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self-hosted, high quality video podcast. How?

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superboyac:
I've come back around to toying with this idea.  I need help thinking through the technical details.  The first thread I did on this last year is here:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=29624.50

I know that the online hosts like ustream are very good, very easy to use, sign up and forget it.  But...as usual, I want to know how to setup an independent solution.

Bandwidth:
Any bandwidth experts?  Please describe the bandwidth requirements needed.  I'm almost certain that a typical residential ISP can't provide the bandwidth.  Even the best residential services like FIOS only offer about 5 Mbps (~600 kilo-BYTES per sec) which is not enough for high quality video streaming.  So I'm assuming, bare minimum, I need a company to host the server for me.  But I want to know how to judge whether a host can provide the bandwidth I want.  For example, let's say I have a video podcast that 30 people are tuning in to.  Which companies can provide that best bang for the buck?  I already use a company for websites, and the easiest thing would be to upgrade the service to make up for the necessary bandwidth.  Then, I would compare that price to the price of actual hosted podcast sites.  My guess is that the ustream pro services (which are crazy expensive....like $200-400/month) are still more expensive.

Once I've figure that part out, then I will have to search for the best portable setup for this.  OS, software, etc.

rgdot:
mp3 can be as low as 128kbps, a one hour one will be 56MB (for the 128, instead of for example 192 or 256), depending on number of listeners one calculate bandwidth

These days bandwidth is cheap, even some of those hosts who offered "unlimited" but made you wary of the claim are more relaxed about it.

superboyac:
I found this on another forum:
704x480 x60 != 4x 704x480 x15

If you have 4 different camera, you have 4 different video stream.
1. calculate avg bandwith to 1 camera:
-codec? mpg2, mpg4, wmv, x264, other?
-keyframes every 10-15-20-30 frame?
Sample video 720x404 x24 700-2600kbps included audio channel
If your camera send audio+video 704x480 x15, and your video picture not change a lot... 700-1200 kbps = 100-150KB/s (good quality)

2. calculate upload speed and server download speed requirement:
Upload bandwidth: 150KB/s / camera => 4 camera 600KB/s => 6-7 megabit/s
Server download bandwidth: 30 users x 150KB/s (1 camera) = 4500KB/s ~ 50 megabit/s => 4 cameras/30 users ~ 200Mbit/s (peek time)
Avg speed 20Mbps.

3. calculate monthly traffic:
Avg 3 users and 4 camera use 12 hours each day, and 5 days per week:
3 users X 4*150KB X 4weeks*5days*12hour*60minutes*60seconds (monthly bandwidth usage)= 1555200000KB ~ 1518750MB ~ 1484GB / month ~ 1.5TB/mo
If you calculate your packet header, and your upload stream, other bandwidth...

3-5TB/mo enough
Avg bandwidth 20Mbps
Maximum bandwidth 30 users 4 cameras = 200Mbps


I think gigabit network speed with 5TB monthly traffic is enough.
--- End quote ---
I can probably use a similar formula (and post later).  My goal is to have a portable setup to be easily used with small audiences (less than 50 people, maybe even 10).

I don't know if this is a valid question, but even if a host claims to provide a certain amount of monthly traffic and bandwidth speed (5TB/month, 20Mbps), do I also have to worry about additional quality/reliability concerns?  And what do I need to ask them or know to ensure myself that it will work?  Let's say the specs are more than enough, but all of a sudden 100 people join and that screws something up because of some technical connectivity issue, blah blah.

rgdot:
I just realized I replied regarding audio  :-[

I guess the answer to bandwidth is in the post you quoted.

You should ask hosts if they allow and support video podcasts, that takes care of the initial step. The looking at quality and reliability is by searching places like webhostingtalk for reviews on the hosts, not necessarily by asking the hosts themselves.

Renegade:
Why don't you just upload to YouTube? It's pretty darn hard to beat their CDN for video. Or Vimeo? They're also excellent.

If you want to gain attention, YouTube is the way to go.

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