Hosting Questions..Cost for 1000-1500 dailyvisitors, 5min video? Reliable Hosts?

[geedoubleu]

I am extremely interested in opening a video site. I have not decided if it would be a community video upload site (like this software functions) or me and my partners posting our own videos that we are interested in through ClipShare software...

I have many questions & concerns about the hosting. How I setup the site would depend on the costs that would occur. For example, I can choose Youtube video embedding or uploading videos to my own Flash Video Player and posting.

Flash Video Player vs Youtube Embedding
Am trying to decide which one I would like to do. I imagine embedding youtube videos would be much quicker and automated...But I would like my own Flash Player for a few reasons. It appears much more professional than just embedding videos. I would plan to put my company logo or URL on the top of each video. Hopefully marketing my site if other sites embed my player on their page.

The issues are cost & performance. I have some other Blogs (only video is embedding youtube w/ articles) that have been released a few months ago and are receiving between 1000-1500 pageviews a day. Mainly traffic will come from search results. Based on the Video sites content & the quantity of posts we will be making, I am assuming that these Video Blog Sites will be no different in traffic. For the purpose of this post & my questions, lets say those will be my stats (1000-1500 pageviews a day)....
I seriously have no idea how much money it would take to find hosting where video is quick & not choppy, and I would not get charged hidden bandwith fees or over use fees.

Can anybody provide any insight??

Can someone give me an idea of how much I would pay for hosting linked with the # of visitors. I completely understand this would not be completely accurate but it would give me a general idea or a ball park...

For example:
10,000 visitors a day may average this much bandwidth...So most hosts charge $10/month
20,000 visitors a day may average this much bandwidth...so most hosts would charge $60/month.

Also to give me an idea...
How many visitors a day or video views a day are you getting? How much is hosting costing you? What host & package do you use?

I am pretty confident that a video blog site of embedded videos or a site will generate the same amount of search results. So if this is true I don't have any problem starting of with youtube embedding posts, then as my sites earnings grow possibly then changing posts & videos to my own flash player. Judging from peoples posts I am thinking Own site Flash player may be a bit overwhelming. I am really just confused and not sure here.

I have heard people speak about hosting from:
Cirtex Hosting, Xila, Crayon Hosting

my own research has found:
FLV Hosting

I imagine these hosts that say they specialize in Flash, PHPMotion, video hosting are better for the type of site I am creating.

Things to keep in mind in the 1st 1 or 2 months I'll be having about 200 videos posted & traffic assuming may be around 1000-1500 page views a day, based on this what are you thought? recommendations? suggestions? Also at a guess, videos will be about 5 min on average.

I really appreciate any help you can give me! I've been doing my research but still just can't decide which path to take. I just need all around help I guess. LOL

[alexstorm]

It's just math to find your answers. Hosts costs will vary depending mostly how close they are to a main hub. I think there is even an Excel spreadsheet in this search that can help.

http://www.google.com/search?q=95th+...ient=firefox-a

[geedoubleu]

Hello, I am sorry but this confused me. I didn't understand. Did you post this on the wrong thread perhaps?

[alexstorm]

No 95 percentile is the method hosts use to measure your traffic and therefore use that to compute your bandwidth charges. Downloading videos will depend on what bit rate you use to convert them, what default pixel size you use to make them and therefore their average file size. Other rich media on your site will depend on how heavy your pages are and what jpeg compressions you use for thumbnails and other graphics.

All these choices are up to you and can vary from Clip-Share install depending on your settings. Some hosts also charge for storage, but you will probably not hit that limit anytime soon. So count all the variables above and you will see how it is difficult to give you an answer. Many hosts are going to vary their charges by probably up to 300% difference or so, and maybe more. It depends which host you choose, what package if there is a premium because the host is near a fast hub.

You are asking how much does it cost to buy a car that can drive down the road. Do the math and add up your particular typical page, typical 5 minute video size and run it through the 95 percentile information to get your typical bandwidth. Giving you a blanket estimate without knowing more is silly. However if you insist and 10000 visitors a day with 5 minute video, perhaps around $800 a month from an average host near a major hub in the US.

[last1minute]

Your assumption of 10-20K visitors a day is very high for a new site unless you are a heavy advertiser. Even with advertising like Adsense not every visitor will upload a video. What I'm saying is find a good host with a good offering and see if some of your assumptions are good. I feel it will take awhile before you will reach those numbers and you will learn a lot in the process of reaching them.

[geedoubleu]

TO clear things up. I am not expecting 10,000 visitors initally. Based off my site's content, its frequent search engine queries, and based off other sites I have ... I am expecting to be getting around 1000-1500 visitors a day within the 1st couple months. This is mainly from search engines. I am not sure if this number will grow. But my main concern now is with the # 1000-1500 visitors.

Based off this what do you think? If my site got 1500 visitors a day right now...each view watching 5mb flash videos. SHould I get shared hosting, VPN (not sure what it is), or Dedicated? Thats really what I should know.

Also does 1 host's sharing plan = another VPN plan? I don't know much about these hosting companies.
Could use some recommendations of reliable hosting.

@alexstorm THanks a lot. I will look into the 95th percentile billing. Any hosting recommendations though. Companies I should look at?
@last1minute thanks. What about you any hosts recommendations?

[fornit]

Hi,

on our site at http://clips.team-andro.com we have 15.000 visitors per day currently (around 500.000 per month). Most videos are not embedded and there are many videos which have a duration of 20 minutes or so.

That produces a traffic of 40 Terrabytes per month.

The only way to implement that is a dedicated server with a Gigabit connection.

Regards
fornit