streaming media pricing
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- monkeyshine
Hey...I'm trying to prepare a rough proposal for a client who wants to do ecommerce and on-demand streaming media (video and music).
I've gotten everything except the streaming price. Anyone here work for a specialist house? I just need an "its gonna cost you at least ___" figure for the streaming part. I know there are several variables and of course the client hasn't done any market research so doesn't have a number of demand.
Anyone?
- ikbenvanrijn0
quicktime is free streaming
- monkeyshine0
Yes, but if we just use QT then we lose folks who only have RealPlayer or Windows MediaPlayer. No?
- ikbenvanrijn0
put a download button on it :)
also you can stream real player for free.. use 2 video/audio codecs
- monkeyshine0
but I think part of the issue and why we're thinking we'll have to use a streaming house is that there will be ALOT of video/audio...almost like a record label. No one does any work with a specialty house?
- ikbenvanrijn0
so basically you need the videos and music encoded for the codecs?
- JazX0
Hey Tennessee, what you are going to want to do is find someone that specifically designates channels for streaming audio and video content. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that there are specific lines and specific servers for the job. Do a Google search. We do it as well same way with designated Servers here at CMU. Let me know if you find anything, there are superbraniac here that can answer your question PRONTO. See I'm not so bad after all, even though my football stinks.
- JazX0
it's a matter of bandwidth all-in-all. So the size of the files can be ridiculous. Seems it's REALLY expensive as you would think. Mucho!
- ikbenvanrijn0
also gotta find a host that will have unlimited bandwidth use... might have to get your own server to hold the files
- JazX0
yeah just like I said
- blend20
I work with streaming video at a local ISP/telco. JazX has the basics right. You will need to calculate how many customers, how much they going to downlod each and then multiply by transit costs ($/GB not €/Mbit/s). Add cost of personnel for sever hosting (depends on the scale of the venture, could be 1). Multiply by two and you have a valid figure.
If you want to do this on a global scale or QoS is important you need to talk to akamai etc.
- monkeyshine0
thanks everybody, especially blend2. That Akamai site was exactly what I was looking for. Ya'll rock!
- JazX0
nice call blend2
- blend20
blend blushes and reminds that he had just stated the obvious.
;)Anyways I would like to take this a bit further. Web is one distribution channel for music, but sometimes it is not the best one. You have to judge this on case by case basis. For example if you are an emerging artist then web offers you a great start, but when the demand grows it maybe wise to find other methods of distribution. Obviously you need to find ways to protect your content and for a multinational corporations it may be a good choice to keep television and radio as their only electronic distribution channels. Of course you could use DRM to protect all your content, but there are no good alternatives to MS products yet. Of course the Internet architeture is changing also and thus the cost of serving popular content might become bearable. I find it impossible to understand how some popular websites have been closed due to too high demand. It should be possible to cache content and lower the server load. I think the consumers should be able to demand this from their ISPs.
BTW. If I have lots of typos, it is just due to my 7-finger typing :)
- monkeyshine0
that blend2 is SO smart! ;)-
You are right. I can't tell you how ridiculous what my client wants to do is. He thinks he's going to turn the whole music industry on its ear and I wish I could rant more about it, but I can't right now. I'm just a slave doing his bidding, what can I say? The best I can do is steer him away from a $200,000 server solution.
One thing that intrigued me about Akamai is that they offer secure streams...as in pay-per-view of a sort, I guess.
- blend20
hehehhehe,
glad to see that I'm not the only one wrestling with shit like this. I think it is good that the entertainment companies are exploring the media space, but they should be aware of the whole picture so they will not be so utterly disappointed. Start small and put more money into it if you can convert traffic into actual revenues.
Why do standards take so long? I mean if we had mpeg-21 (with open drm) products we would be sorted.
Not sure about akamai's secure streams, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. It could just be a VPN with a plug-in after all.