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doughnet
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

can the usage of ownCloud be used?

like to setup my own cloud using multiple VPS systems (they be powerful in cpu & each be 1gbit dedicated line so plenty for streaming) which this would be much cheaper, like $5/month per 500GB disk space available

curious if it can integrated for video hosting storage
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RobSMS
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

We have been using Vimeo Pro for about 2 years now serving around 100k views per day. Never had an issue or any sort of downtime and it's only $200/year. The only issue is you can only upload 20gig per week, but its accumulative. In other words, each week you get 20gig more space. It works great for our situation.
Need Apps Templates? Content Management for OTT/IPTV? Check me out @ http://rovidx.com
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Category5
Newbie

Re: Hosting for video files

We too use Vimeo Pro for our Roku feed. When you're a pro user, you can visit the "Video Files" tab and grab the direct links for all the hosted files.

We had been using S3 with Cloudfront, but that became cost prohibitive. I was shocked to find Vimeo Pro was so cheap and would work, and did some testing where it actually ran very, very fast. Doing a wget on one of our Vimeo-hosted files, I am still in awe at how cheap it is.

The one thing with Vimeo is that the filenames have a ? in the name. My solution was to build a stream server which uses header redirects to point users to the file. This works GREAT for Roku but also our RSS feeds. Another nice thing is that it allows us to track a great deal of information about each and every view -- see https://status.category5.tv/. An easier solution might be to simply use YOURLS or another link shortener (to hide the ? from Roku, which tends to break things in some cases).

See http://v.cat5.tv/a/2hpFuOQ7/v/e/i/1410/q/hd/CAT5TV-383-Memories-of-Me-HD.m4v <- if you grab it with wget you'll see what's "actually" happening behind the scenes... but the inevitable endpoint is... you guessed it... Vimeo.
Robbie Ferguson, Host
Category5 Technology TV
Roku Channel Access Code: CAT5TV
www.Category5.TV
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RobSMS
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

"Category5" wrote:
We too use Vimeo Pro for our Roku feed. When you're a pro user, you can visit the "Video Files" tab and grab the direct links for all the hosted files.

We had been using S3 with Cloudfront, but that became cost prohibitive. I was shocked to find Vimeo Pro was so cheap and would work, and did some testing where it actually ran very, very fast. Doing a wget on one of our Vimeo-hosted files, I am still in awe at how cheap it is.

The one thing with Vimeo is that the filenames have a ? in the name. My solution was to build a stream server which uses header redirects to point users to the file. This works GREAT for Roku but also our RSS feeds. Another nice thing is that it allows us to track a great deal of information about each and every view -- see https://status.category5.tv/. An easier solution might be to simply use YOURLS or another link shortener (to hide the ? from Roku, which tends to break things in some cases).

See http://v.cat5.tv/a/2hpFuOQ7/v/e/i/1410/q/hd/CAT5TV-383-Memories-of-Me-HD.m4v <- if you grab it with wget you'll see what's "actually" happening behind the scenes... but the inevitable endpoint is... you guessed it... Vimeo.


That is brilliant! I was just bouncing over here to see if I could figure out a solution for masking our Vimeo urls (having an issue with a pirate). Thanks for that, now to implement it. 🙂
Need Apps Templates? Content Management for OTT/IPTV? Check me out @ http://rovidx.com
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incsays
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

Hi guys, someone mentioned $100 a month is too steep? We would gladly take that! Ha! We are having to get away from Vimeo. Unfortunately, because we like them. But, they are trying to get rid of us, we think, because we are getting too big. We need a good cheap alternative. We have 9 Roku channels with 1200 shows. So bandwidth is a major factor. Any suggestions would be so great. Thanks and these forums are wonderful
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uxicorp
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

Greetings,

I saw your post regarding your Vimeo infrastructure and it's intriguing. You said, "My solution was to build a stream server which uses header redirects to point users to the file."

How does this work? Do you know if there is sample code somewhere or a guide we could use to engineer our own solution? OR would you be willing to sell us the code?


