When you say Encode it for X bitrate...

[Priapism]

so Youtube limits bitrate to 2MB per second.

When we discussed possibly using a custom flash app on your own server, people discussed shooting for 4-5 MB per second.

What setting in Premier encoder is this?

The Target and Max?

Say for example you wanted to shoot for 5MB per second. What would your target and max be?

Thanks

[poisondeathray]

That's 4Mbit/s not 4MByte/s

Target would be 4Mb/s and shoot for max of double so 8Mb/s

You will need extra bandwidth for overhead and losses (it's never 100% efficient) and multiply by number of users....

So even if you had only 1 friend, shoot for 1.2x (minimum) the bandwidth so for 4Mb/s allocate a 5Mb/s line (up) (10Mb/s if you have 2 friends ...etc...) . This guideline only works if you have a dedicated line (guaranteed, not shared hosting)

Do you have any idea how much those dedicated lines cost?...

Dedicated hosts work by metered usage. You won't find a "cheapo" "unlimited bandwidth" host anywhere that isn't shared hosting. And you won't find a shared hosting site that offers a lot of upload speed (they are capped), so you will be waiting for the video to download...

[Priapism]

I have a dedicated server with a couple domains on it. One does get quite a bit of traffic but I can FTP download at about 470k per second.

Im not clear on how one user affects my 5MB encoded HD video streaming file as opposed to two, but if YouTube can pull of 2MB per second with 900 billion users then I can probably pull off 5 MB per second with 2 users at a time, can't I ?

[poisondeathray]

I have a dedicated server with a couple domains on it. One does get quite a bit of traffic but I can FTP download at about 470k per second.

Im not clear on how one user affects my 5MB encoded HD video streaming file as opposed to two, but if YouTube can pull of 2MB per second with 900 billion users then I can probably pull off 5 MB per second with 2 users at a time, can't I ?

Nope. Too slow for even 1 connection, if your server can only upload 470kbytes/second

You might be mixing up bits vs. bytes.

4Mbit/s = 4000kbit/s = 500kbytes/second

2 simultaneous users would demand 1000kbytes/second , 3 users = 1500kbytes/second

You're "host" isn't remotely even on the same level of magnitude of youtube's infrastructure

Do you see why I suggested free file hosting sites if you value quality, instead of streaming?

Don't get me wrong; if your server has a big enough pipe, I say go for it! You don't lose quality from Youtube re-encoding (you can control it), and you can control the bitrate (maybe 3Mbit/s is enough for some content for example)

[creamyhorror]

What's your server's bandwidth in the first place? Is it 100Mbit? If so, it ought to be able to support 2 users on 4Mbit streams. Though in that case it should also be able to send you data at more than 470kbps.

[Priapism]

480kilobytes is what I am getting over FTP but FTP is not the best way to test my server's speed.

That works out to about 3.2 megabits.

Hulu's HD is 1mb per second ....
YouTube's is 2mb per second ....

My server is connected to a network link at 100Megabit...
Bottleneck will be across network ... they have limits of maybe 7Megabits for the super premium ... roadrunner service. Not what most people have though as service speed.

My 470k is most likely being limited by Cox at 3.7 limit.

My speed through speakeasy is 17,603kbps - so that's about 2200 kilobytes per second so that's 2.2 megabits ....

We installed a script and ran a test on the server and it pulled 719 KB/s which is 5.7 megabits per second ....


If i can just beat out Youtube in HD quality I will be happy. There will probably only be one or two people watching the video at any given time anyways. It wont be public.

One other factor is that I am sure I can probably just have a "hang on...." note that waits 15 or 30 seconds before playing and nobody would ever have to see any choppy or struggling video speeds.

[poisondeathray]

You can test it , just put a file on the server and use http download to test speed.

People in different locations will have different speeds, also speeds may depend on time of day. So ask some friends from different parts of the country or even different contries to test the file, so you have an idea of throughput

Your speed through speakeasy is your own download bandwidth, that says nothing about the hosts' upload bandwidth...

A server side delay is a good idea

[creamyhorror]

My speed through speakeasy is 17,603kbps - so that's about 2200 kilobytes per second so that's 2.2 megabits ....

2.2 megabytes, actually. Or 17.6 megabits. Your connection is plenty fast, it's just not being maxed out from the server.

If your server really has 100mbit external bandwidth, it should handle HD streaming easily. Go ahead and try it out like PDR said.

[Priapism]

I did test on server:

We installed a script and ran a test on the server and it pulled 719 KB/s which is 5.7 megabits per second ....

[creamyhorror]

Right, somehow I missed that. That should be fine for streaming, then.