Just a follow up, I have sent over 303gig of data and it only cost around $36.00

Using Amazon s3

How much bandwidth are you using?

You don't have to pay the cdn premium, just a well connected ISP is very good on the roku at a much lower cost.
Under 2 cents a gigabyte if you make the right deal.

Whatever you do, don't use a Dropbox FREE account to host files.They will suspend activity if you reach 10GB of bandwidth in a day (the cap for paid accounts is 250GB/day.) Maybe this is already well known, but I feel like an idiot!

We were using this method for testing, then as soon as the channel went public it crashed the Dropbox. We had to then scramble to get everything up and running and move to another server, now we have to wait for the update on the Public Channel to roll-out.

Oi Vey!

koshermetal wrote:

Whatever you do, don't use a Dropbox FREE account to host files.They will suspend activity if you reach 10GB of bandwidth in a day (the cap for paid accounts is 250GB/day.)

Thanks for that update. I saw you were using Dropbox while your channel was private, and started looking at Dropbox's TOS myself. My one client (friend) wanted to stream his YouTube band channel via the Roku. In fact, I referred him to you after I would not be able to deliver. YouTube's TOS nixed that idea. We even looked at Amazon S3 and even that would put him over budget.

As mentioned in the other posts, Amazon S3 is what I have been recommending to a few small clients if they can afford it.

Please continue to post your findings on low cost providers. I have a few "starving artists" waiting.

Yeah, I deleted my post on hostgator. I talked to them and they said no way haha. I was looking into Amazon but I think we might go with a Virtual Dedicated Server via Go Daddy, 30gb of storage and up to 1,000gb of bw for under $40. Not exactly what we want to do, but we kind of have to due to the channel growth since going public.

If he isn't going to submit as a public channel, he might be ok paying DB 9.99 a month for 50gb of storage and a 250gb daily cap. But he should try to estimate the daily bandwidth before going that route since DB isn't meant to be used as a CDN and his channel will break if he hits the cap.

koshermetal wrote:

I was looking into Amazon but I think we might go with a Virtual Dedicated Server via Go Daddy, 30gb of storage and up to 1,000gb of bw for under $40.

Very interested on how the virtual dedicated server(VPS) works out for you. Please keep us updated on how the server handles the load. Even with Amazon S3 low pricing below, I have a few looking for a cheaper solution.

I'll look into DB again. I'm curious how DropBox, as they state use AmazonS3 servers for storage, offers 250gb daily bandwidth on a paid account for $9.99/month. Only possible show stopper is: Streaming videos are cropped at five minutes.

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Amazon S3 pricing:

Storage: First 1 TB / month $0.140 per GB
Transfer: Up to 10 TB / month $0.120 per GB

Upon sign-up, new AWS customers receive 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage, 20,000 Get Requests, 2,000 Put Requests, and 15GB of data transfer out each month for one year.

sftv wrote:

I'll look into DB again. I'm curious how DropBox, as they state use AmazonS3 servers for storage, offers 250gb daily bandwidth on a paid account for $9.99/month. Only possible show stopper is: Streaming videos are cropped at five minutes.

---
Amazon S3 pricing:

Storage: First 1 TB / month $0.140 per GB
Transfer: Up to 10 TB / month $0.120 per GB

Upon sign-up, new AWS customers receive 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage, 20,000 Get Requests, 2,000 Put Requests, and 15GB of data transfer out each month for one year.

Videos aren't cropped at 5 mins...we have content well over 5 minutes and they streamed fine via DB.

I did the math and with the package we got, it comes out to .04 per GB for both the storage AND the bandwidth (30GB storage - 1,000GB bw). Unless I'm missing something, seems a bit better than AWS since 1,000GB of bw would cost $120, plus the cost of storage.

Hello all I am completely new to this and looking into starting a channel for my church. My question is do you have to host the videos online or can you use an on site server? I appreciate all help Thanks

FBCMike wrote:

Hello all I am completely new to this and looking into starting a channel for my church. My question is do you have to host the videos online or can you use an on site server? I appreciate all help Thanks

You have to evaluate how many people will be streaming how much content (at once and over time) over your in-house connection. If the traffic is low enough, you may be able to do it, but you'll have to check your agreement with your ISP to verify the connection will be capable and that it's permitted.

I am using 2 domains to split content over. My shows are at least 1 hour in length. If an issue I get a VPS and change my xml paths to point to whatever server I want and the cost is very low per month.

we are currently using a dedicated server from 1and1.com. its worked out pretty good for us and the bill is $50/mo with 2TB of bandwidth.

Amazon S3 pricing:

Storage: First 1 TB / month $0.140 per GB
Transfer: Up to 10 TB / month $0.120 per GB

http://www.FlashWebtown.com offers 6TB for $500/mo, which is 0.08 per GB.
They can also host video files for the VOD channel.

I realize this is a very old thread but I ran across it and figured others might as well.
(Notice: I am not in any way affiliated with any video hosting companies or CDNs)

If you are interested in getting some of the best video hosting on a major CDN (aka Akamai) but can't afford it...look into some of the smaller companies you can go through that offer hosting on the big boys. We are using OnStream Media's Streaming Publisher which is actually storing the video on Akamai. It works great, and their developer is working with us to set up the proper web services to give Roku the XML feeds it requires.

(Edit) Sorry, I meant to say that OnStream is charging us approximately $100/month and the content is actually on Akamai. We just go through OnStream's UI to manage our files.

Onstream at $100/month? To steep. There are cheaper solutions. At $100 a month I can get at least 12 Domains from a fast ISP and spread the load.