Looking for a Live Streaming Host! [Archive]

D3Cast

09-12-2007, 06:20 PM

You might get as many different answers as you get responses, but I've had very, very good success -- from an affordability and reliability standpoint -- with AudioVideoWeb (http://www.audiovideoweb.com). They have some low-cost packages to begin with, and can scale pretty gracefully along with your needs. Windows Media, Real, Quicktime (no Flash). Live and on-demand packages available. Just a satisfied customer.

-steve

P.S. The only thing I've always wanted them to do that they don't -- and this is a tangent, but it's always bugged me: I have a live account and an on-demand account, but they will not set up their Windows Media servers so that the live stream will be be automatically archived and moved into my on-demand account. Have had to do it manually (or semi-automatically) for the past year. Oh, well.

EDIT: Jim_C was a little more to the point. :-)

Mike in Madison

09-13-2007, 09:13 AM

Thanks Jim & D3.
From the research I've done so far AudioVideoweb was looking kind of good to me as well.

Thanks again.

rally1

09-26-2007, 02:02 PM

Prices seem very good, better than the Limelight and Akamai rates that we could get.

Any idea who they use for their back end?

D3Cast

09-26-2007, 02:43 PM

I'm not sure if these are actually AudioVideoWeb's data centers, or they just rent/lease/share/whatever them --I have no idea about how that side of the business works (actually, some would say I have no idea about how *my* side of the business works, either, but...) -- but:

http://www.audiovideoweb.com/about-datacenters.html

-steve

jackz

09-26-2007, 03:36 PM

I'd have to rethink about how I got my toaster/tricaster on there but here is a great idea.

http://www.ustream.tv

Live stream support with a chat room interface. It uses a flash video interface to steam the video. There was a trick I had to do but was able to get a VT signal to stream.

I watched my nephews band play at a bar in Texas Live while 20 or so people watched/listened. The image and audio wasn't perfect but it worked well enough to still enjoy the show.

Anyway the price is right. I think these guys will be the next UTUBE.
Somebody is going to buy up this idea/service.

VR
Jack Z.
VideoKahuna

brians0105

09-26-2007, 07:15 PM

I have used a similar service to Ustream. The problem I ran into a lot is thaty they mostly only accept USB USB-type webcams and headset mics.

I had to download a program that would convert a DV-firewire connection to work with one of these programs.

So my setup was:
- Composite Video / Analog RCA Audio --> Pinnacle Analog to Digital Firewire Converter
- A/V Digital Converter to Firewire on PC
- Software to convert firewire into recognizable option within streaming software

Hope that makes sense!

brian

NVentive

09-26-2007, 07:42 PM

We've used ustream pretty often with our [4], never a problem. Just log on and point the ustream requester to your VT device, click live when you're ready -- works like a charm. Your clients can C&P the embed code and the stream will run on their own page.
There are some downsides -- For one, ustream crops pretty heavily. We mask our studio monitors off for the live stuff and set up a downsize preset in our toolshed for what runs from DDR. Another snag is that the stream quality is not as good as what you pay for, but for most jobs it's certainly good enough.
The upside it that it opens up a lot of interesting opportunities for business, and it leaves more money in the client's budget for the content producers (yea!)
As time goes by, we are certain that services like this will get more commonplace, and that the quality will continue to improve.
This is a really cool time to be in this business.....

NVentive

09-26-2007, 07:55 PM

Okay -- I forgot which forum I was on, thought I was posting on VT. When I backed out, I realized...
'Sorry 'about that -- I'm getting senile....... :-(
We don't have our Tcaster yet, have been told that flash and twains are not part of the package. When you think about it, it's pretty easy to understand why.
We have (in anticipation) written a little utility that will (hopefully) run a twain on a machine that is on a network with the TCaster. Not elegant, but a solution all the same. Once we get it going we will spread the word.

