[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Hello ,

A company I intern for has asked me to figure out how to stream our movies online. I'm looking for basic answers to my questions:

• We want this to run through our existing webpage
• We have about 20 feature length films that we're thinking about streaming online in a pay-to-rent transaction.
• Each film will be encoded in h.264 and play through flash player.
• Each film will probably end up being around 600-700 mbs encoded at 800 kbps
• We expect around 100 viewers to be viewing films simultaneously during peak hours.
• We'll probably need around 150mbs of bandwidth (to start)
• We are a Mac based office

I'm wondering how to host all of the media reliably... should we purchase dedicated media service, where you can just upload your media, and then embed it on our webpage? Or should we actually rent a dedicated server, and have a piece of hardware in the office that streams to our clients?

What's the cheapest and most simple route to take?

We also need to allow ourselves room to grow, as within 2 - 3 years we are planning on aquiring 100+ films.

Thanks so much to any advice anyone can provide. It'll be a great help!

[Stream Recorder]

HTTP protocol can be used for pseudo streaming. You just embed your videos using flash player and use a regular web-hosting. Make sure your web-hosting allows to use the amount of traffic required for your streaming videos.

You can also install a streaming server. It could be one of RTMP servers which allow to broadcast h.264 videos.

Another alternative is to use streaming server from another company.


If you need to set up a streaming server, create a web-site, you can hire IT professionals through a freelance marketplace. They allows you to hire professionals from the U.S., Canada, India, Russia,.... And you can always select a person or a web-design company that posseses the skills you need. Make sure to write all the requirements in your bid.