My goal: Find a simple client-side screening room for people to watch their rough cuts via the magic of internet.

Solution 1: Send people to a FTP directory full of video files.  Tell them to download “_____.mov”
Problem: Clients are afraid of open FTP directories, and occasionally don’t understand how to download and playback Quicktime files.

Solution 2: Find a PHP based thing to build a stupid little gallery page that updates itself according to the files in the FTP.  I don’t care what it looks like, I just want click&play functionality for my clients
Problem: PHPmyadmin? mySQL?  What the fuck is this shit?  How do I make you support movies?  I’m an editor, not an internetmaker.  This is too complicated.

Solution 3: Hey! I pay $90/year for Mobileme.  I only use it to sync contacts between my computers and phone, but it has galleries that support video. I can just send clients to their own (password protected) gallery pages.
Problem: Can’t upload via ftp or iDisk.  iPhoto crashes every time it tries to upload a video. Web interface doesn’t allow me to name files, leaving my clients with a bunch of unnamed thumbnails to poke through. It’s too simple for its own good.

This is stupid. I don’t want to use Vimeo or Youtube, because the transcoding time takes longer than it would take for clients to watch it, make revision notes, and send me changes. Mobileme looked like the answer, but SHOCKINGLY, it can’t do what I need it to do. The PHP gallery thing looks like the best option, but there’s a lot of garbage out there and I am not good at server-side complications.  How can this work?