Again -=- sorry about the lapse.....

rally1

09-26-2007, 07:59 PM

I have not used ustream yet, but when I first saw it (or heard it) on a Twit show it interested me. Wouldn't it be as simple as hooking the video outputs from the Tricaster to a PC with a capture card?
We might try it as a backup solution, a little shuttle case PC so it would even look good ;) .

Jim_C

09-26-2007, 08:23 PM

If you want optimum quality and cotrol over your product, free streaming services are not the way to go.

Depends on what you consider 'good enough' I guess.

NVentive

09-26-2007, 08:24 PM

Can't imagine why that wouldn't work -- and it would probably be safer than adding yet another network connection to the mix. We don't have a portable that has a capture card in it, (wish we did) so....we're probing the interstitial route.

bhigginbotham

09-28-2007, 02:05 PM

Here are a few live Flash streaming solutions we use. Keep in mind that we only have CamTwist (http://allocinit.com/index.php?title=CamTwist) and no Tricaster yet, but worst case scenario you can use a DV bridge and another system to go live.

UStream.tv (http://www.ustream.tv) - These guys are great and the founders are often lurking around. You can embed the video in your own site, or video plus chat. Chat is IRC based but they have a Flash front end so it's great for n00bs and experienced IRC users too.

Stickam.com (http://www.stickam.com) - Pretty decent system but it's flooded with little kiddies who want to start their own show. You tend to get lost in a sea of nothingness. Video quality wise it does look nice.

BlogTV.com (http://www.blogtv.com) - Much of the same. I think they recently started allowing embedding in other sites but I'm not sure. We went there for a bit, tried it out, but it was simply more of the same without embeds at the time. Might be worth looking at.

Operator11.com (http://www.operator11.com) - This is an interesting beast. Operator11 allows for live switching between multiple users. It's what I call an "almost video conversation". The flaw is that it's not 2-way communication, only one person can speak at a time. It is still cool though, and for anyone who wants to allow the community to speak back this is the best option so far. Limited to 40 minute shows which makes it useless for us.

I hope one of these works for you. If so please let me know as I'm on the fence (http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74371) on getting a Tricaster Studio.

sandogeditor

09-30-2007, 08:32 PM

jackz, if you happen to remeber how you got your vt to work with ustream, please post. I tried and can only get video out via my dv deck. if I turn off the deck, ustream sees nothing. same with operator11.

sandogeditor

09-30-2007, 09:29 PM

nevermind. I just figured it out. somebody check my stream for audio sync.
it is now sunday 30 sept at 6:30. I'll let it run for another hour. look on ustream.tv for revival time C.O.G.I.C.

thanks

Mctv3

10-03-2007, 05:44 AM

"Tech Know Works" can stream and host your video at a great price. Are you wanting to go live? I work for Tech Know Works and we have had over 2700 viewers at one time.
I would be glad to talk to you about the project.
Glasco@mcn.org

sandogeditor

10-03-2007, 07:58 PM

can your price beat free? :) I would like to hear what you have to offer although I dont think we will be needing to go out to 2700 viewers.

sandogeditor

10-08-2007, 02:16 PM

mctv3, I hope I didn't seem rude. I, and I think others would like to hear what your service has to offer. please post. you can never have too many options. I would have never thought to use operator 11 or ustream until the info was posted here.

ncsu1

11-06-2007, 10:21 PM

a little bit of a bump here, has anyone heard of anything else that is more for non-webcams?

i got both stickam and ustream to work flawlessly right off the bat (it picks right up off of my VT stream) but ti is cropped way too much to work with.. any ideas on how to either zoom the video going into the stream in or just getting it to work right?

just need something that is free to work with for a couple hours

rally1

12-17-2007, 10:22 PM

Any other reviews of AudioVideoWeb.com?

