Hi there all, I dont really have a clue about db's, but have been asked recently if we could incorporate a searchable video field into our website.

http://www.smoke-mirrors.com

the website is a complete flash movie, so would need to create a page where users can type in name of commercial/director/product brand and the relevant videos come back.

All i need are the first few steps to get me going and will be able, 'hopefully' , to take it from there...

have been looking online, but no definitive thing jumps out on best way to do it.

any help is greatly appreciated...

Thanks

eliotrivero

I have no idea what to tell you. But that's some nice flash there.

mySQL would be my first guess, as it is free and very popular with web developers.

I'd say you need to sort your web site out a bit first:

• The front page makes no mention of what the site contains
• It's unclear what the user has to click to get anywhere.
• Moving the mouse over the locations shows the address, move the mouse over the address and it disappears!

When I (eventually) worked out you need to click the word London:

• The page takes a long time to load
• Words all compressed together makes it difficult to read (perhaps it's the modern style)
• Some words do things others don't
• On sub pages none of the words seem to do anything ie Moby in music reel even though these words look like the words that do things
• No way of getting back to front page

The name smoke and mirrors implied mystery to me but the web site simply generated confusion. Just my 2c.

Regards the database:

• Video - I believe it's best to store the video in a file rather than in the database as an image field.
• db design - looks quite straightforward but it may depend on how many descriptive parameters (commercial/director/product brand) apply to any video and whether these parameters can change over time ie you might want to add type of video (cgi), style (music, commercial), year etc.
• Are there any hierarchies of parameters ie music videos -> punk, classical, rock etc.
• Do you want to remember what each user has looked at so you can show the most popular or retrieve for the user what he's looked at.

How will having a text entry field (for the search) work in your current web design? it would be a strong departure from your current flash based approach.

Do you really want to design the database yourself, or get it for free of a forum - if your business relies on this then it might be a good idea to look into having it done professionally for you - I doubt if it would cost much if it's just the database and relevant stored procedures you're after.

That's now 4c