Aiming to hit $20K with media streaming.

[TheBigBadWolf]

Ok. Please don't think that I'm talking about a ridiculous idea. Show me a way to make this possible or please explain why this is impossible.

Almost a year ago I was intrigued by the idea of having my own media server. At first I only learned this on myself. I thought I could pirate things, but then I tried to commercialize the idea.

We don't have any problems with pirated content in my country, but people still pay for subscription-based streaming services because all pirated services are full of obnoxious ads. In our country, it is impossible to find a good service that provides video without crashes, freezes, or excessive advertising.

That's why I decided to create a seamless media distribution service and IPTV provider that uses a freemium model. Ad-supported version and another version with acceptable fees. Let's talk about my needs.

I will create a video player, a web app and a mobile app from scratch. This is okay with me and I believe I can design a system for this. But the problem is, I need to have my own video database. It is impossible to find a provider with no ads and good bandwidth to watch content without freezing, current providers and pirated content practices lack premium understanding.

I can fix everything except the database/server issue. I believe I need a lot of storage with really good bandwidth. How can I do that? I mean it will probably not enough to have 4 Tb storage or something, I mean my need is tens of terabytes.

My goal is to create a private service with a limited number of users. This may be the exit strategy to become free again, just like in my childhood days. I want to be free to think again, to do things and to dream. So mid-scale ideas like this are very important to me. It doesn't matter how long it takes because it will turn into what I imagined.

10k users with a $2 subscription means there is hope of doing something bigger and more useful in the future.

Thanks in advance.

 

[shaharyar987]

Well something like this exist in my country IPTV they offer it around $1.5 per screen and you can watch all kinds of movies or shows available on netflix and prime video and I am talking about all tv shows and movies based on all countries not just specific to my country lets say my country netflix only has about 1000 tv shows but the IPTV has more then that I think they are using US netflix account.

 

[TheBigBadWolf]

Well something like this exist in my country IPTV they offer it around $1.5 per screen and you can watch all kinds of movies or shows available on netflix and prime video and I am talking about all tv shows and movies based on all countries not just specific to my country lets say my country netflix only has about 1000 tv shows but the IPTV has more then that I think they are using US netflix account.

I want to curate good database and own it on my server, so basically I will free to stream it. IPTV is just for sports, shows and movies are will be streamed differently on my strategy.

 

[adamantius]

Following

 

[SirSmash]

"please explain why this is impossible."

Not impossible, just EXTREMELY hard.

"In our country, it is impossible to find a good service that provides video without crashes, freezes, or excessive advertising."

Let me explain why down below.

"I can fix everything except the database/server issue"

THAT is your biggest problem though. You're talking TENS of TB? No, not even close buddy. You need HUNDREDS, if not PETABYTES. You can't just slap the videos on a drive and call it a day as you can't have like a hundred people loading videos from a single drive. You'll need multiple servers as you'll quickly run out of CPU for encoding beyond a few users per server. Basically, your costs will be too high to pull it off with any reasonable profits.

"10k users with a $2 subscription means there is hope of doing something bigger and more useful in the future."

10k users? at $2 a pop? ... That's not hope of something bigger and more useful, that's a quick way to broke.

 

[TheBigBadWolf]

"please explain why this is impossible."

Not impossible, just EXTREMELY hard.

"In our country, it is impossible to find a good service that provides video without crashes, freezes, or excessive advertising."

Let me explain why down below.

"I can fix everything except the database/server issue"

THAT is your biggest problem though. You're talking TENS of TB? No, not even close buddy. You need HUNDREDS, if not PETABYTES. You can't just slap the videos on a drive and call it a day as you can't have like a hundred people loading videos from a single drive. You'll need multiple servers as you'll quickly run out of CPU for encoding beyond a few users per server. Basically, your costs will be too high to pull it off with any reasonable profits.

"10k users with a $2 subscription means there is hope of doing something bigger and more useful in the future."

10k users? at $2 a pop? ... That's not hope of something bigger and more useful, that's a quick way to broke.

Okay, this is the exact answer I expect. So, you seem like you have knowledge about this server issue. Now, do you have any alternative to this idea? I do not expect silver bullet, just an ideal way to provide content without ads and freezes.

 

[SirSmash]

Okay, this is the exact answer I expect. So, you seem like you have knowledge about this server issue. Now, do you have any alternative to this idea? I do not expect silver bullet, just an ideal way to provide content without ads and freezes.