Specifically their pay per view system.

sbrandt

12-19-2007, 09:55 AM

No pay-per-view experience, but there's a kid on the help desk named Justin who has tossed the info-database/script that most help desk monkeys read from, and done things like use his personal compter to set up a control to isolate problems. I've had good experiences with them in general and he's a genuine problem solver.

view3d

01-05-2008, 07:44 AM

vt5 doesnt come up as a cam driver for flash. All that shows is my webcam :(
Is there something I can install to make this work?

nurcdiver

02-05-2008, 12:20 PM

http://powerstream.net/

Bryan G

02-11-2008, 01:57 AM

http://powerstream.net/
That's the most expensive one I've seen so far.

Zack033

02-13-2008, 04:16 PM

I am looking for a way to do live shows for a rural community. My goal is to get the local youth involved with the rest of the community as well. I have seen a few sites that offer live broadcasting with live chat. That is what I am looking for. Basically in a nutshell, we are looking to produce a live that can be broadcast on to the Internet of the communities website and in her act as well. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated at this point. I am new at the whole try caster system, but I have seen and worked with a little bit of broadcasting not a lot. We are also on a very limited budget right now.

Well thanks for all the help and information and taking the time to read this.

sbrandt

02-13-2008, 08:31 PM

Yeah, I got cher' live chat, I got it right here!

http://www.audiovideoweb.com/chat.html

Works real spiffy with live agent training so they can ask questions during the session.

It actually works BETTER than live in-person training!
When they're physically present, they can't speak during the session. But on the chat board they can ask what they want when they want.

Crom

04-25-2008, 04:47 PM

Has anyone had experience with doing a live PayPer view event with flash? If so who were the service providers?

deaddavey

05-18-2008, 08:42 AM

so does anyone know how to get vt working with ustream?

ncsu1

05-18-2008, 10:31 AM

it automatically picked up the stream for me when i went to ustream, only problem is you have to use one of the zoom DVE's because the video is made for webcams so its a smaller size

ihatelasers

08-06-2008, 12:44 AM

Our University has had a lot of success with Gravitylab (http://www.gravlab.com/) as a live streaming media host. If you have a little bit of a budget they provide live Windows Media streaming (http://www.gravlab.com/live.html), live Quicktime streaming (http://www.gravlab.com/quicktimestreaming.html) and live Flash streaming (http://www.gravlab.com/media/) from one account. Works well. Cheers, - JD

sbrandt

08-06-2008, 12:55 AM

You had me all excited :rock: there for a second.

Where :question: do you find live streaming Flash on GravityLab ???

mu0p

08-06-2008, 04:45 AM

Id really like to see more information on the integration of newtek products on ....ustream.tv

Im using a tri-caster studio and have no idea how I would go about that, I dont even think im allowed to "alt-tab" and get to the desktop

Im looking to stream something on 08-08-08

and will have a fairly small audience, so I dont want to pay a $40 fee just for one stream, id like to use ustream as a practice, and to gain an audience before I start dishing out the cash for a real service.

SBowie

08-06-2008, 08:13 AM

Pull streaming isn't an option, if you audience is quite small?

mu0p

08-06-2008, 03:59 PM

Pull streaming isn't an option, if you audience is quite small?

So you ustream is pull streaming?

I didnt quite get your reply...

My audience will be fairly small... should be no more then 20, thats why id love to use ustream, and not have to pay for a $40 dollar service. This stream would be more of a practice run, and get me used to playing around live.

I saw a couple people on this topic doing it with their vt4/5 but has anyone tried ustream or other service with their tri casters?

mu0p

08-06-2008, 05:25 PM

So I found a way to alt+tab with tri-caster, and started up tri-caster, ran a vcr clip of mine, put that to to my live output, logged into ustream.tv and clicked broadcast now, but it does not recognize any video input, im going to play around on various other sites and try to get this to work. Id really hope I can get it to work :)

mu0p

08-06-2008, 06:20 PM

got it.

