Need new provider at DVinfo.net

Bruce Dempsey · September 4th, 2018, 05:45 AM

For the pasr number of years InaCdn has provided pretty good pay as you go video streaming service for me but they are closing shop at the end of month
Any private outfits out there that dont cost an arm and a leg?

Chris Harding · September 4th, 2018, 08:12 AM

What do you consider "not an arm and a leg" Bruce ? We have used Livestream for 3 years now and it comes out pretty darn cheap for the basic package if you pay annually? Costs me only $22 a month (as I share with a mate on the East Coast) so we pay half each ...We mainly do weddings or funerals so even if we only do a stream on a Saturday it only costs me $5 to stream a wedding and that gives us unlimited storage and unlimited views and free switcher software!

Bruce Dempsey · September 4th, 2018, 08:49 AM

thanks i will have another look at livestream
cut and pasted from their site
Livestream
Premium
Professionals with advanced live streaming needs.
$75/mo
Billed Annually or $199 month-to-month

Is there another plan i cannot see?
B

Chris Harding · September 4th, 2018, 06:02 PM

We are on the Basic Plan and it shows up in my account too ...it's $42 per month annually or $99 month to month and includes Livestream Studio software.

What sort of streaming and frequency do you do ??

David Barnett · September 6th, 2018, 01:28 PM

I think DaCast is pretty reasonable & reliable. Pricing goes per month or per event.

Chris Harding · September 6th, 2018, 06:20 PM

Livestream since being taken over by Vimeo has dropped their Basic package and then reduced their Premium package from $199 per month down to $75 and that includes website embedding and Simulcasting to Facebook and YouTube too.

It all depends on your requirements of course. For us having a unique Event page for each client is essential as is unlimited storage and viewers, I found some CDN's were quite cheap BUT charged you for views which is something you cannot control. We did a pretty ordinary funeral for an Indian lady only to find out that she was a bit of a celebrity in her country and 16000 people watched it. If we had been charged per view then it would have been a financial disaster!!

Bruce Dempsey · September 7th, 2018, 09:23 AM

Well I've cobbled together a live stream through an Amazon EC2 Instance running a Wowza server and displayed in a custom HDWplayer
Worldclass streaming for cheap

Seth Bloombaum · September 7th, 2018, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Dempsey

Well I've cobbled together a live stream through an Amazon EC2 Instance running a Wowza server and displayed in a custom HDWplayer
Worldclass streaming for cheap

Wow(za)!!! Worldclass, cheap as dirt on EC2!

This is a great roll-your-own hosting solution for those who can configure it. I beat my head against that wall a couple times in years gone by. Maybe there’s better documentation now? Care to share?

Are you going to RTSP, HLS? Wowza does it all...

I’m not so familiar with HDWplayer - which version/tier are you using? Most recently I’ve been using video.js, but not doing live these days.

For others considering Wowza on EC2, you’ll also need a web page/site to host your player. It looks like HDWplayer offers html, Wordpress, and Joomla plugins.

Bruce Dempsey · September 7th, 2018, 02:41 PM

That's right Seth
For years and years ago I tried to implement this without success I am just a cameraman after all.

This time I bought the 29 dollar paid monthly support package from aws and purchased the premium version of hdwplayer and both these fine outfits have done the hard parts for me
ongoing wowza rental is 15/month and ec2 might be 0.40 while streaming and there will be more aws costs and the player is 99/yr

Seth Bloombaum · September 7th, 2018, 03:03 PM

Happy to hear of your success with AWS. That is really, really encouraging. I was OK bringing Wowza up and down, and S3 is straightforward and well documented, like all the AWS services. But configuring Wowza was a hill I could not climb. A humbling experience.

With the premium support... did you just sign on for that for a month or two to get going, or do you think you’ll need them over the long term?

Bruce Dempsey · September 8th, 2018, 09:28 AM

Hi
The wowza thing, I advertised in Freelancer to get help with wowza and paid a fellow 30 bucks to set it up one-time by giving him temp credentials to my aws acct.
I do not think that ongoing paid support will be necessary unless everything crashes and needs re-doing (gods forbid pls lol).
Everytime the instance is stopped then started again, the rtmp ip changes so the player needs to be updated with that info and I'm still sweating over that one a bit but should be "good to go" sometime Monday.

Chris Harding · September 8th, 2018, 07:11 PM

Sounds good Bruce!

I still am puzzled how you guys cost using Wowza ... they talk about viewing hours for $XX .. what happens if you do a stream and 20,000 people watch it instead of the 200 you expected?? Can you get a cost effective package that has unrestricted number of viewers and unrestricted storage for your videos?