Not at the price you want. That's the problem, it can be cheap but it'll be like every other provider. Delivering video is one of the most expensive things you can do, it was so expensive that Twitch pulled out of South Korea due to the costs involved and their cheapest subscription is $12 I think? Plus they have enough servers to get massive volume discounts.

edit: I do have a bit of streaming experience. Back in the days of Top Gear, there was/is a forum called Final Gear, we tried streaming Top Gear live a few times as Wilman basically told us we could do it (BBC later disagreed, long story) but we used servers at colleges and would max out their lines. And that was one show. Granted it was/is the largest watched show, but still. One show.

 

[TheBigBadWolf]

Not at the price you want. That's the problem, it can be cheap but it'll be like every other provider. Delivering video is one of the most expensive things you can do, it was so expensive that Twitch pulled out of South Korea due to the costs involved and their cheapest subscription is $12 I think? Plus they have enough servers to get massive volume discounts.

So I have to use providers that used by everyone if I want to create a stream service. Thank u, I can not expect peoples to pay something they can find everywhere. Sad to hear, is there any tricky way to make it possible? Any way except using own storage and CPU power?

 

[GenesisOne]

Sounds good - go for it and take care.

 

[Carnaged]

"please explain why this is impossible."

Not impossible, just EXTREMELY hard.

"In our country, it is impossible to find a good service that provides video without crashes, freezes, or excessive advertising."

Let me explain why down below.

"I can fix everything except the database/server issue"

THAT is your biggest problem though. You're talking TENS of TB? No, not even close buddy. You need HUNDREDS, if not PETABYTES. You can't just slap the videos on a drive and call it a day as you can't have like a hundred people loading videos from a single drive. You'll need multiple servers as you'll quickly run out of CPU for encoding beyond a few users per server. Basically, your costs will be too high to pull it off with any reasonable profits.

"10k users with a $2 subscription means there is hope of doing something bigger and more useful in the future."

10k users? at $2 a pop? ... That's not hope of something bigger and more useful, that's a quick way to broke.

so so wrong. a 1gb movie converted is like 300-400mb and u only need multiple servers if theyre all watching the same thing.
i have 3x20TB servers and thats still with 30TB free even with thousands and thousands of movies.

Okay, this is the exact answer I expect. So, you seem like you have knowledge about this server issue. Now, do you have any alternative to this idea? I do not expect silver bullet, just an ideal way to provide content without ads and freezes.

so theres a few scenarios you can go down but i wont go too too much into detail.
for a simple automated way, you'd be looking at say 2TB server and running sonarr, radarr, jackett, deluge etc to autodownload torrents, sort and convert automatically.
if ur running it properly, then youll have rclone setup to copy the completed files onto another server ready to be added to ur movie website.
youll have reverse proxies in place to keep ur domain linking to ur movie servers
youll probably run a format of plex to show it all on ur domain of choice
you may want to run through HLS for best quality and continuous convert,, but its abit of a hassle. depends what route u want to take.

if ur doing it manually, its more of a hassle, but better SEO, but that basic info should help u towards what ur after.

 

[SirSmash]

so so wrong. a 1gb movie converted is like 300-400mb and u only need multiple servers if theyre all watching the same thing.
i have 3x20TB servers and thats still with 30TB free even with thousands and thousands of movies.

No, you need multiple servers for DIFFERENT videos; if it's the same video it'll be cached to RAM or a non-spinning disk. You also forgot about the resources needed to do the decoding of the video, you don't magically compress it and bam! less resources used. The only thing you get is less space used, but you increase your system resources being used.

I'm not dumb enough to doxx myself, but I can absolutely guarantee I have more experience at this than you ever did. The only thing you're talking about is file size, ignoring everything else. You need the petabytes as that's split around the globe using many servers as a CDN.

So I have to use providers that used by everyone if I want to create a stream service. Thank u, I can not expect peoples to pay something they can find everywhere. Sad to hear, is there any tricky way to make it possible? Any way except using own storage and CPU power?

If you're not using your own servers then it just gets more expensive as ultimately someone, somewhere, has to run the servers. Outsourcing it to a 3rd party CDN isn't going to suddenly use less resources and a single server somewhere in the basement of a country that doesn't care about piracy isn't going to be a good experience. That's the problem here, you want to offer a GOOD experience.

There's a reason all the services out their suck. Everyone runs it like Carnaged here, replying that it's so easy. Well ok, if it is, then why doesn't anyone have a good offering for cheap? Apparently, all you need is 3x20TB servers. Damn, I wish Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. would learn that secret. He should become a consultant for them as they could totally get rid of their datacenters! /s

... and it's at this point I realize I forgot multi-quote exists. *sigh*

 

[Carnaged]

No, you need multiple servers for DIFFERENT videos; if it's the same video it'll be cached to RAM or a non-spinning disk. You also forgot about the resources needed to do the decoding of the video, you don't magically compress it and bam! less resources used. The only thing you get is less space used, but you increase your system resources being used.