I went out from my tri-caster via composite into my miniDV cam (panasonic pv-gs70) then went to vcr mode in camera, then set it to "input" then select dv to "output" plugged that into my laptop started up ustream, selected my cam as my minidv and done. 6 cams live on ustream for free.

Hope this helps you guys, because I know I did not want to pay $40 to stream via Windows media player (which not everyone has) and only to a small audience.

Very excited what new free sites pop up now, id like to use a site that doesnt have their logo blaring in the top right corner.

sbrandt

08-06-2008, 07:00 PM

Rube Goldberg does video!
http://www.vedicsciences.net/intelligent/rube-goldberg.jpg

P.S.: post your upstream link so we can see the end result.

....and...uh...congratulations!!!
Nicely done.

mu0p

08-06-2008, 08:03 PM

Thank you, its down for now, while I capture/transfer some files. I'll put it back up live at about 6:00pm

its about 5:00 now.

Quality isnt to great, so im going to search around other sites to see what they have to offer.

donald.williams

08-09-2008, 12:32 AM

Mogulus.com is the best free service around - not only does it allow you to stream live - it will record your stream for up to 4 hours and then offer it on demand when you are done - You can also send a feed using Adobe Flash Encoder directly to mogulus avoiding the whole "online flash interface" - At NAB Mogulus announced that when their pro model goes online sometime this summer they will offer HD streaming in H.264 format - I haven't had a chance to try out my Tricaster 2.0 with mogulus yet to see if I can go directly out of the tricaster - but with the Tricaster 1 I was going composite out into a analog-DV convertor box - then the box into laptop with adobe flash encoder which in turn uploaded our signal to mogulus. At one point we had over 85 viewers on one program and no problems were reported! The video signal is almost as good as SDTV (even when viewer is in full screen mode) if you have enough bandwidth on your side to push a "High Quality Preset" stream right from Adobe Flash Encoder. Check out mogulus. I think the more people that use it the more support they might be able to give tricaster users~ They are super nice and have great people working there - I have received several personal emails from them asking how I am doing things and posting from my tricaster! I think they want to create a out of the box way for tricaster users to push straight to them - You can also upload your videos to them for hosting on your "on demand" block - You can see our embedded player from them on our website at www.rhstv.com I just took down our "live events" from last year - but should start posting/streaming new events for this fall soon!

D3Cast

08-09-2008, 08:21 PM

I've commented on my experience with TC and Mogulus here (http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?p=732723#post732723).

-steve

Solari

08-11-2008, 08:23 PM

Has anyone considered checking out Amazon's E2/S3 service for this sort of thing, esp. large scale broadcasting/streaming? Their bandwidth pricing seem supercheap and I know Mogulus, etc. are using them for their video streaming hosting.

Only thing is you will need some tech know how to use it.

I have noticed Wowza has teamed up with Amazon to deploy their flash encoder/server via that platform and they list pricing as well here:

http://www.wowzamedia.com/ec2.php

Am exploring using this if Mogulus, etc. don't work out too well or if we need more control over our streaming.

Ray

D3Cast

08-11-2008, 08:53 PM

I'd read this for starters:

BusinessofVideo.com blog (http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2008/07/amazons-cloud-n.html)

Haven't done a ton of research on it, but definitely worth gathering other data points...

-steve

Solari

08-12-2008, 03:13 AM

I'm not really concerned about that at this point because for us reliability has been quite good using Mogulus, who uses Amazon. Our stuff isn't mission critical, so it suits our purposes if we decide to use Amazon directly.

Still, interesting stuff.

Ray

FrankWilson

10-11-2008, 02:29 AM

Hello TriCaster Community,

My name is Frank Wilson, and I am the Chief Engineer at SimpleCDN, a new Content Delivery Network.

We recently released our live streaming service (both WinMedia and Flash). The reason I am posting, is that I have now helped three different people this past week setup live streaming from their TriCaster, and they are all *amazed* at our service and pricing. I felt it would be very beneficial, since the last customer I helped said he was looking for weeks for a live streaming provider, until he found SimpleCDN.

