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When faced with the task of managing videos in Drupal, the number of available solutions might seem overwhelming. Where should you store the videos? What is the difference between CDNs (content delivery networks), cloud storage services, and hosted video solutions? Which Drupal modules should you use with which service?

Drupal Modules

By using some of the most popular modules for video handling, you can quickly set up a reliable video solution:

• Media module Although not specialized for video, this widely used module can be combined with others; some cloud services have their own modules integrated with the Media module, too.
• MediaElement module The MediaElement module provides an HTML5 (or Flash fallback) player. With the MediaElement module you can stream video to mobile devices as well. The player can integrate with your responsive theme.
• Video module The Video module can handle video upload, transcoding, and playing; generates thumbnails; and can deliver videos from cloud systems.

Content Delivery Networks

CDNs are largely distributed systems optimized for delivering content to end-users, over the Internet, with high availability and performance. For video content, they are often coupled with a transcoding server.
They can be expensive, but are a good choice for improving performance and delivering content for high-traffic websites. As the data centers are distributed, they will be faster than the usual hosting providers for most visitors to your site. Also, contemplate using a CDN if you already have a transcoding server.

The CDN module provides easy Content Delivery Network integration for Drupal sites. It alters file URLs so that files are downloaded from a CDN instead of your web server.

Cloud Storage Services

Cloud storage services aren’t optimized for delivering rich media content on high traffic sites, but can be a cheaper alternative to CDNs – if you don’t have a huge number of videos and your site traffic isn’t very high.