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Streaming ? Or what is it?

I have 2 web hosts from two different hosting company. One is for hosting my web page and the secondary where I upload the videos (mp4 format). At the moment I'm using http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/ it because I can use HTML5 and if the client doesn't supports HTML5 it falls back to regular FLV video player.

The videos I receive has .avi or .mpeg extensions. I'm using Miro Video Convertor to convert videos to .mp4 than I upload them to my secondary web host. From there I can easily access the mp4 formatted video via URL. After everything is finished I just copy and paste the URL link to my HTML document, something like this:

<video
    src="http://66.55.XXX.XXX/university/students/video1.mp4"
    width="640px"
    height="480px"
    id="vidi"
</video>

I already made my research about video streaming, but... I don't understand or.. am I doing it right? If I just copy paste the link it means I'm streaming the video from web host #1 to web host #2 ? Is it right?

Also, the videos has 1280 x 1024 HD quality and I know if Videos has a higher quality, the buffer, the load time last longer. This is why I re-size videos to 640 x 480 and also to be compatible with HTML5.

How many bandwidth am I using? And a client? If one of person (student) is viewing the video how many bandwidth is he using? I payed for a web host for unlimited storing, because I upload 10, 12 GB of data every week.

I'm very worried for the load or buffer time. Currently the web page is used for ~30, 40 people, but what if the whole year or university will be using the web page? What am I supposed to do?

Am I doing the streaming right? This is why I opted for 2 different web hosts, to have more bandwidth.

Sorry for long post and for my english.

Thank you !

Solution

  • If I just copy paste the link it means I'm streaming the video from web host #1 to web host #2 ? Is it right?

    Firstly, it looks like the media file is being served up via plain HTTP, no logic. So I'd not call it "streaming" but rather "progressive download". (It's a marketing ploy by hosting companies--if it is video, it must be streaming, right? Ah...no.)

    Secondly, no: the video will not go from 66.55.XXX.XXX to the web server that is hosting your website. Rather it will go straight from to 66.55.XXX.XXX to the web browser.

    Also, the videos has 1280 x 1024 HD quality and I know if Videos has a higher quality, the buffer, the load time last longer. This is why I re-size videos to 640 x 480 and also to be compatible with HTML5.

    Resizing the video to reduce the bandwidth means you'll need to transcode the video to a smaller size. Setting the width and height attributres on the <video> tag will only change the displayed size. These two attributes have no impact on the bit rate coming from the server, and hence no impact on the buffer or load times.

    How many bandwidth am I using? And a client? If one of person (student) is viewing the video how many bandwidth is he using?

    There are two terms you need to be aware of here:

    • Traffic: The number of bytes sent (volume)
    • Bandwidth: The rate at which the bytes are sent (rate)

    It's an important distinction. Again, many hosting companies mix up these concepts in the name of marketing. Be careful.

    How does this impact your situation? Think about it like this: If you have a 1GB video on hosted, and it is viewed 10 times, that is 10GB of traffic. The bandwidth depends on the server sending the file, the client's network connection speed, and a network in between. As a rule of thumb you don't need to worry about this, except for two points:

    1. The bit rate of the video needs to be smaller than the bit rate of the network connection between client and server. If not you'll have buffering during video play back.
    2. Your hosting company may (probably!) restricts how many concurrent users can view a video at once. if 100 people download the video at once, each at an average of 2mbps, that is 200mpbs of bandwidth!

    Unless you have more than 10-100 viewers a day, I would not worry about bandwidth too much.

    A simple way to calculate the bandwidth of your video is:

    bit rate = (bytes * 8) / (time in seconds)

    Silly example: 800s long 1GB video (rounded for clarity)

    bit rate = (1,000,000,000 bytes * 8 bits per byte) / (800 seconds)
bit rate = (8,000,000,000 bits)                    / (800 seconds)
bit rate =  10,000,000 bits per second
bit rate =  10,000 kilobits per second
bit rate =  10     megabits per second

    I payed for a web host for unlimited storing, because I upload 10, 12 GB of data every week.

    "Unlimited storage", ah maybe. If you upload enough data at some point someone is going to take notice and tell you that your ToC have been violated. The hosting market is evil that way.

    I'm very worried for the load or buffer time. Currently the web page is used for ~30, 40 people, but what if the whole year or university will be using the web page? What am I supposed to do?

    At once? Or per day? Is that people watching one video? Or videos viewed? If you have 10-25 concurrent then you probably should be at least mildly worried about the hosting company.

    Frankly, the web/video hosting market is full of bait-n-switch tactics, opaque pricing, gangster ToCs, and convoluted marketing speak. You would probably be better served by using a service like Amazon's AWS. Specifically, use Amazon S3 to store your videos and use Amazon CloudFront to stream the videos to the clients. All of this has three distinct advantages to shady hosting companies:

    1. Fair and transparent pricing (including an online calculator)
    2. Pay for what you use (and not more)
    3. Effectively unlimited storage and bandwidth (AWS has terabits of bandwidth and exabytes of storage)

    I highly recommend AWS for small but non-trivial projects like you seem to have.

    And go full size HD! It is a much more compelling experience for your viewers.

    Good luck!