Our pricing is very simple... Just pay 8.9 cents per GB (yes, $0.089 per GIGAbyte :D) of live data transfer. Period. No per-user charges; No contracts, etc. We can scale from 1 to 1 million users, and just completed a 50,000 viewer 2mbit H.264 broadcast for a large athletic conference. (I've seen some companies charging 8.9 cents per MEGAbyte for live streaming... crazy! :devil:)

As mentioned, we support both Flash & Windows Media, and can pull streams from your own internal server, or you may push them directly form the TriCaster box to our origin server, and then they'll be pushed out to our extensive network of live relays in the US and Europe. Our solution is less than half the price of using EC2, not including the instance costs.

Anyway I invite you to visit our website (http://www.simplecdn.com) to learn more, or contact me directly if you have any questions about our service. Our engineering staff is always available to answer any questions as well.

Thanks,

Frank Wilson :)
Chief Engineer
SimpleCDN Technologies, Inc.

frank.wilson@simplecdn.com

http://www.simplecdn.com

Bryan G

10-13-2008, 11:49 AM

Hello TriCaster Community,

My name is Frank Wilson, and I am the Chief Engineer at SimpleCDN, a new Content Delivery Network.

Thanks,

Frank Wilson :)
Chief Engineer
SimpleCDN Technologies, Inc.

frank.wilson@simplecdn.com

http://www.simplecdn.com

Has anyone tried this? I'm interested but don't want to be the guinea pig.

D3Cast

10-13-2008, 12:14 PM

Oink! (I know that's not what guinea pigs say, but...)

I'll report back ASAP.

-s

rally1

10-13-2008, 12:34 PM

We are also in line to give it a try, the price is certainly right. I thought we had a good deal at $0.47/GB for flash streaming... obviously not. What is everyone else paying?

ted

10-14-2008, 12:45 AM

Frank, thanks for your introduction. Without knowing how easy and professional your services are, I do wish you the best and I hope to utilize your company some day soon.
Best of luck!

sbrandt

10-14-2008, 07:18 PM

Dang!

I'll possibly be preparing for separation anxiety.

I've used audiovideoweb.com for awhile now, but it looks like I might have to jump ship.

I like that avw.com is a flat fee. Pick what you need for storage and what you'll stream. That's easy for me to figure out. :stumped:

The streaming flash looks really tasty though.

Nice clean website too.

slb5146

10-16-2008, 09:04 PM

We are about to stream our school board meetings live using our Tricaster.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a reliable and affordable Live Streaming Hosting service that could handle 100 viewers or so for starters that our school district could use?

Many thanks in advance,
Mike

Yes, I have been using http://multimediapros.com/ for the past couple years with great success. Of course I have been using Windows Media Encoder until I received my Tricaster Studio yesterday. My Tricaster seems to work okay with them but I have not done an event yet.

I am disappointed that I can not use the streaming rate that I am use to using with Windows Media Encoder. I need more choices for Push Encoding on the low end with the Tricaster.

PIZAZZ

10-16-2008, 10:56 PM

Yes, I have been using http://multimediapros.com/ for the past couple years with great success. Of course I have been using Windows Media Encoder until I received my Tricaster Studio yesterday. My Tricaster seems to work okay with them but I have not done an event yet.

I am disappointed that I can not use the streaming rate that I am use to using with Windows Media Encoder. I need more choices for Push Encoding on the low end with the Tricaster.

You just need to create the prx file and load it in the appropriate folder inside the TriCaster. (shortcut to find the folder is do a windows search for .prx) You can create several versions with different video bitrates and sizes. They will show up as pull or push.

slb5146

10-17-2008, 07:47 PM

You just need to create the prx file and load it in the appropriate folder inside the TriCaster. (shortcut to find the folder is do a windows search for .prx) You can create several versions with different video bitrates and sizes. They will show up as pull or push.

