Topic: Which Bit Rate?

[The Little Guy]

I have three videos, all uploaded from the same source. each of them have a different bit rate. I am trying to decide which bit rate to use for the rest of my videos.

1. http://dudeel.com/video/watch?v=FRq6lUwYw3W8E
2. http://dudeel.com/video/watch?v=Rj747hdyp13cP
3. http://dudeel.com/video/watch?v=4ixjz8ON8z1p

Thanks for the help!

[corbin]

What ever bit rate you feel like having your site stream?  It's your bandwidth.

[The Little Guy]

What ever bit rate you feel like having your site stream?  It's your bandwidth.

I don't have a bandwidth limit.

[Daniel0]

What ever bit rate you feel like having your site stream?  It's your bandwidth.

I don't have a bandwidth limit.

Yes you do. There is a physical barrier on how fast the hardware can transfer the data.

Anyone who think they can get unlimited bandwidth are ignorant. Do you think you can get "unlimited" for $5.95/month on your dreamhost account while huge sites like Youtube spend $1,000,000/month¹?

¹ http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2006/04/27/video-youtube-myspace_cx_df_0428video.html

[corbin]

What ever bit rate you feel like having your site stream?  It's your bandwidth.

I don't have a bandwidth limit.

Yes you do. There is a physical barrier on how fast the hardware can transfer the data.

Anyone who think they can get unlimited bandwidth are ignorant. Do you think you can get "unlimited" for $5.95/month on your dreamhost account while huge sites like Youtube spend $1,000,000/month¹?

¹ http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2006/04/27/video-youtube-myspace_cx_df_0428video.html

I bet he has unlimited disk space too ;p.

[Mchl]

Well I do have both unlimited bandwidth and disk space... It's just this small print in TOS that limits the interesting ways I could use it...
And yeah... limited access to database... Huh...

[The Little Guy]

I don't have a bandwidth limit.

Yes you do. There is a physical barrier on how fast the hardware can transfer the data.
[/quote]

By bandwidth I mean the number of MB's from server to client.  I do have a limit on CPU, RAM, and those things...

At least they say that they will give me unlimited. They say that no matter how much I use I won't be charged more that what I pay per month.

[waynewex]

I don't have a bandwidth limit.

Yes you do. There is a physical barrier on how fast the hardware can transfer the data.

By bandwidth I mean the number of MB's from server to client.  I do have a limit on CPU, RAM, and those things...

At least they say that they will give me unlimited. They say that no matter how much I use I won't be charged more that what I pay per month.
[/quote]

Define: Overselling.

[Daniel0]

Yeah well, seems like you forgot to read the fine print:
http://dreamhost.com/unlimited.html

"File upload / sharing / archive / backup / mirroring / distribution sites" and "Making your account resources available (whether for free or pay) to the general public" is not allowed. As far as I can tell, your site violates that. I believe you also once said that you provide a free host service and file upload service. Basically there are plenty of reasons for terminating your accounts.

As I said:

Do you think you can get "unlimited" for $5.95/month on your dreamhost account while huge sites like Youtube spend $1,000,000/month?

They give you "unlimited" because the only types of sites that would use up a lot of diskspace and bandwidth are not allowed. They still earn money though because of all the gullible people who think that there exists a such thing as unlimited anything.

[The Little Guy]

File upload / sharing / archive / backup / mirroring / distribution sites

I have a file hosting site, free php website hosting, videos, and have gotten technical support on all of them, and they didn't say anything about them violating any TOS.

This whole page is just to announce to the <.1% of people who want to try and run free porn affiliate sites or anime video trading forums or host pirated rips of The Dark Knight on DreamHost that we're not having any.

but in case they say something, then I will ask to go back to my regular hosting.

So... In the case they don't say something, could we answer my original question?

So lets say that I do have unlimited everything (other than CPU / RAM). As a client computer, which video would you rather connect to? The larger video with better quality, or the smaller video with poor quality, or the one in between with fair quality?

[Mchl]

Why not all of them... You've got unlimited disk space after all

[waynewex]

I have a file hosting site, free php website hosting, videos, and have gotten technical support on all of them, and they didn't say anything about them violating any TOS.

They will once you start monopolizing server resources.

[The Little Guy]

I have a file hosting site, free php website hosting, videos, and have gotten technical support on all of them, and they didn't say anything about them violating any TOS.

They will once you start monopolizing server resources.

They will ask me to move to a Private Server.

[waynewex]

I have a file hosting site, free php website hosting, videos, and have gotten technical support on all of them, and they didn't say anything about them violating any TOS.

They will once you start monopolizing server resources.

They will ask me to move to a Private Server.

Exactly. Meaning that you're not getting unlimited bandwidth for the money that you're currently paying.

[The Little Guy]

Exactly. Meaning that you're not getting unlimited bandwidth for the money that you're currently paying.

I never said I was getting unlimited for what I am paying... You guy are. I just said I have unlimited.

NO MORE ABOUT UNLIMITED THAT ISN'T WHAT THIS TOPIC IS ABOUT!

[GingerRobot]

Exactly. Meaning that you're not getting unlimited bandwidth for the money that you're currently paying.

I never said I was getting unlimited for what I am paying... You guy are. I just said I have unlimited.

NO MORE ABOUT UNLIMITED THAT ISN'T WHAT THIS TOPIC IS ABOUT!

So does that mean you're saying you have unlimited bandwidth assuming you have unlimited money? Riiiiight.

Anyway, don't you think you're thinking about this the wrong way? You should be considering the user's internet speeds and think what they will be capable of streaming and/or downloading in a reason time.

