Streaming of video from a server
 

In the past I have used Flash videos to stream video. The problem I ran into was when the Flash video was on a shared server that was hosting the site, it caused problems as it put to heavy a load on the server's CPU. Was wondering if I used an embedded Quicktime video instead would that still put a load on the server?

I think they do, who was your shared web host? I did hosting with 1and1 and it worked out well until I moved to a dedicated server.

I use GoDaddy. I did not have problems with my shared server hosting until I put up some HD quality/sized Flash videos. The shared server then became overloaded and I was told to take them down. What problems did you have with 1&1? My friend is thinking of using them.

I didn't have any problems really, I just finally got setup to where I can afford the montly bill of a dedicated server. Turns out most of my clients are OK with a montly bill for hosting their files so they dont have to deal with it or use youtube :) Only "problem" is common of all shared hosting which is its hard to customize things such as the version of ruby if you are trying to write some custom scripts.

Did you exceed your bandwidth quota, or how did they justify asking you to take down the videos?

Also, was this true streaming for just progressive download of videos?

Thanks,
Martin

What happened was my hosting was on a shared server, and the Flash videos (1280x720) put to much of a load on the server causing problems. I think it was a progressive downloading Flash video.

But then again it could have been to much bandwidth at one time. I had put up the videos and my bandwidth increased by about 10x once the web page started to get posted around the Internet.

What's the data rate you picked when you encode the flash video? I tried 1mbps. The video looks good and streaming is smooth. However, data rate over 1mbps I am skeptical about it. A lot of people still using DSL on 384kbps bandwidth.

Duane,

It was most certainly a bandwidth issue. That is a MASSIVE amount of bandwidth you're taking up if many people are downloading those videos and a little Go-Daddy account does not afford you that.

Its not a CPU issue. The web server is simply opening up a file and giving it the user, a very trivial operation for it to perform.

That would make sense, but it should be crystal clear whether or not the allowed bandwidth was exceeded - they are just two numbers that one can compare, there is no ambiguity. To me though, Duane's posts sounded like it had been more of a judgement call ("...your site puts more load on our servers than we would like to see...").

Looking at GoDaddy's hosting plans, even the smallest hosting plan has 250GB of data transfer. That's a lot of downloads, even with large files.

- Martin

So GoDaddy is okay? I've used them for a year, but am starting to do a lot more with video, and am trying to put together a Flash Video Gallery w/ ActionScript 3.0. They're now making me pay more, and that's fine if they're not limiting me.

I use 1 & 1 and it seems good so far. very cheap! Here's a flash video i put on it.
http://sorrentofilms.com/reel.html