Recommend me a web hosting solution

DezUk

DezUk

DezUk

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Joined
20 Sep 2003
Posts
2,384
Location
Scotland
I am looking to create my own mini youtube type site and have been looking into hosts for it. I know I need a host that supports ffmpeg and all the hosts I see seem to be based in the US. Can anyone suggest a reliable and affordable host to get my project off the ground?

I am planning on running the site on Drupal so must also support this.

Cheers
 
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Whatever hosting provider you choose, you don't want to be doing your video encoding on the same server on which you're doing your front end web requests - otherwise your web performance will suffer. I'd probably recommend a pair of servers for this depending on your requirements.

How much storage do you anticipate needing? Are you comfortable at managing Linux or are you going to need a managed system?
 
TBH I wouldn't worry to much about all that right now as I just want to get the idea in my head up and running. SO based on that I am just looking for a web host that offers the ffmpeg option with some storage for a few trial videos and the ability to encode on the server hence the ffmpeg option.

I did see http://www.tophostinguk.com/hosting.html

Thinking their economy package
 
I would be apprehensive about going with any company that uses privacy protection on their domain name.
 
The two hosts most often recommended here are:

TSOHost (http://www.tsohost.co.uk/) (I use)
and Vidahost (http://www.vidahost.com/)

I have no idea what their policies are regarding video encoding on servers (can't imagine any shared host will be too keen on this idea!) but you could certainly do worse than firing an email to one or both of the above and asking.
 
I believe Vidahost offer this - but you might want to check with regards to the CPU time you're allowed. Encoding is very CPU intensive.
 
DezUk said:
I have contacted Vidahost to ask what they offer. I have also been informed about http://www.inmotionhosting.com/cheap_hosting.html

Any experience with these guys?
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A £3/$5 per month shared hosting plan is not enough for hosting a site which does server side video transcoding. They'll be very disappointed and so will all the other users of that server.

You need a dedicated server mate or a virtual dedicated server at least.

http://www.tsohost.co.uk/virtual-dedicated-hosting.php
 
+1 for a dedicated server. Any kind of useage and this will be very processor intensive, ffmpeg sure uses cpu cycles. I would say that for this to work with even a small number of users you'll need some funding in place for server costs...
 
daz said:
I would be apprehensive about going with any company that uses privacy protection on their domain name.
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Or that does not comply with online trading requirements by neglecting to include a physical address to send complaints etc too.
 
I recommend you take a look at the new Rackspace Cloud server. You can scale up and down and pay for whatever you use.
 
Hi Guys,

Haven t looked at this thread a couple of days. I ended up going with the Medium shared host package at Vidahost. Spoke to the tech guys and they said they supported FFMPEG and for a small test site with some videos it would be fine.

So you all think shared is a bad idea?
 
For the work your site will be doing then yes. The server resources that you would be using will cripple a shared server for other users as previously said.

If it is only for a few videos to test the idea you could have the site send them to a server you have at home ( set one up on your desktop pc) or email them. Then load them back to the site or store them on one of the popular cheap file hosting sites to be played back on through your site.
 
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