Low Cost Webcast Optimizations?

ChunKing asks: "I work for a small community broadcasting organization, and we operate a limited streaming media facility for a number of not-for-profit webcasters. It has always been an issue to optimize our streaming media infrastructure to most benefit our users. We operate a small cluster of servers from a data center with good connectivity and a highly-rated ISP, who will occasionally allow us to burst to unlimited bandwidth. For big webcasts, we will load balance the stream over a number of servers using round robin DNS. However, we still get problems with stream buffering and network drop-outs, particularly with streaming video. We cannot afford a network of edge delivery servers like Akamai, so in what ways can we further optimize our streaming media capacity to better produce smooth webcasts?"

Comments

Outsource it to Google video

[iamelgringo000]

Upload video to Google video or YouTube.

Use their bandwidth to stream your video.

Use their API to embed the video on your website.

You lose control over the distribution of the content, but you save a lot of money in the process. The other option is Bit torrent.

Also, have you looked into DigitalBicycle? They are working on a PeerCasting system for Using Bit Torrent, RSS, and web community software

Investigate Ultravox

[kriston]

This problem has been solved already. It's called Ultravox. It's a protocol that is format-agnostic and is used to efficiently multicast a broadcast within the data center up to the point it leaves your network. America Online and Cisco designed and implemented the protocol both in software and in the firmware of specialized Cisco routers and it is used for AOL Radio and for Winamp radio It's very interesting. All your viewers need is Winamp to hear or view your program.

http://ultravox.aol.com/