Video On Demand And "streamed"

[mporter88]

Hello.

I have a resellers account but the main customer is my wife's Hollywood CA. casting company.

Currently most of her bandwidth is used for the upload of short video clips (to photokorn gallery) that are then viewed by her clients who then select the correct actors for the various roles.

 

Currently, the job list to achieve this is;

Tape actors (create 1 long DV tape)

Capture and seperate with scenalyzer (create discrete "edited" AVI files)

Convert with Canopus Procoder (create discrete Windows Media or Quicktime files...sometimes both)

Upload to Total Choice Hosted Telekorn Photokorn Gallery (nice product)

Import to Telekorn Gallery (an internal gallery process)

Assign Thumbnails to each clip in Gallery. (another internal gallery process)

Done.

 

It is lots of steps that require some expertise and focus to achieve..but do-able.

 

Now our competition is providing a different product to their customers. One that aparently requires many less steps and man hours to complete.

Aparently they put out a low to medium quality stream that can be viewed "nearly live" (with a delay of "11 seconds") ....or the stream can be invoked from a website and be watched again from the beginning at any time. The only requirement is Windows Media Player.

 

I am beginning to investigate what I will need to do to provide this service in order to compete but I thought that I would post the situation here so I could get my hosts feedback.

 

Can anyone give me any hints about this process?

 

What are my server issues? I think that I have seen that I cannot provide this from a shared server...is that true? There would never be more than 3 or 4 viewers of the videos or the stream with 1 or 2 being more normal.

 

Does Total Choice (who I love dealing with) provide what I need server side ?

What package or service would that be? (so I can get pricing).

 

In order to provide a "stream" my research is showing me that I will need something at my end to convert the DV stream to something more compact (the 11 second delay I suppose)...and then a better than average upload speed to feed the server.

 

So...am I on the right track? Does anyone have guidance for me?

Are there any Total Choice Hosted sites that offer this now?

 

 

I guess that is it.

Have a good day everyone.

Thanks Very Much.

Mike Porter

 

P.S. TCH is the best

[TCH-Bruce]

To "stream" any content you will require a dedicated server.

 

You can only send video/audio on a shared account using the "http" and "flash" methods.

 

TCH does not have any streaming software so you would have to find it elsewhere and install it to your dedicated server.

[mporter88]

To "stream" any content you will require a dedicated server.

 

You can only send video/audio on a shared account using the "http" and "flash" methods.

 

TCH does not have any streaming software so you would have to find it elsewhere and install it to your dedicated server.

 

Thanks Bruce. I will take a look at the pricing for a dedicated server.

MP

[mporter88]

Wow, cheaper than I would have thought.

 

Anyone else with local and/or server side streaming software that they have tried?

Nothing is too basic to share.

Knowledge is gold...and I love free gold.

 

 

Thanks.

[mporter88]

I think that I have found a consultant who is going to give me a proposal.

Based upon our short introductory conversation I believe he will want to set up Quicktime streaming server and Quicktime Broadcast.

 

Any thoughts?

[TCH-Bruce]

That should work on a dedicated server with no problems.

[TCH-JimE]

Go Bruce! (and mporter88!)

 

Let us know how it goes, its always good to pass on info!

 

JimE

[mporter88]

Hmmph...

Its been a month now and the only people that I can seem to find all seem to want to make monthly money providing me with "streaming hosting".

 

When I explaint that I have a very good host that I want to stay with and that I am prepared to switch to a dedicated server for the video streaming, and that I am just looking for a consultant to help me set up the system.......they just fade away.

 

So I may be on my own. Does anyone know of any good FAQ or website or other publication that may have guidance for me? (I will check amazon when I finish this.)

 

It cannot be as simple as taking a dv stream, converting it locally to a compressed format suitable for "streaming/downloading", and then saving that file via FTP to somewhere public on my server?

 

Is it even possible to transfer a file to my server via ftp while it is still being created?

 

Is it possible to begin downloading and viewing a file while it is still being uploaded?

 

Is ftp the correct way to upload such a file?

 

I hae a very fast PC that will use procoder 2 to create the quicktime files for upload.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Mporter88

[TCH-JimE]

Hello Mporter88,

 

I believe google is your best friend here, there are a few links to get you started:

 

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/29/how-to-...hing-using-vlc/

http://images.apple.com/quicktime/streamin...treaming_TB.pdf

 

JimE

[Deverill]

Heya Mike,

I'm not very involved in streaming stuff but wanted to throw something your way. First, the 11 seconds is just a buffer so that if the network has a brief sluggishness it won't mess up the video. It loads enough material to keep running during these very brief bumps in the download.

 

The other thing is that you don't "stream" the video up to the server. It's just a file format you create on your PC and upload the file like any other file and the streaming takes place at the server level.

 

Hope it helps a little.