Need help with Streaming Video. Whats best solution.

[vidguy101]

Huge favor to ask of you guys. You adult webmasters
run the absolute best STREAMING VIDEO SUBSCRIPTION
websites in the world. thats a fact.

I am rolling out a NON adult subscription based website.
I need some help with HOW to serve and stream my
video content. the videos will be anywhere from 3 minutes
to 6 minutes in length. I want to have about 5-10 videos
in a Free tour area and then i want to put about 200
videos in a Fee based area.

I am trying to understand the BEST appproach to hosting
and storing the videos on a server for my paying customers
to view.

here are some of the ideas that i have come up with.

brightcove:
amazing video platform, integrated ads, super expensive.

viddler:
white label solution, brandable player, decent pricing,
good anayltics. priced at around 1 dollar per gig of
bandwith and then gets down to about .35 cents
a gig.

longtailvideo / JWplayer
not to sure i understand this. i buy the player
and then hook it into a CDN or a dedicated box?

flowplayer
another player that i buy and then integrate in
with a CDN or dedicated box.

amazon cloudront?
really cheap bandwith

simplecdn with flowplayer or JWplayer
REALLY REALLY cheap bandwith.
too difficult to integrate.

What i am trying to do with EVERY aspect of my site is
go with the BEST IN CLASS type solutions. and in the
case of the video i want to find a solution that ALREADY
exsists that i can use.

my website is a custom wordpress blog. I want to
be able to integrate the video in so that it does not
get scraped (phantom frog or strongbox)? I want
to have a really nice embeddable player and have
it stream a couple different formats. including a nice
high def format.

I am billing and rebilling with the sister company
to CCbill so all my billing and affiliate rebilling will
be taken care of really nicely.

so, would anybody care to give me some insight
into "best practices" associated with streaming
video on a subscription based website?

i REALLY like the solutions like brightcove, but they
are VERY expensive. they have the anayltics built
in, adserver integration, etc..

and really like the prices of simplecdn but how
can i track video and integrates ads, etc.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

[vidguy101]

also, a good "script" could be an option? or are there any special CMS systems or modules for wordpress that are able to handle this?

thanks

[BillyParadise]

Wowza works for me

[symtab]

Hi,

You could go with wowza or with lighttpd + mod_flv_streaming + mod_secdownload.

[Dappz]

you must have a good video cms and having a plugins for flv auto converting and stored it to your server,

[Sands]

Depending on your budget and resources, there's a wide array of resources available to deliver streaming video. I'll outline some of them below. This is not an exhaustive list, but just some of the solutions I've encountered.

1) HTTP pseudo-streaming - You can accomplish this using either LightTPD or Apache servers, and the main advantage is allowing the viewer to seek ahead in the video without having the entire video file loading. This provides both convenience for your visitors as they're unlikely to watch a video from start to finish and will instead skip around, and will also save you bandwidth costs. The downside of this approach, though, is that it's harder to protect your content from downloading. Since this is HTTP-based streaming, there are many, many programs out there that will allow anyone to download those videos from your server. However, if you use LightTPD, you can take advantage of the mod_sec_download module to eliminate unwarranted downloading. If you're using Apache, you will have to find a comparable module that will accomplish the same task.

2) RTMP streaming - Software such as Flash Media Server or Wowza Media Server will allow you to stream your videos via the RTMP protocol which circumvents the aforementioned cons of HTTP pseudo-streaming. Though, you will have to pay for server licenses to use these products and, if you're not experienced with programming or server administration, you will have to hire someone who is to help you get setup.

As for Flash Video players, the most popular choices seem to be the jwplayer and flowplayer. Both of these players can provide HTTP pseudo-streaming and I'm believe (though I'm not 100% sure) that they are usable with the aforementioned RTMP streaming programs.

I hope you find this information useful, and as a representative of Dedico.com, I'd like to invite you to host with us when you work out the specifications of this project. If you'd like to know more about hosting with Dedico, or would like a quote, feel free to get in touch with me: 418194907 or [email protected].

Good luck!

[CaroMark]

Hi Vidguy101,

Caro.Net has a cloud in place for streaming and we could certainly work with you bottom to top on your project.

If you happen to be in Las Vegas for Internext please hit me up and I can see about arranging a meeting for you with one of our Engineers. Irregardless hit me up directly and we can discuss various options that Caro.Net can put into play for you.

Thanks in advance,