Seth Bloombaum · September 9th, 2018, 10:01 AM

The Wowza server running as a cloud-computing service on Amazon Web Services is a little different model in pricing.

When *you* bring up the server in the cloud, *you* decide how much computing power you’re booking for that particular instance. This is a cost area that you control. Scale it to anticipated viewership, with some contingency. IF you only keep it live for your event, even a large instance isn’t that expensive for 2 or 6 hours. OTOH, if you’re keeping it live 24/7 you’re in a whole different game.

When Bruce said he deals with new stream IP addresses on restarts of the server, that implies he’s keeping it up only for his live events.

Of course you’re never really in control of how many people connect to your streams, though you can control how fat a bitrate each stream is. 720p is a real sweet spot for those concerned with bandwidth costs, and if you’re working with source that isn’t complex, (well lit, with no video noise in the signal, on tripods, and not covering high-motion sports, water, or foliage moving in the wind), you can go as low as you dare, but probably well under 2Mbps.

Still not in control of the number of connections... but, bandwidth on AWS is cheap as dirt. The challenge is really to figure out how large a server instance to create.

I know that part of success in streaming is to keep it simple for clients - one price, great service, no surprises. That’s what anyone paying the bill wants. But, the funeral service you wrote about is interesting. It reminds me since that our clients need to be able to make choices that control costs (right?), we need to present plans and costs to them in a way that allows them to make those choices.

Once you decide on the computing power you rent that cost is fixed. Bandwidth remains a variable cost, but, you can do some estimating based on what the server instance will handle. And, bandwidth on AWS is really, really inexpensive.

When I was doing this work, I too wanted to avoid financial disaster with 200 streams expected, but 20,000 showing up. The only way to do so, IMO, is to estimate costs based on client-supplied information and make clear that if their info is wrong costs will be different. How are you going to make “100x more viewers than expected!” work financially? This is a business and client strategy challenge first, and a tactical decision on streaming provider second. In my opinion.

Bruce Dempsey · September 9th, 2018, 12:55 PM

That's great info Seth, thanks.
Hopefully my player can keep track of hits at least
Find a way to charge those additional and unexpected 20,000 viewers a nominal fee to view (5.00) :)

Chris Harding · September 9th, 2018, 06:11 PM

Thanks Seth

I guess it really depends on what you are streaming Selling virtual tickets for instance would give you better control but where it's just to one client and they decide who watches then it gets a little tricky!!

Our Gold Coast operation does mainly funeral shoots (45 minutes on average for $300) but they did have one that went crazy and instead of the usual 50 -100 viewers ..this one went to 16,000!! With Livestream's unlimited viewers and unlimited storage it never affected us financially.

September 4th, 2018, 05:45 AM	#1
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Need new provider For the pasr number of years InaCdn has provided pretty good pay as you go video streaming service for me but they are closing shop at the end of month Any private outfits out there that dont cost an arm and a leg?

September 4th, 2018, 08:12 AM	#2
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Need new provider What do you consider "not an arm and a leg" Bruce ? We have used Livestream for 3 years now and it comes out pretty darn cheap for the basic package if you pay annually? Costs me only $22 a month (as I share with a mate on the East Coast) so we pay half each ...We mainly do weddings or funerals so even if we only do a stream on a Saturday it only costs me $5 to stream a wedding and that gives us unlimited storage and unlimited views and free switcher software!

September 4th, 2018, 08:49 AM	#3
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Need new provider thanks i will have another look at livestream cut and pasted from their site Livestream Premium Professionals with advanced live streaming needs. $75/mo Billed Annually or $199 month-to-month Is there another plan i cannot see? B

September 4th, 2018, 06:02 PM	#4
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Need new provider We are on the Basic Plan and it shows up in my account too ...it's $42 per month annually or $99 month to month and includes Livestream Studio software. What sort of streaming and frequency do you do ??

September 6th, 2018, 01:28 PM	#5
David Barnett Major Player Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Philly, PA Posts: 951	Re: Need new provider I think DaCast is pretty reasonable & reliable. Pricing goes per month or per event.

September 6th, 2018, 06:20 PM	#6
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Need new provider Livestream since being taken over by Vimeo has dropped their Basic package and then reduced their Premium package from $199 per month down to $75 and that includes website embedding and Simulcasting to Facebook and YouTube too. It all depends on your requirements of course. For us having a unique Event page for each client is essential as is unlimited storage and viewers, I found some CDN's were quite cheap BUT charged you for views which is something you cannot control. We did a pretty ordinary funeral for an Indian lady only to find out that she was a bit of a celebrity in her country and 16000 people watched it. If we had been charged per view then it would have been a financial disaster!!

