Question: I am making a website where the page background is a video.

I'm just wondering is it better I host this video on the same server as the website, or does it make sense to host it on YouTube as I'm assuming they offer better regional performance for video streaming.

Thanks for your input!

Answer: 
Well, from experience of hosting a background video on the same server, if you implement it the generic way, the client has to download the entire video file before the page is displayed. Now, the problem with this is, unless the user has a fast internet connection, the page is going to have very long loading times. This can be overcome with a loading page for example. However, hosting the video on the same server means that you, as the site administrator has full control of the video and you do not have to rely on third party services.

Take a look at this tutorial page, it seems to create a rather good effect with just HTML5 and CSS, it may help point you in the right direction:

[Creating a fullscreen video background with HTML5 and CSS](http://slicejack.com/creating-a-fullscreen-html5-video-background-with-css/)
You should totally host it in YouTube. The bandwidth savings are reason enough IMHO.