to Vimeo and YouTube, this might help your case:
> [@Discourse Video Upload Plugin with YouTube and Vimeo](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vimeo-upload-plugin/168569):
>
> Note: This plugin is available as a theme component which enables a much easier installation. The plugin in this post is not actively supported, it is recommended to use the theme component : [Video Upload to YouTube and Vimeo using Theme Component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/video-upload-to-youtube-and-vimeo-using-theme-component/170079) Summary: Allows users on a Discourse forum to upload videos to Vimeo and YouTube directly from the Discourse composer. link GitHub: [GitHub - xomads/discourse-video-upload](https://github.com/xomads/discourse-video-upload)arrow_right Install: Follow the [plugin installation guide](https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-a-plugin/19157). Features All…
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### Author:  [@jord8on](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jord8on)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/6 "2020-10-29T21:54:43Z")
Strong work @ti0!!! Looking forward to trying this!
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### Author:  [@ti0](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ti0)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2020, 10:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/7 "2020-11-01T22:52:51Z")
Thanks! Now even YouTube is supported in the same plugin 🙂
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### Author:  [@volanar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/volanar)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-you-allow-video-uploads-on-your-discourse-forums/143135/8 "2021-02-24T23:58:05Z")
Hello. Great plugin. It can be improved so that the functionality is similar to [Advanced video - phpFox Store](https://store.phpfox.com/apps/advanced-video)
With this plugin, you can create communities of a new format. And watching videos and channels on the site increases the user’s time in the community, which improves SEO