September 7th, 2018, 09:23 AM	#7
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Need new provider Well I've cobbled together a live stream through an Amazon EC2 Instance running a Wowza server and displayed in a custom HDWplayer Worldclass streaming for cheap

September 7th, 2018, 02:41 PM	#9
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Need new provider That's right Seth For years and years ago I tried to implement this without success I am just a cameraman after all. This time I bought the 29 dollar paid monthly support package from aws and purchased the premium version of hdwplayer and both these fine outfits have done the hard parts for me ongoing wowza rental is 15/month and ec2 might be 0.40 while streaming and there will be more aws costs and the player is 99/yr

September 7th, 2018, 03:03 PM	#10
Seth Bloombaum Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 3,420	Re: Need new provider Happy to hear of your success with AWS. That is really, really encouraging. I was OK bringing Wowza up and down, and S3 is straightforward and well documented, like all the AWS services. But configuring Wowza was a hill I could not climb. A humbling experience. With the premium support... did you just sign on for that for a month or two to get going, or do you think you’ll need them over the long term? __________________ 30 years of pro media production. Vegas user since 1.0. Webcaster since 1997. Freelancer since 2000. College instructor since 2001.

September 8th, 2018, 09:28 AM	#11
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Need new provider Hi The wowza thing, I advertised in Freelancer to get help with wowza and paid a fellow 30 bucks to set it up one-time by giving him temp credentials to my aws acct. I do not think that ongoing paid support will be necessary unless everything crashes and needs re-doing (gods forbid pls lol). Everytime the instance is stopped then started again, the rtmp ip changes so the player needs to be updated with that info and I'm still sweating over that one a bit but should be "good to go" sometime Monday.

September 8th, 2018, 07:11 PM	#12
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Need new provider Sounds good Bruce! I still am puzzled how you guys cost using Wowza ... they talk about viewing hours for $XX .. what happens if you do a stream and 20,000 people watch it instead of the 200 you expected?? Can you get a cost effective package that has unrestricted number of viewers and unrestricted storage for your videos?

September 9th, 2018, 10:01 AM	#13
Seth Bloombaum Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 3,420	Re: Need new provider The Wowza server running as a cloud-computing service on Amazon Web Services is a little different model in pricing. When you bring up the server in the cloud, you decide how much computing power you’re booking for that particular instance. This is a cost area that you control. Scale it to anticipated viewership, with some contingency. IF you only keep it live for your event, even a large instance isn’t that expensive for 2 or 6 hours. OTOH, if you’re keeping it live 24/7 you’re in a whole different game. When Bruce said he deals with new stream IP addresses on restarts of the server, that implies he’s keeping it up only for his live events. Of course you’re never really in control of how many people connect to your streams, though you can control how fat a bitrate each stream is. 720p is a real sweet spot for those concerned with bandwidth costs, and if you’re working with source that isn’t complex, (well lit, with no video noise in the signal, on tripods, and not covering high-motion sports, water, or foliage moving in the wind), you can go as low as you dare, but probably well under 2Mbps. Still not in control of the number of connections... but, bandwidth on AWS is cheap as dirt. The challenge is really to figure out how large a server instance to create. I know that part of success in streaming is to keep it simple for clients - one price, great service, no surprises. That’s what anyone paying the bill wants. But, the funeral service you wrote about is interesting. It reminds me since that our clients need to be able to make choices that control costs (right?), we need to present plans and costs to them in a way that allows them to make those choices. Once you decide on the computing power you rent that cost is fixed. Bandwidth remains a variable cost, but, you can do some estimating based on what the server instance will handle. And, bandwidth on AWS is really, really inexpensive. When I was doing this work, I too wanted to avoid financial disaster with 200 streams expected, but 20,000 showing up. The only way to do so, IMO, is to estimate costs based on client-supplied information and make clear that if their info is wrong costs will be different. How are you going to make “100x more viewers than expected!” work financially? This is a business and client strategy challenge first, and a tactical decision on streaming provider second. In my opinion. __________________ 30 years of pro media production. Vegas user since 1.0. Webcaster since 1997. Freelancer since 2000. College instructor since 2001.

September 9th, 2018, 12:55 PM	#14
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Need new provider That's great info Seth, thanks. Hopefully my player can keep track of hits at least Find a way to charge those additional and unexpected 20,000 viewers a nominal fee to view (5.00) :)

September 9th, 2018, 06:11 PM	#15
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Need new provider Thanks Seth I guess it really depends on what you are streaming Selling virtual tickets for instance would give you better control but where it's just to one client and they decide who watches then it gets a little tricky!! Our Gold Coast operation does mainly funeral shoots (45 minutes on average for $300) but they did have one that went crazy and instead of the usual 50 -100 viewers ..this one went to 16,000!! With Livestream's unlimited viewers and unlimited storage it never affected us financially.