Why I Use Bunny.net To Deliver Video On Boofkay.com

I found Bunny through Chad.

That’s ChatGPT to you.

I was looking for alternatives to YouTube and Vimeo because I wanted more control over the videos I was putting on Boofkay.com.

I didn’t necessarily want YouTube branding.

I didn’t want to keep paying Vimeo prices.

I wanted to make a video, put it on my website and have it look and behave the way I wanted it to.

That search eventually led me to two things:

Presto Player.

And Bunny.net.

Why Do I Need Bunny.net?

The simplest explanation is that I needed somewhere good to put the videos.

It’s a little like tomatoes in spaghetti sauce.

There are a million different tomatoes.

You don’t spend much time thinking about the tomato once the sauce is finished.

You just need one that does its job really, really well.

That’s Bunny.

It stores and delivers the videos I want people to actually watch on Boofkay.com without forcing me to rely on YouTube or Vimeo.

And it does it fast and for next to nothing.

That works for me.

I Just Wanted More Control Over My Videos

The original problem was pretty simple.

I was creating videos and wanted to show them on my website the way I wanted them presented.

That sounds easy.

Then you start building websites.

Suddenly there are questions.

Where is the video stored?

How is it delivered?

What player is showing it?

Does it autoplay?

Does it have sound?

What happens on a phone?

How much does the file weigh?

Is it slowing down the page?

Welcome to web design.

Every simple idea comes with twelve cousins you didn’t know existed.

Bunny And Presto Confused Me At First

At first, I didn’t completely understand why I needed Bunny and Presto Player.

Bunny can deliver video.

Bunny even has ways of playing video.

So why did I need another video player?

Eventually it clicked.

The simplest way I think about it is:

Bunny handles the video behind the scenes.

Presto Player handles how I present that video on Boofkay.com.

My normal workflow is pretty simple now.

I upload the video to Bunny.

When I’m ready to use it on the website, I bring it into Presto Player.

Then I use the Presto Player widget inside Elementor.

Once you understand the relationship, it isn’t complicated.

Then I Started Thinking About Screens

I wanted the video to take over the screen.

You land on the page.

Boom.

Full-screen video.

You’re instantly inside the idea.

Great.

Except screens don’t cooperate.

Desktop is horizontal.

Phones are vertical.

Then you have tablets, laptops and everything in between.

If the video is important enough, one version may not work everywhere.

You may need horizontal.

Vertical.

Maybe square.

Suddenly one idea can require several versions of the same video.

That’s when having a proper system for storing and delivering video starts to make a lot more sense.

And That’s Not All, Folks.

Then there’s the sound problem.

I’d argue some of the commercials I make are 1000% better with the sound on.

Music matters.

Voice matters.

Timing matters.

Sound effects matter.

But a visitor’s location matters more.

The phone doesn’t care about my artistic vision.

Browsers and mobile devices have rules around autoplay and sound.

So now there’s another decision.

Let the video start immediately without sound?

Or put a giant Play button on it and hope the visitor presses it?

I don’t love that second option.

The second you ask somebody to press Play, you’ve given them another decision.

And every decision is another opportunity to leave.

So I Compromised

This is becoming one of the biggest lessons of building Boofkay.

You compromise.

You adapt.

You work within the framework.

You try not to make everything more complicated than it needs to be.

Maybe one day I’ll have the resources and technical setup to make every video behave exactly the way I see it in my head on every screen.

Right now?

I found an easier solution.

Use video as the background.

Put it behind a strong headline.

A short description.

One button.

Let the motion create the feeling.

Let the words do the selling.

Make the hero section actually feel heroic.

That has become one of my favorite ways to use video on a webpage.

So What Does That Have To Do With The Price Of Tea In China?

Not every video belongs in the same system.

I started experimenting with Bunny for background videos too.

And with the setup I was using, I noticed something I didn’t like.

The first few seconds could appear lower quality before sharpening up.

If the first thing somebody sees looks grainy and then suddenly gets sharp, that’s a distraction.

It creates a little silent objection.

Something feels off.

And I don’t want the first few seconds of the customer journey giving the viewer a reason to leave.

So for now, I’m doing something very simple.

My short background videos stay in the WordPress Media Library.

The videos people intentionally watch go through Bunny and Presto Player.

Is that necessarily the final technical setup for Boofkay?

Probably not.

But it lets me keep building instead of spending weeks trying to perfect one background video.

That matters more right now.

Simple Works For Boofkay

I like the way Blocksy handles the blog side of the website.

It’s clean.

Simple.

Easy to read.

That fits Boofkay.

I run a simple creative marketing agency.

The creative part should come from the ideas, the words, the images and the videos.

The framework holding all of it together doesn’t need to scream for attention.

It just needs to work.

Blocksy does that for me.

Know When To Stop Tinkering

I have a growing collection of short background videos inside WordPress.

There may eventually be better ways to compress, store and deliver all of them.

That’s something worth reviewing as Boofkay grows.

But I could also spend days testing CDNs, formats, compression settings and hosting configurations while the parts of the business that actually need my attention sit unfinished.

That isn’t the priority right now.

My priority is finishing the Jupiter Edition.

Getting businesses involved.

Selling the idea.

Building Boofkay.

When the business reaches the point where deeper website optimization is justified, I’ll bring in a local web designer who specializes in web performance to review the entire setup.

There’s a point where learning can turn into procrastination disguised as productivity.

I don’t need to know everything before I move forward.

I need to know enough to make a good decision and keep going.

Bunny Costs Me Peanuts

One of the biggest reasons I like Bunny is the cost.

The cost has been tiny.

Seriously.

Peanuts.

I put money in the account and the usage barely seems to make a dent in it.

As Boofkay grows, obviously that can change.

But right now, for a small local advertising business building out its website and video library, the cost has been ridiculously reasonable for what I’m getting.

That makes experimenting much easier.