Streaming service providers???

Hello,

I was in the same situation as you, I created a website for a client, where 10 of their clients have 10 minute videos which they wanted to be viewable online. I originally thought I needed to have flash media server, but realized for the little demand they needed a virtual private server from Godaddy worked fine. They came back to me and had me do a chat room, which does require FMS, so I picked up an entry level account with: www.influxis.com It seems to work well, easy to configure, and fast. They don't host your website, just your dynamic flash files.

Hope this helps,
Bradford Knowlton
brad@UCanBOnline.net
http://x86Virtualization.com

CDN = Content Delivery Network (Akamai and Vitalstream are CDN's).

Given that you won't be serving large numbers, and the videos are fairly short, I think progressive download would do nicely, and you can serve those file right from your existing webhost (£0 definitely beats £210 ).

I suppose the best provider (and delivery method) depends on who you need to reach, and how you need to control your content.

How many users (concurrent) do you need to handle?

Will those users be spread out across the globe, or will they be mostly local to one country/continent?

Is true streaming a requirement, or is progressive download (delivery via http) acceptable? The key differences (from a business model standpoint) are:

- progressively downloaded video is cached on the user's machine, effectively giving them a copy of the media. With a true stream, the data is not saved locally.

- Progressive video can be served from any http server, so it eliminates the need for a streaming server (much, much less expensive).

As for the big CDNs, Akamai and VitalStream seem to carry good reputations. I've never deployed an app across a CDN, so I don't have any first hand experience with either of them. What to look for (in terms of cost and service) depends on the traffic you'll serve, and where they'll be (i.e if you have lots of viewers in India, you want a CDN with a good presence in India).