Guide To Video Website Hosting and FFMpeg Web Hosting
10 12 2009
Guide To Video Website Hosting and FFMpeg Web Hosting
When are interested in starting your own video sharing site like youtube or google video or else if you want a video section in your website that showcase your product or service or product demonstration or to start a online training website where to tailored the course such that the members can learn the course through the set of video that are only available to registered member then you may puzzle how to add such a video feature to your own site.
Video Web Hosting Requirements:
Many people things that video streaming can be hosted in all server but that is not true. To have video hosted in your server, the video need to be first converted in to common format which is supported by all web browser then only user can view your video. As you know there are large number of video format available like WAV, AVI, 3GP2,3GP2 , ASX, FLV etc and one or more of these video format are used or supported by various video players like Quick player, WIM AMP, Windows Media Player, DIVX Player.
But in web browser like Mozilla, internet explorer, opera, Apple Safari and google chrome won’t support video format by default. These browsers require flash plugin installed and many browsers use to have the flash plugin installed and it very common to see browser installed with flash plugin. These Flash plugin is free and support .FLV format alone. You may ask why not all format supported plugin not available. If one goes for plugin that can support all format the plugin file size will be much higher than the browser file size itself and also require high CPU usage which may often cause your browser to crash.
The flash supported browser can play only .FLV file format, so we need to convert our video file format to .flv, regardless of what format the user or member upload to your web server. To convert the different video file format to flv format which can be played in user browser without any problem, you need a piece of software to do that work for us. Luckily we have Ffmpeg which come in handy to do this work for us. And Ffmpeg is a open source software which means its free to download, modify and use the software you don’t need to pay any $$$ to use ffmpeg Software.
Why FFMpeg Software is Free?
Many may ask why they are giving up unique software for free of cost. FFmpeg is realeased under open source libraries or free software, which means it is developed and contributed by many people across of the world on common interest and not to make money. Even you can if can improve the open software you can do that and contribute to such software.
How to Install FFmpeg Software in your Server?
FFmpeg Software is not an exe file which means you can’t double click and run it. Instead Ffmpeg is a set of library file that need to be run from command prompt using various command. If you don’t have how to run a program from command prompt I better suggest you to look for unix techinacal person who can get ffmpeg install in your server for a small fee. You can get a unix technical person from my online freelancer job sites. If you want to install ffmpeg on your own, then to run command prompt you need shell script or software which help to connect to your host server command prompt. The famous shell software available in internet is “Putty”. The Putty SSH Telnet Software is also a open source you can download it for free of cost.
FFmpeg hosting is special hosting for online video sharing web sites. FFmpeg converts video to .flv format or any other video format. With FFmpeg web hosting you can create powerful online video sharing web sites just like YouTube. FFmpeg hosting allows anyone to create their very own video sharing website like YouTube and Metacafe.
Web hosts who specialize in FFmpeg hosting make the process easy by packaging and pre-installing the FFmpeg tools you need. These may include:FFmpeg software for uploading, converting and encoding video files. Fast web servers which are optimized for video streaming. Tuned for Easy installation of video sharing scripts such as Clipshare, PHPMotion, Vshare, Rayzz and OsTube.
FFmpeg hosting gets its name from a set of server side programs (modules) called ffmpeg. The creators of ffmpeg describe it as follows: “FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec – the leading audio/video codec library.” There are now available a number of applications or web scripts that will allow webmasters to create their own video sharing websites A good example of scuch script is the very popular PHPmotion Video Sharing Script. This free script will enable you to create a video site just like youtube.
Can I install Ffmpeg in all hosting Plans?
Even though ffmpeg can be theoretically installed in any server but you can’t install ffmpeg in all hosting plans this is because the limitation set by web hosting provider. To install ffmpeg in any server you need root folder access to install the ffmpeg and then only you can access command prompt and run the ffmpeg but in shared hosting since many clients use the same root the hosting provider won’t give the root access which means you can’t install ffmpeg software in shared hosting service and also there is another reason for that, the web hosting provider don’t want to host video in their server because video need lot of cpu time and bandwidth which cost the Hosting provider to stop providing video feature.
You can Install FFMpeg Software in dedicated server and some Virtual private Server. In all dedicated server you will be given root access so you can install ffmpeg Software there in dedicated hosting. You can ask the hosting provider to install ffmpeg Script in your dedicated server, in most managed dedicated hosting they do it for me and some may charge a Fee or else as I said earlier you can hire a technical guy from freelance jobsite and they may charge an average on $25 to install FFmepg in your dedicated server.
In Virtual private Server you should be little careful while buying the VPS. Before buying VPS Hosting, ask the VPS hosting provider whether they give root access and they server software support FFmpeg software. I just give my experience I brought VPS Plan from Westhost with the intension to host my video site and I gave it to my technical guy. The technical guy said there is no root access then I check westhost forum and ask their support they said they won’t support ffmpeg and my search in their forum found to be in vein. So while buying vps ask them whether ffmpeg software can be installed in my VPS.
I can’t afford Dedicated server or VPS hosting, what can I do?
Your FFMPEG hosting plan will be put on the FFMPEG servers that are perfectly tweaked and include all the requirements that most video sharing hosting require which are the following:
· MEncoder, MPlayer, FFMPEG, FFMPEG-PHP
· PHP4 & PHP5
· LAME MP3 Encoder
· libOGG, libVorbis
· MySQL 5
· CGI-BIN support
The trouble is that not a lot of web hosting companies have realized the huge demand and growth in the video market and as such there is very little by way of choice when it comes to ding a web host that will support all the requirements for a typical video intensive website.
The following scripts need FFmpeg Web Hosting:
Boonex Dolphin / PHPMotion / Social Engine / ABKsoft Scripts / Joomla Video Plugin / Clipshare / ClipBucket / Social Media / Rayzz / Vidi Script AND MORE!