Thank you very much for that info. I have played around with xml and even had a class on it somewhere back through the years but I can't make this work. Any help would certainly be much appreciated.

I did a tweak to the "15fps 160x120 96kbps.prx" file. I changed the audio bitrate="2000" and nchannels="1" for mono. I had no audio. I changed the bitrate back to the original bitrate="22008" and still no audio. When I changed the nchannels="2" (the original), it worked fine.

What I really want is a prx file for 15frs 320x240 148kbps with mono audio at 20kbps and 22khz. This is what I used a lot while using Windows Media Encoder.

rally1

10-17-2008, 10:17 PM

slb5146

10-18-2008, 12:08 AM

Open FME (Flash Media Encoder), chose open profile, navigate to the Tricaster profiles folder and chose one close to what you want. Edit the setting there in FME, then save with a new name. Try that, no messing with xml required.

I tried to open the prx files but it appears that FME can only open xml files. The files I need to edit are in C:\TriCaster\User Data\Default User\StreamProfiles\NTSC\4x3 directory on my TriCaster Studio.

rally1

10-18-2008, 02:06 PM

slb5146

10-18-2008, 10:07 PM

Sorry I didn't read the posts well enough, I thought you were looking to stream in Flash. You can either simply copy over your old .prx profile you liked, or from Admin mode:
Start, Programs, Windows Media, Utilities, Profile Editor and make/edit one.
(see attached)

Oh! That was so easy. Thank you both, PIZAZZ and Rally1. You're a lifesaver. I have always made my changes in Windows Media Encoder and for some reason I never discovered the Windows Media Profile Editor.

joe@streamuk.co

01-28-2009, 01:42 PM

for European centric service try www.streamuk.com

mmproduc

01-28-2009, 07:28 PM

Blinkotv.com offers a nice product. Their quality is really good. Contact them and they will put a plugin on the Tricaster for you. Talk to Tim.

avpM2

02-02-2009, 05:20 PM

Has anybody experience with Blinkotv.com?
How to setup the Tricaster?

@mmproduc: how to get in touch with Tim?

Thx.
Steve

truckerflyer

02-04-2009, 10:24 PM

I've used Media Serve (http://http://www.mediaserve.com/aff.php?aff=038)for over a year now without a hitch. Stream WMV directly from Tricaster. Also have used camcorder plugged into laptop using Windows Media Encoder. I have a link directly from our church's web page that brings up WMP. I also use their on-demand streaming and have encoded WMP into a web page for viewing and also had a link that brought up WMP. WMV services start at $9.95 a month. They also just added Flash streaming services.
www.livingwatersmuncie.org (http://www.livingwatersmuncie.org)

slb5146

02-06-2009, 07:11 PM

Oink! (I know that's not what guinea pigs say, but...)

I'll report back ASAP.

-s

It's been 5 months and nobody that I can find has reported back. I want to try their Live Streaming. I assume it cost $75 to setup each publishing point.

Steve Brown

mad1town

02-10-2009, 09:19 PM

I have some extra bandwidth with Limelight that I can sell you at a reasonable fee...just let me know.

rewire69

03-03-2009, 06:52 PM

if you are looking for a live stream host I think that audiovideoweb.com is ok for a few good reasons.Well mainly for the payperview option they offer that I use on my site at Live Online Concerts, but I also found them a little expensive at the same time. I found a really great service thats cheap.

www.simplecdn.com

Now if you want a really good cdn hook up my buddies at
www.mirrorimage.com have it going on in a serious way. They are more for high amounts of content delivery but are resonable and great to work with.Tell them Brian from Live Online Sent you.

rewire69

03-04-2009, 01:04 PM

i8yourADOBElol

03-04-2009, 03:16 PM

I can actually offer some streaming to people as I have buckets of bandwidth available.I figure I can offer it pretty cheap if anyone is interested.

