Will this work?

[zulufox]

A client of mine who knows nothing of the internet (even though he runs a web-based company... ) wants to make 25-40 minute movies and then sell them through streaming and downloading for between $0.45 to $0.75 per download.

My job is purely to deliever a 30 minute test movie and a few other things, not to decide if its a good idea.

But honestly, I wonder about the feasibility of his idea. He wants a high quality test video, so I made him a 25 minute quicktime video, which was over 1.5 gigs in size, I just made him the same video in svcd format (300 megs), but it just isnt the graphical quality he expects.

Furthermore, 75 cents per 400-600 meg download? Is this even worth it after paying for bandwidth and webspace?

I just wanted to get some third party input before I go to him.

[moltar]

Well, lets do the math. I assume you will get a dedicated server for that. Most companies are offering ~ 700GB of bandwidth per month.

700 x 1024 = 716800MB of transfer per month
716800 / 600 = 1194 downloads of 600mb movie can be done
1194 x .75 = $895.5

If you pay ~ $100/month for dedicated server then you are doing pretty good.

Things to consider:
- Other bandwidth (for the site's images, visitors, etc...)
- TCP overhead (I think some companies count traffic on the switch, meaning that ALL traffic counts.)
- Most companies are overselling, and they might come to you and tell you that you are using too much bandwidth.

A good solution maybe is to get a server with unlimited bandwidth, but limited throughoutput.

[zulufox]

One thing to keep in mind:

.75 is the sale price... not including paying writers to write the script, actors to do the voiceover, transation fee for micropayments...

[Ares]

I think it will all depend on the target audience. It can be viable if say he/she was able to afford extra bandwidth. If the site generated 2000 downloads/movie viewers per day x 30 day for an average month say x .75 = $45,000 not including expenses of course.

At that point you would be alright. The unknowns here are of course the dedicated server provider giving you the bandwidth you need for the price you want and the actors and all other expenses covered etc... It "COULD" be a very viable business model. Again we are assuming that this is a product that is in demand and that 2000 purchases a day would eventually happen. If we were to change numbers and say that only a handful of people will purchase, say 200 a day then you are already down to $4,500.00.

It's all in the product and marketing there of. The old addage of "Build it and they will come..." is just that, old. Consumers market now...

My 2 cents. You can take it or, well...throw it at me. :)