"Category5" wrote:
We too use Vimeo Pro for our Roku feed. When you're a pro user, you can visit the "Video Files" tab and grab the direct links for all the hosted files.

We had been using S3 with Cloudfront, but that became cost prohibitive. I was shocked to find Vimeo Pro was so cheap and would work, and did some testing where it actually ran very, very fast. Doing a wget on one of our Vimeo-hosted files, I am still in awe at how cheap it is.

The one thing with Vimeo is that the filenames have a ? in the name. My solution was to build a stream server which uses header redirects to point users to the file. This works GREAT for Roku but also our RSS feeds. Another nice thing is that it allows us to track a great deal of information about each and every view -- see https://status.category5.tv/. An easier solution might be to simply use YOURLS or another link shortener (to hide the ? from Roku, which tends to break things in some cases).

See http://v.cat5.tv/a/2hpFuOQ7/v/e/i/1410/q/hd/CAT5TV-383-Memories-of-Me-HD.m4v <- if you grab it with wget you'll see what's "actually" happening behind the scenes... but the inevitable endpoint is... you guessed it... Vimeo.
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bwschulz
Visitor

Re: Hosting for video files

Hello, yes, I have found that also to be true that AWS S3 has served us reliably too - though Direct Publisher conversion shut down our Grande Projecte, pray thee only temporarily so that reliability of service hasn't been tested yet at Roku. So check this out - What I thought was interesting to note, after reading many posts about trouble with reading the JSON config files or retrieving content or getting brand assets, or rather failing to do all those tasks -- that right here, in this forum, for my posting profile, I found the "offsite Avatar option" in account settings which I tried to link to a well before posted image of your truly discouraged author, and that fetch failed in error from S3. I am sure it is an easy explanation to work around the problem but I find it an unfortunate timing that the Roku forum account profile photo replace feature failed to retrieve a simple 146x146pxl jpg from my open non locked down non intensive permissions guarded plain old image file bucket at S3 - so my avatar image remains poignantly empty.. the schulz 
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Blackhawk
Roku Guru

Re: Hosting for video files

Would putting a shortcut link to the download (like when using the videos from archive.org) work with Vimeo?
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norcaljohnny
Roku Guru

Re: Hosting for video files

Honestly, I would consider just getting a dedicated server. A lot of places offer unlimited bandwidth and up to 4tb of data for under $130 per month.
I have been running servers and administrating them for about 15 years now. What I have noticed is  a lot of CDN's and 3 party hosting use load balancers that cap speeds and while it can be useful, initial load times are terrible. I have seen videos take up to 15 secs and at times more than that, just to get the vid playing. 😕

At that point you might as well go with Google drive and upgrades at just $2 for 100gigs and $10 for 1tb.
There is a bandwidth cap, but it is high in volume and you would just need to learn their api..
Dont do dropbox as they do not stream in HD.

Google "cheap dedicated servers"
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norcaljohnny
Roku Guru

Re: Hosting for video files

"Blackhawk" wrote:
Would putting a shortcut link to the download (like when using the videos from archive.org) work with Vimeo?

The answer is NO.
The reason is unlike archive.org, Vimeo and places alike have extra coded added into the link, which alllows the link to stay good for a very limited amount of time, usually between 4 hours and 2 days and/or limited to the users ip address. 
So, you would have to either
A) Keep updating the stored links or
B) write a script that on user click retrieves a new code.
I use a simple php script that does the second. PHP because it is readily available on pretty much all hosting servers both commercially and on local machines.
Here is a sample php script which GETS the url link via a header("Location: URL")
<?php
$link = file_get_contents("type URL here");

preg_match_all(
    '/(http.*.m3u8)/', //this tells it to find and grab the m3u8 link

    $link,
    $otherthings, // will contain the article data
    PREG_SET_ORDER // formats data into an array of posts
);

foreach ($otherthings as $otherthing) {
    $link = $otherthing[1];


// clear out the output buffer
while (ob_get_status())
{
    ob_end_clean();
}

// no redirect opens link
header("location: $link");
}
?>
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