Bandwitdh numbers?

[juggernaut]

Ok well our software is almost done and we have been looking over the numbers during our tests and we figured out (very fast) this is going to be the most expensive part of the site. Even if the stream is throttled or configured to a bit rate of 80k we know it's going to add up very fast. We are trying to figure out a cost solution and we're wondering what’s the bandwidth usage for sites, from small to large? We surly don't want to go about this the wrong way and pick something that we find out at the end of the month we owe 10k for over usage. The numbers are mind boggling and it makes me see very fast that yes companies can make allot of money doing this but more importantly why most companies fail. I think this is 1 of the most over looked issues or miss-calculated expenses. Anything anyone can provide would be great. Thanks Ray

[Hony]

Yeah, and you'll kill people like me when we go to a streaming site with audio in free chat.... I like the music the model is playing so I just leave the video window open in the background while I'm doing something else.

Hony

[secret]

Find an ISP that offers bandwidth on demand at a reasonable price, avoid any fixed bandwidth contracts unless their fine print is easy to read. Some sites let you see how many people are in a room, for example one site I visit has about 10 rooms open with about 8-10 people in each room which I would regard as a small/medium? site using about 8mbit/sec bandwidth.

A few bandwidth savers that you probably thought of anyway

*) If you're offering free chat to attract new customers to the site you should perhaps limit them to a couple of hours a day. Apparently LiveJasmin have recently banned certain countries ip address blocks from connecting to their site to save bandwidth.

*) Only allow two or three connections per ip address, Im surprised that some sites let you connect to like 6+ rooms and suck a heap load of bandwidth from their site!

*) Automatically disconnect people who have been idle in a video chat room after say 20 mins. You don't want people sucking bandwidth off your site for hours because they forgot to turn off their PC or whatever.

*) If you attract a lot of visitors to your site then efficient html and graphics will save you a lot of bandwidth. Dr. HTML is pretty good at analysing websites. Jpg image format is good for photo's but PNG is far superior in compressing certain types of graphics on the website. Cascading Style Sheets is another way to save bandwidth, it reduces the html file size by attributing values for any HTML element/command at the beginning of the web page.

btw all sites seem to use a dedicated video server(s) for private video so if public video is not working members can still go private if they want to.

[estiquito]

[secret]

I would email their support, Im sure they would make exceptions

[Katwomanvid]

[juggernaut]

[AWSP]

hosting as i said .. is the most important part of the project..

I have suggestions but ... I'm not going to give those secrets out publicly )

Want my suggestions .. email me or call ))

[livecams001]

Hi Ray

yep ive realsied that to that Bandwith is the most expensive part in my calcualtions my bandwidth will as an estimate hit 225 Megs costing me near to 10 K per month if i dont see to it.

Now is the follwing eqn right this is what my rep form Eye Ball showed me to calc Bandwith -

180 kb/s x no of models x no of users per room = 180 x 25 x 50 = 225 megs costing nearly 10 K

Now im talking to Eye Ball Inc to lower bit rate to 100 KB/s then the number look bit bettter but i have aksed them if they can lower this even further for the free chat and hike it up to 180 only for the paid chat.

And im noting down all the points by Secret ty Secret lol as i have to keep Bandwith costs down.

Regards

AW Bhuiyan
Eon Services UK Ltd
44 208 530 5202

info@eonservices.com

[AWSP]

Yep thats 13.5Megs a Second .
X 60sec = 810Megs per minute
X 60min = 48.6GIGS per Hour .
LOL X 24hr = 1166.4GIGS in 1 day ..

presuming you have that much traffic on that long . Oh and to push that kind of stuff you will need better then 512kbs connection .. you will need at least i suggest 100mbs connection .. since if you have that many people on you will need a pipe that can handle 13.5MBS ... So Be VERY VERY Carefull who your hosting with cus this will reem you hard if you are not mindfull.

i think these calculations are correct but im not positive..

[juggernaut]

Hey Awsp I have to say thanks again for the server company. I will be contacting you soon. Anyway it surly has helped me run the numbers on the bandwidth. My current calculations are basicly showing in a simple way.
1 host X 10 viewers @100k stream will use up roughly 34 gigs in 24 hours. Of course thats with all 10 users viewing constantly for the 24 hours. But anyway it helped me figure out an average of what to expect. Im really only figuring on a 1/4 of that being used per host (figuring 8 hour day) which is long for some of them. But it's easy to see really fast how much some of the sites offering free video must be paying. Just went to LJ and they have 122 cams live. Its saturday night 12am and I'm so bored I started to crunch numbers even thou Im the worste at math. But shoot @120 host and an average of 10 viewers per host. the site is piping out 420 gigs per hour. Man that must be a nightmare when they crunch the numbers at the end of the month.

[bootyoligist]

advice on a good hosting company for video chat site AWSP. thanks

[Starmaker]

If you have your own server what are the bandwidth metrics? I have a server equipped with dual Intel Xeon Processers (3.06 Ghz). My ISP states the speed is 10Mbps however when I check the speed at 2wire.com it shows my connection between 150 and 250 Kbps. What's up with that? Is this sufficent for a 40 to 60 preformer site with approx. 200 to 500 viewing clients? Will the site require a faster ISP?

[juggernaut]

Your server is fine as far as power is concerned. Allot of people get confused by the 10Mbs and bandwidth numbers. 10Mbs is the connection from the server to the router,switch,hub. If you have a broadband connection in your home run your mouse of the network conntion icon down by your clock. You will have either a 10 or 100. If you have 1000 then you are using a fiber connection which not many have but it's comming with many systems now as ISP's are hoping to be able to offer fiber to the house soon. That will be sweet. But the other thing you mention as far as your connection @ 150 to 250 kbs is the real pipe you have. It basicly means you have 150 up (size of the transfer going out of your system) and 250 down (size of the transfer comming into your system) In reality your connection to your home router is faster if its 10 or 100 Mbs. I test my pipe at http://www.dslreports.com/ I trust their reads and they give me the option for cross country messurements. I never choose a test that is close to my house as most people who access my site don't live by me. I want to see the pipe is responding (fattly) across the whole country. My personal opinon is that the pipe you have is not enough to handle a webcam site with many cams but will handel 1 webcam stream and for 1 stream you don't need a server. If you are renting this server or purchased a real dedicated server then to be honest you are being ripped off. The company you are using is most likly purchasing it from a larger company and giving you a vitural domain. I never seen someone offer a server dedicated with that little pipe. If you are using your ISP IE aol, comcast etc I know they don't allow servers to run from peoples homes. But then again if you are running a server of that power you should go to a better company. AWSP was right and hosting is the most important part. The server needs to run 24/7 with little downtime. Most software licensing out there do not allow for clustering so you really need to work on your server evry day and monitor it cause it will be the only one you can have work with the software and if it goes down you have big issues. I wanted to put up 4 servers so my site would nver go down but it's not possible with the package im useing. I would have to buy it 4 times to work features like that. If you don't know how to run a server pay someone or your hosting company to do it for you. You will see once you have a site up that you are constanly blasted by hackers every day. They want nothing more then to get a free show from your server. So lock it down and monitor, monitor, monitor. I use a software that is very good and lets me know instantly any directory someone is accessing. If they are not permited to hit that location the software automaticly blocks their ip from the box which makes it easier to sleep at night. Hope this helps.