Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : On-demand streaming questions

[abrax]

I'm a main programmer of a Hungarian Direct TV webshop and recently got a demand on adding an "on-demand" video streaming function - availabilty of watching the tv commercials of our products without the need of downloading them whole, but dynamically.
Since I'm a newbie in this topic, I would like to ask for brief answers on few of my questions regarding streaming:

- Is there any streaming technology that doesn't require involving installation of server software - thus enabling streaming on a "standard" shared web hosting without getting the hosting administration personell involved? Or should I definitely look for a streaming hosting?
- In either way, what are my - the programmers - duties for enabling streaming? (I'm wondering maybe about sending different HTTP headers for those files streamed, or anything else...)
- If getting a special, streaming hosting is necessary, I would appreciate some offers as well. The technical demands are not 100 percently clear at the moment, but we would stick to Windows Media format for the videos as the most common and bcs of its flexibility (since it's integrated with all the windows and the majority of our visitors are using windows). Though, some other formats could be considered as well - our point is only to make it easy to watch for a regular user with avoiding making it complicated by downloading additional software, if possible.
The initial required space would be up to couple hundred megs, and the download would be around several gigs per month. Of course, in this case we would like a flexible hosting with different packages since this estimation limits could go higher after seeing the popularity of this feature amongst visitors.

Thank you in advance!

abrax

[Captian_Spike]

You could use a technology such as ASF video's. That allows the user to watch while its downloading, there is also quicktime. Either of those would work ok.

Although both are not perfect, for instance those using firefox would still need to download asf files in advance, unless you get them to copy the link and paste in the media player, but thats absurd.

[abrax]

Originally posted by u2mike
You could use a technology such as ASF video's. That allows the user to watch while its downloading, there is also quicktime. Either of those would work ok.

Although both are not perfect, for instance those using firefox would still need to download asf files in advance, unless you get them to copy the link and paste in the media player, but thats absurd.

As far as I get from from your answer, these two technologies doesn't require any additional server technologies? That way it would be fine - as far as ASF files are played with Win Media Player by default.

I know we could use more advanced techniques with paid streming specialized hosting, but since this webstore is just an addition to the company's main phone based ordering profile, with quite a low traffic (about up to a thousand product orders per month), we are also limited in funds, so a solution like this would be much more acceptable.