Video Server or what?

for a long video

[Andrew Thomas]

Ive been informed that my boss wants a 14 minute video to be published on the internet.

Is this possable, and what hardware, software requirements are needed.

Would i need a video server, and something like Macromedia Flash Communication Server.

Thanks

[lorax]

A 14 minute video will take up some serious bandwidth. You need a streaming server of somesort.

The reason you need a streaming server as opposed to just posting a link to the file is that #1, the sheer size of the file will take forever to download before the first frame plays. #2, performance is greatly enhanced using streaming technology.

If you have your own webserver you're looking at several thousand dollars to buy the software you'll need. IF you host with someone else you'll need to ask them about their rates for streams. If you expect to have more than one person at a time viewing the stream then you'll need to buy more than one stream from the host. Again, at a significant cost.

Do you own your own web server?

[Andrew Thomas]

My company own its own servers - up at telehouse London

Ive been advised to use windows media server with windows 2000

Any ideas

[lorax]

What platform are you working with - it sounds like windows - is it or was that just advice?

[danec]

Andrew,

You don't necessarily need a video server. It depends on whether or not you want the video to be streamable.. If you just want to allow people to download it just link to it, and it'll start playing when the download finishes.

We do that all the time at work. For people on fast connections, if they really want to watch the video, it works just fine.

[lorax]

danec,
How large are the files and how long is the video? I'm guessing that at 14 minutes we're talking 20+MB and I'd venture that the download time, regardless of the user connection, will not be tolerable.

[danec]

Lorax,

You're right these files are huge. 20+ megs at the low end. It really depends who the target of these videos are?

I wouldn't want to force potential customers to to sit around for 15 minutes waiting for a video they may or may not be interested in watching download.

Whereas, I see no real problem with asking coworkers to wait on a download from an archive.

[lorax]

danec,
Your point is well taken. I would venture that an employee would be using an Intranet where bandwidth would be in the 10/100MB range so a 20+MB file wouldn't be much of an issue.

[Andrew Thomas]

Yes we use Windows 2000 Server.

Ive told my boss it will take yonks to download, but he does want it available, both to download and view on the web.

The viewers that will see it are schools applying for a competition so it could be upto a 1000 viewers? Hopefully not all at once :)

[lorax]

There is another option which I hadn't considered and that is to use a Streaming Service - someone who specializes in providing streams rather than a web host that offers streaming ability. You'll need to do some research as to who offers this but I would think it would be cheaper and less of a headache in the long run.

But if you want your own toy then I would suggest you check out Apple, RealNetworks, or MS. I'm not sure about Macromedia's product as that sounds like it's intended for distributing some flavor of their Flash product. There may be some other options but I'm not familiar with them. Perhaps another member might have some insight.