new guy needs help

[Atwater playhouse A.]

Hi, I have no experience in programing so excuse me if I'm in the wrong
place. I am a director and filmmaker (www.prothemovie.com
www.thehardroadmovie.com www.atwaterplayhouse.com) about to launch a new
100% video website set in the bike racing, (cycling) subculture. A
friend of mine told me about Ruby and thought it might be the best
language to have my platform, (if that's the right word) on. I would
like the viewer to have access to as many as 10 different "categories"
of content.
I will be looking to upload short new videos daily in a variety of
subjects. I think at first there will be some that I simply post on
youtube and will want on my site, but eventually I would like to be able
to house finished product myself which I output in flash, (or beyond)
for best quality.
My concern is that I am Mac/Final Cut based and I have heard this may be
a concern for Ruby.
Any help would be greatly appreciated before I get started and then have
to go backwards to re-build.
Thank you

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

Hi, I have no experience in programing so excuse me if I'm in the wrong
place.

You aren't in the wrong place.

Check out pine.fm/LearnToProgram/ to get an idea of the basics of
programming (coincidentally, the site uses Ruby ), and later on
grab the excellent The Ruby Way, and Programming Ruby (aka Pickaxe)
books.

Welcome to Ruby.

I am a director and filmmaker (www.prothemovie.com
www.thehardroadmovie.com www.atwaterplayhouse.com) about to launch a new
100% video website set in the bike racing, (cycling) subculture. A
friend of mine told me about Ruby and thought it might be the best
language to have my platform, (if that's the right word) on. I would
like the viewer to have access to as many as 10 different "categories"
of content.
I will be looking to upload short new videos daily in a variety of
subjects. I think at first there will be some that I simply post on
youtube and will want on my site, but eventually I would like to be able
to house finished product myself which I output in flash, (or beyond)
for best quality.

Two points:

One, video takes up a lot of bandwidth, so its a good idea to
outsource video hosting (YouTube [to be handled with care, as Google
wants a perpetual, free license to use your content], blip.tv [no
opinion on that one], Vimeo [to be handled with care if you want to
use the videos commercially]).

Two, as a beginner it is risky to put up your own, internet facing
code, simply because of the security risks you can expose yourself to
without knowing. Thus, I would recommend using a content management
system, at least until you got your feet wet, and feel comfortable in
placing your own code out there.

I can heartily recommend Wordpress (http://wordpress.org) as a CMS,
and if you are just hellbent on using Ruby: Typo
(http://blog.typosphere.org/) and Radiant (http://radiantcms.org/) are
common Ruby/Rails based CMSes.

My concern is that I am Mac/Final Cut based and I have heard this may be
a concern for Ruby.

Not that I am aware. Ruby is very *NIX centric, and Mac OS X is a UNIX
flavor under the shiny exterior. And I think Flash handles the
streaming for you.

Any help would be greatly appreciated before I get started and then have
to go backwards to re-build.

I hope that will be helpful for you, at least as a kick-start.
--
Phillip Gawlowski

Though the folk I have met,
(Ah, how soon!) they forget
When I've moved on to some other place,
There may be one or two,
When I've played and passed through,
Who'll remember my song or my face.