brian@liveonlineconcerts.com
to get ahold of me if interested.
If someone is using something other than TriCaster (such as 'plain' SpeedEdit or VT5) with a video camera setup, is what you describe still possible? It would be awesome to go end-to-end with SE & upload to YouTube once the live part is over with. This is not for a church or a commercial venture. Just me.

rewire69

03-04-2009, 06:56 PM

PIZAZZ

03-05-2009, 06:18 PM

Audio video web uses or is actually a re-seller from other companies or they piggie back of of others like limelight and such. They offer a great shopping cart soultion I like to use sometimes.But over all they dont own their stuff they just re-sell.Atleast thats what I am told.

Reselling among the CDN world is more popular than you realize. This is not necessarily a bad thing. You get the stability of the high end networks without paying the high end price.

ted

03-05-2009, 11:41 PM

You get the stability of the high end networks without paying the high end price.

And sometimes you get screwed. :D
Not saying this is the case, but it's great that people are sharing experiences here! :thumbsup:

sbrandt

03-06-2009, 10:53 AM

If you drill down far enough there are a select number of basic providers for almost all services...

...like http://www.theplanet.com in Dallas and Houston.

PIZAZZ

03-07-2009, 03:40 PM

If you drill down far enough there are a select number of basic providers for almost all services...

...like http://www.theplanet.com in Dallas and Houston.

It looks like "theplanet" is a traditional server host vs a Content Delivery Network. Of course you could CoLocate a server there in their facility (and you would have to maintain the server OS and software). You would be limited to their total amount of bandwidth available. If they only have a DS3, a large webstream can even overwelm that. A DS3 is equal to 28 T1 lines. Oh and the other vendors colocating in the same space are going to hunt you down.

Higher level Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Akamai, Level3, and Limelight have multiple locations around the planet that the webcasting load can be spread out on. Akamai also owns their own fiber network and do not lease/sublease from others.

There is a difference in dealing with a host that understands the demands of webcasting.

sbrandt

03-07-2009, 09:14 PM

When we were back in Iowa we looked into running a hosting service.
After digging into the background of some heartland resellers we found they all were actually using The Planet. So... we talked to a rep at The Planet. She told us they could help us set up any kind of service business we wanted to provide, including streaming.

(Just by way of tangential information... at the time The Planet had two giant emergency diesel generators with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel each. If the entire country crashed they could continue full service for about sixty days.)

billmi

03-07-2009, 10:44 PM

(Just by way of tangential information... at the time The Planet had two giant emergency diesel generators with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel each. If the entire country crashed they could continue full service for about sixty days.)[/I]

For more tangential information, The Planet had an electrical fire in one of their data centers last year. Because of the fire they couldn't turn power back on - from mains or generator - until everything was re-wired, so everything hosted/distributed through that datacenter was offline for multiple days (3 or 4 if I remember correctly.) Everyone in that center got their month's worth of services free of charge. The Planet also bought the company that bought Clever, and I believe they still have that Atlanta datacenter. It has natural gas powered generators which after one hurricane were shut down because a gas leak caused the gas mains to be turned off, and after another hurricane didn't matter because although the data center had power, the
BellSouth backbone hub it went through didn't (back about 10 years ago.)

Redundant power and connections are good, but there's always something that can take things offline.

PIZAZZ

03-08-2009, 09:37 AM

For more tangential information, The Planet had an electrical fire in one of their data centers last year. Because of the fire they couldn't turn power back on - from mains or generator - until everything was re-wired, so everything hosted/distributed through that datacenter was offline for multiple days (3 or 4 if I remember correctly.) Everyone in that center got their month's worth of services free of charge. The Planet also bought the company that bought Clever, and I believe they still have that Atlanta datacenter. It has natural gas powered generators which after one hurricane were shut down because a gas leak caused the gas mains to be turned off, and after another hurricane didn't matter because although the data center had power, the
BellSouth backbone hub it went through didn't (back about 10 years ago.)

