Amazon AWS - am I an idiot?

Man I tried that too the other day. WOW.

SO CONFUSING

I think I am going to just try techsmith's service

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3247

How do you create a bucket?

Thank you guys - that makes life
just a little bit easier. :-)

Once you have the "S3 fox" - S3 firefox organizer addon it all becomes easy.

If you do not know how to construct an absolute link to your s3 hosted file here is a format example:

http://bucketname.s3.amazonaws.com/filename.flv

If you have folders in your bucket and files in the folders then the format is:

http:// bucketname.s3.amazonaws.com/foldername/filename.flv

Just remember that once created the bucket name is the name of your top level folder on the s3 server side in the firefox organizer (files listed in right side window).

Also once you upload a file to s3 you will need to edit the ACL for that file so people can view it. This is done in the left side of s3 fox by clicking on the file choosing Edit ACL and then turning the top red x under the "read" column next to "everyone" to a green check.

Now your file will be readable.

We also just got done creating a simple tool for securing s3 files so that they can only be accessed from links on your own site such as a secure member area with a link to the external file. This way our clients can kill download link sharing and hotlinking on files hosted at s3. We are now working on a version that will do the same for embedded streaming media links.

Thank you Josh - you probably just
saved me a few more hours. :-)

WOuld you need the firefox addon if you were using streamincloud.com?

I like this streamincloud thing

I think yes. From what I read on that site, they monitor your s3 bucket, then convert to flv. That means the video would still have to be placed in the s3 bucket somehow, they are not doing it.

I havent used it in a couple years, but I would upload using the firefox plugin and then distribute using their built in torrent system. The FF plugin is easy to use, similar to an FTP client.

I am launching a membership site soon where i will have lots of training videos on it and wondered what advantage a paying service like Amazon S3 has over a free service like youtube?

Are there any other alternative solutions for video hosting?

1. No one will pay for a membership site when they can watch the videos free on youtube. If you want to run a membership you need to host them yourself to make them truly private.

2. You can host progressive download (streaming) embedded flash video content on any host you want. You do not need special hosting.

3. s3 is convienient but it is only really necessary for when you want to:

- offset demand on your server
- ensure that your content is always available and that you can get access to truly unlimited bandwidth

4. s3 only charges you for what you use. $.17 a gig for bandwidth to start and less as you reach certain thresholds.

5. There are tons of cheaper alternatives if you are only going to use a certain amount of bandwidth and do not need unlimited. One I recommend which provides a ton of bandwidth and storage for a flat fee under $10 a month is Web Hosting: Dedicated & Shared Website Hosting Solutions - Aplus.net

For under $10 Aplus will give you 2000gb a month of bandwidth... you would pay more than $300 a month for that same 2000gb of bandwidth at amazon using the s3 service.

Thanks Josh some great info there

Lon,

It is not "squeezing" it is what they offer. Not only that my recommendation is based on extensive testing and research into their service.

I have not only tested that hosting solution with hundreds of thousands of video views my partner has also used it to serve hundreds of thousands of video views for many of his own production clients.

I also dug deep speaking with them about all their shared hosting policies and their policies beat other budget solutions such as dream host and hostgator, godaddy etc.

Most people do not even think about or understand the limitations that I grill hosts about before I recommend them... in fact most tech support at the companies cannot answer my questions without going to management or upper level support...

Things like;

How many database queries do you allow an hour, what speed is the uplink and how much bandwidth is available in the pipe, what is your limit on simultaneous file connections...

And most important of all "what do you do when a user on the server maxes out system resources used by other clients on the same server?"

No other budget shared hosting company has given me better answers and policy explanations than aplus.net. Also with our own tests serving hundreds of thousands of video views...

I recommend aplus.net with confidence. For under $10 a month they offer 2T of bandwidth.

But lets put it in better perspective....

If you were to use just half that in a month you would pay $170 at s3 and it would have only cost you $10 at aplus.

s3 is a great solution for simplicity and for those who need guaranteed unlimited bandwidth...