[waynewex]

The poor user always get forgotten.

[Kris]

I'd offer a low bandwidth version, and a high bandwidth version. Let the user pick what they want to view.

[The Little Guy]

Anyway, don't you think you're thinking about this the wrong way? You should be considering the user's internet speeds and think what they will be capable of streaming and/or downloading in a reason time.

I did ask that on the previous page.

I'd offer a low bandwidth version, and a high bandwidth version. Let the user pick what they want to view.

I was possibly thinking that (which I may do).

Another question (may or may not know) when you upload a video to youtube, do they keep the original file, or do they discard it after it uploads and converts to a flv?

[Daniel0]

It would seem like they are storing the files as they were uploaded. Otherwise they couldn't suddenly supply high quality and later HD versions of previously uploaded videos.

[The Little Guy]

that is what I thought, because I was wondering how they were able to convert videos to HD, but is it possible that only the new videos have an high quality version?

[Daniel0]

that is what I thought, because I was wondering how they were able to convert videos to HD, but is it possible that only the new videos have an high quality version?

No, as I said, when they rolled it out, some new videos had it as well, so I'm quite sure that's not the case.


On the DreamHost thing, I figured I might share the link to a blog post I made about it: http://degeberg.com/2008/12/dreamhost-to-infinity-and-beyond/

[GingerRobot]

Excellent. I'm surprised you got a reply at all. It should be noted that dreamhost aren't alone in their unlimited offerings. While I cannot think of any off of the top of my head, I saw a lot of similar plans a couple years back.

(Edit: For example, see this host)

There used to be a fair few ISPs in the UK offering unlimited bandwidth. I'm guessing the office of fair trading got onto them about that, as I've not seen any recently.

Edit 2: Seems i lied. BT are still offering this.

[Daniel0]

It should be noted that dreamhost aren't alone in their unlimited offerings. While I cannot think of any off of the top of my head, I saw a lot of similar plans a couple years back.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but alas I do not have enough times to write ∞ emails.

[Mchl]

Another one's powweb
I'm actually using their services, but that's mostly because they were able to give me better conditions than the previous host. I don't need ∞ GB of whatever, but I do need control panel that works and gives me the controls I want. Having python was a pleasant surprise, not having InnoDB was the unpleasant one. Can't have ∞.

[The Little Guy]

Daniel0, I liked your first email, it made me giggle.

Some more Unlimited:
http://www.bluehost.com/
http://www.hostmonster.com/
9 More: http://www.webhostingchoice.com/

my current stats for this month (starts on the 8th):
File Storage: 82.6 GB
Bandwidth: 153.888 GB

[corbin]

I agree that overselling is bad, and companies should just straight up say, "Your max is x," but man, it's much worse to be stuck in a host that tells you you have 50MB disk space than psuedo-infinity (that's a fun term...).

My dad knew someone through something or other who does webdesign/hosting, and I'm terrible at design, so we decided to hire him to design/host the site.  His design fee was reasonable (on the edge of over priced in my opinion, since it looks a little dated.  Not like 90s dated.  Just 2-3 years dated), but man does his hosting plan suck.  Suck is actually too good of word for that.

The features, as follow:

-25MB Storage Space
-1 POP3 E-mail Box
-E-mail Forwarding Addresses
-Online Account Management
-24/7 FTP Site Access
-E-mail Support

All for the low price of...

$20/month.  Seriously.  (We actually ended up with 50MB for $23ish/month, I think because when I talked to him on the phone, I was looking in cpanel, and was like "25 megabytes?" in a really weird tone. lol.)


I'll take over sellers over 25MB anyday.


But, if I genuinely wanted unlimited, I would be quite disappointed when my account was suspended for violating the host's ToS.


"I'll give you x, but you can only use y at a time.  Deal?"

[nrg_alpha]

On the DreamHost thing, I figured I might share the link to a blog post I made about it: http://degeberg.com/2008/12/dreamhost-to-infinity-and-beyond/

lol... nice blog post Dan.. you can be quite the sh!t disturber, but it is interesting to pin a company up against the proverbial wall with these sort of things. Funny you mentioned youtube hosting.. I started to google this subject (regarding unlimited hosting and fine print) and stumbled upon this post regarding bluehost and the fact that a site hosting over 50GB of media files got shut down..

Indeed, unlimited is an illusion...
P.S If you ever do happen to stumble upon one of those infinite hard drives, do let me know

[The Little Guy]

Infinite files:

<?php
while(TRUE){
     $handle = fopen('file.txt','w');
     fwrite($handle, 'hello');
     fclose($handle);
     unlink('file.txt');
}
?>

Is this hard drive big enough for you?
http://cache.gizmodo.com/archives/images/new_hard_drive.jpg

[Kris]

Infinite files:

<?php
while(TRUE){
     $handle = fopen('file.txt','w');
     fwrite($handle, 'hello');
     fclose($handle);
     unlink('file.txt');
}
?>

Doesn't that continually create and remove the same file?

[Mchl]

Infinite files:

<?php
while(TRUE){
     $handle = fopen('file.txt','w');
     fwrite($handle, 'hello');
     fclose($handle);
     unlink('file.txt');
}
?>

Is this hard drive big enough for you?
http://cache.gizmodo.com/archives/images/new_hard_drive.jpg

This will timeout in finite time
I'd also like to point out, that because of limited CPU power (and no host promises unlimited CPUs right now), you can't claim infinite disk space in finite time.

[ardyandkari]

the size of that hdd is ridiculous...just think...you MIGHT be able to hold that 50mb of hosting on that!!!

[Mchl]

I believe its 1kB per 1kg of disk mass.