Redundant power and connections are good, but there's always something that can take things offline.

Think about something like that when you thought you had a bad day. Wow.

That illustrates the point that putting all your eggs in one basket (datacenter) might not be the best of idea. Even AudioVideoWeb can spread out the load across multiple centers. Nice to have that protection if your job is on the line. Believe me, your client does not care about who you use and what may have happened if there is an outage. Your client is just going to care about whether or not the stream is up.

sbrandt

03-09-2009, 10:43 AM

Looks like if we ever think about doing that again, we'll hire Mr. Mobile as a consultant first !!! :D

rally1

04-02-2009, 01:10 PM

What is the lowest price people are finding per GB?

D3Cast

04-02-2009, 01:50 PM

What is the lowest price people are finding per GB?Well, to return back to an earlier touchpoint in this thread, SimpleCDN is still quoting 8.9 cents/GB for their LiveCDN service.

And no, alas, I haven't used it yet. I have an account all ready to go, but haven't found the right project to test it on.

-steve

SportsJunkie

04-02-2009, 10:30 PM

I've done a fair amount with SimpleCDN. Bare bones, inexpensive. No problems. Simple configuration of TCP to login to SimpleCDN.

mmspooner

07-23-2009, 10:40 AM

I've done a fair amount with SimpleCDN. Bare bones, inexpensive. No problems. Simple configuration of TCP to login to SimpleCDN.

I'd hold off and wait on SimpleCDN .... they've completely changed their pricing structure and as of this morning - they don't appear to be even OFFERING live streaming anymore. This is very disappointing because I was very pleased with SimpleCDN for the 7 months I used them from September last year on into the early months of 2009.

Very disappointed.

*EDIT*(07/23/2009) -- I recently got notification from them: "...at this time we are not offering any live flash streaming solutions."

Still incredibly disappointed....

pdxJoe

07-29-2009, 11:45 PM

I had a simpleCDN account as well. They were actually reselling highwinds. I contacted highwinds and was able to move into a direct relationship with them on terms that I'm happy with. I would encourage you to contact them to get your account setup directly.

Joe

mmspooner

08-18-2009, 05:58 PM

With special thanks to pdxJoe, I am now a Highwinds convert and love them!

We recently did a live 2-day online webcast that went for 8 hours and the feed was absolutely rock solid! We were streaming 30 frames a second at just under 300kbs and didn't have any hang-ups or disconnects. The latency did drag on as the day wore on, but I anticipated that.

Their rates are comparable to what simpleCDN was but their support and follow through really make up the difference.

It's definitely worth the look if you're in need of a steady, economical live streaming option.

Special thanks to pdxJoe for letting me know about them!

Regards,
-Michael

PIZAZZ

08-19-2009, 07:09 PM

If you haven't checked out the Watershed pricing from the guys that started UStream then you definitely should. Their pricing is amazing. There are no ads on the Watershed accounts and the quality can be whatever you want it to be. If your clients have a fast enough connection then you can send out a 1.5 megabit stream. Get this... the 1.5 megabit stream will cost the same as the 500k stream... You just pay for how many viewers and how long they are online watching. I am going to swing over all of my clients in that direction.

https://watershed.ustream.tv/

Check it out.

jimmy147

10-16-2009, 08:23 AM

rewire69

10-16-2009, 09:22 PM

Hello Mike hows it going? If all you have is an average of 100 people viewing or about that to start.I can kick you that bandwidth for lil or less then Audio Video web.I use a flash server and can provide if needed windows if ya like.I my self ahve used every service out their that is worth using from Ustream to Akami when I was rich.I now have a reliable comapny and I also re-sell bandwidth myself.I know as far as a per gig rate I can kick AVW out of the water for per gig cost.Anyhow my email is brian@liveonlineconcerts.com if any one else needs it as well drop me a line.