But there is no mistake Amazon S3 is not a cheap hosting option unless you do not get a lot of traffic.

In order for S3 to be cheaper option than an economy account at Aplus you would have to not exceed 58gigs of bandwidth.

But if you are delivering between 58 and 2000 gigs of data then aplus.net would be the cheaper solution.

If someone is on a budget and has the potential of getting a lot of traffic to their video then they should consider the alternatives...

Compare:

Aplus - 100gb = $10 - 200gb = $10 - 500gb = $10

S3 - 100gb = $17 200gb = $34 - 500gb = $85

So even at 500gb the cost of s3 is more than 8x the amount.

s3 only makes sense economically at amounts lower than 58gb or when you need to guarantee unlimited bandwidth and offset demand on your hosting account.

Josh is right actually. He helped me determine that aplus was the best choice for my video hosting as well. I am currently hosting 45 videos at approximately 10 minutes in length each to a member base of 250-300 and everything is running like a charm.

I am setting up a membership site where i will have training videos, obviously at the moment as i haven't launched yet i don't know how many members or how many views i will get.
do you think i am better starting off with S3 and then if bandwidth getting too high move to aplus?

We use Bluehost for one of our hosting companies and have never had a problem with them. So I contacted them and here is what Bluehost responded based on Josh's questions.

I have no affiliation with them, other than the hosting account we use but wanted to share the info.

chuck

Josh,

Great info as always.

I like the concept you have listed and have a couple of questions.

1. How is their uptime (I imagine good if you recommended them)?

2. I already have my sites hosted at Host Gator. Would A Plus be good to just host videos and such to stream from one domain? As opposed to Amazon?

I have a lot of videos I need to add to two memebership sites I am setting up.

Thanks,

John

I had started another thread related to this and didn't get a response. My question was about the S3 FF plugin, Firefox 3, and Windows XP.

There was a plugin release that didn't work on XP running Firefox 2, and the solution was to install an older plugin.

So my question is: is anyone having trouble using Firefox 3 on XP and the newest version of the S3 plugin, 0.4.5?

I'd like to upgrade to Firefox 3, but don't want to -- if it's going to cause problems with this extension.

Thanks,
Steve MacLellan

Hi Craig,

You can set the SWF files as accessible only by the Owner and
Authenticated Users (instead of accessible by Everyone), then there's
a bit of PHP code you will need to place in your blog posts so that the
video can be viewed only from your blog.

Even if others copy the HTML code, your video will not play if people
embed it in another blog site.

Kind regards,
Manuel Viloria

Since you're an internet marketer... the speed your website and video's load is critical... I'd suggest you don't use Amazon S3 and instead use:

Amazon CloudFront

It costs a few more pennies per gb... but is rediculously fast. They clone your files onto servers all across the world, so content loads for people from the nearest server to them.

15mb videos load in 10 seconds... really is worth it for the extra pennies.

duplicate post.

The biggest factor that governs how fast a 15mb video loads is the speed of the visitors internet connection not just the hosting account.

"...then there's a bit of PHP code you will need to place in your blog posts so that the video can be viewed only from your blog.

Even if others copy the HTML code, your video will not play if people embed it in another blog site."

Come on Manuel, don't be a tease - what bit of PHP code?

That's what I thought Josh.

In fact, the only people I've seen come close to a solution are Stomper but then I can never get their stuff to stream in FF anyway.

For those of us with membership sites that make extensive use of video this is a real issue. The guy or guyette that comes up with the answer is going to make some serious coin.

All standard flash based video and audio players work on s3.

All you do is upload the files and edit the ACL to allow and it acts just like any other hosting account for that purpose.

The common misconception is that s3 is complicated or maybe it won't work with some player or another but s3 is really quite simple to use and works with all standard players.

Click on the "sign up now" link at the top of the page and then select your package for the list on the next page. Then you will see an order now link or you can just use the phone numbers at the top of their page to call their sales teams.