[webcast-l] Transmitting info from WI to the UK

[David Hooper]

Hi John,

 > 1)   If 20,000 people logon to the server at one time how will this
 > effect performance.

20,000 people listening to a webcast would be huge, but would only 
effect performance if your server setup was not capable of this kind of 
capacity.  On software such as Icecast you can set the maximum number of 
listeners you want to allow, this could be the number that your system 
is able actually to manage.

A major thing you'd have to look at is what bit-rate you want to 
broadcast on as this affects the quality of the audio and also the 
bandwidth drain.  So in theory you could get twice as many listeners 
using 32kbps then you would using 64kbps.  You could look at how much 
bandwidth you can afford, experiment with your bit-rate to see how low 
you can go without losing too much quality and look at what sort of 
platform could support the amount of listeners you'd like to have.

You could possibly look at peer to peer webcasting like peercast, this 
way you wouldn't be as reliant on your bandwidth as it uses that of 
fellow listeners.

 > 2) How many people can log into one server at one time?

This depends on what system you use.  I couldn't tell you more on this 
as I've not really looked into it but if you check with the software 
people like RealNetworks, Apple (darwin server), Shoutcast/Icecast etc 
you should be able to find there limits.

 > 3) There will be live streaming and prerecorded stuff. Would It be a
 > better idea to store them on different servers.

Separate servers would help with system performance but you'd have to 
still share the bandwidth.

 > 4) What would be the cheapest and best solution to achieve this.

Mmmm, its really hard to say.  Peercast would be a cheap way to do it 
but it would require listeners to use the peercast clients and be 
willing to share their bandwidth.  I haven't used the software very much 
so I could comment in stability etc.

Hope some of this helps

Regards
David.

John Penna wrote:

> Hi All,
>            I am new to this area.  I currently have a plan to transmit 
> videos, news, music programs etc from the west indies via satalite to 
> the UK
> 
> I am currently putting together a plan and need to know a rough 
> costing.I.e What servers are required etc.Bandwidth cost...In the west 
> Indies, UK .
> 
> The TV station side of things is up and running, what needs to be done 
> now is the web side of things.
> 
> this is a good idea but I need to know how to go about it.
> 
> For example
> 1)   If 20,000 people logon to the server at one time how will this 
> effect performance.
> 2) How many people can log into one server at one time?
> 3) There will be live streaming and prerecorded stuff. Would It be a 
> better idea to store them on different servers.
> 4) What would be the cheapest and best solution to achieve this.
> 
> 
> Any Help would be appricated
> 
> Regards
> 
> John Penna
> 
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