I'm not dumb enough to doxx myself, but I can absolutely guarantee I have more experience at this than you ever did. The only thing you're talking about is file size, ignoring everything else. You need the petabytes as that's split around the globe using many servers as a CDN.

If you're not using your own servers then it just gets more expensive as ultimately someone, somewhere, has to run the servers. Outsourcing it to a 3rd party CDN isn't going to suddenly use less resources and a single server somewhere in the basement of a country that doesn't care about piracy isn't going to be a good experience. That's the problem here, you want to offer a GOOD experience.

There's a reason all the services out their suck. Everyone runs it like Carnaged here, replying that it's so easy. Well ok, if it is, then why doesn't anyone have a good offering for cheap? Apparently, all you need is 3x20TB servers. Damn, I wish Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. would learn that secret. He should become a consultant for them as they could totally get rid of their datacenters! /s

... and it's at this point I realize I forgot multi-quote exists. *sigh*

you must be new to the blackhatworld. he's obviously not going to run his own CDN or have it as perfect as a multimillion dollar streaming company, he'll end up using CF or bunnynet etc. maybe google what a CDN is, itll save u some time.
he wants to make money, not be the next warner brother studio, if u dont understand about rotation and HLS, then your comments are invalid.
im not showing my users, but u can use some maths to guess how many people are watching and how "bad" my servers are.

 

[SirSmash]

you must be new to the blackhatworld. he's obviously not going to run his own CDN or have it as perfect as a multimillion dollar streaming company, he'll end up using CF or bunnynet etc. maybe google what a CDN is, itll save u some time.
he wants to make money, not be the next warner brother studio, if u dont understand about rotation and HLS, then your comments are invalid.
im not showing my users, but u can use some maths to guess how many people are watching and how "bad" my servers are.
View attachment 350406

*sigh* Did you miss the point where OP wants 10k users? You seriously think you're going to have 10,000 people pulling videos from, what, 3 hard drives? You don't have the available bandwidth to do that task

I'm well aware what a CDN is, look at my previous posts. I've publicly admitted to running large porn tubes. 3 months for 6M impressions? Wow buddy, that's what I'd in like a week from a single site.

 

[3tvpromo]

Ok. Please don't think that I'm talking about a ridiculous idea. Show me a way to make this possible or please explain why this is impossible.

Almost a year ago I was intrigued by the idea of having my own media server. At first I only learned this on myself. I thought I could pirate things, but then I tried to commercialize the idea.

We don't have any problems with pirated content in my country, but people still pay for subscription-based streaming services because all pirated services are full of obnoxious ads. In our country, it is impossible to find a good service that provides video without crashes, freezes, or excessive advertising.

That's why I decided to create a seamless media distribution service and IPTV provider that uses a freemium model. Ad-supported version and another version with acceptable fees. Let's talk about my needs.

I will create a video player, a web app and a mobile app from scratch. This is okay with me and I believe I can design a system for this. But the problem is, I need to have my own video database. It is impossible to find a provider with no ads and good bandwidth to watch content without freezing, current providers and pirated content practices lack premium understanding.

I can fix everything except the database/server issue. I believe I need a lot of storage with really good bandwidth. How can I do that? I mean it will probably not enough to have 4 Tb storage or something, I mean my need is tens of terabytes.

My goal is to create a private service with a limited number of users. This may be the exit strategy to become free again, just like in my childhood days. I want to be free to think again, to do things and to dream. So mid-scale ideas like this are very important to me. It doesn't matter how long it takes because it will turn into what I imagined.

10k users with a $2 subscription means there is hope of doing something bigger and more useful in the future.

Thanks in advance.

PM me about this.

 

[OccultKingdoms]

My approach of the problem.

1. Distribute all movies to CDNs but in a way they cannot be identified as movies.
2. Make a program in electron or some other stuff where files are downloaded locally to a device.
3. Add some ads to that app. Also make ToS to be able to re-use resources of devices that app is installed on.
4. Promote that app instead of .mp4 files on site.

I'd start small with maybe 100 movies. Or just 1 movie... and experiment with different traffic sources.
Add Google to stack later.

A business difficulty of this idea is like 2 out of 10. Although it's everyone's perception and how they approach thinking of systems.
Most people don't even know what the internet is. They think it's a toy for kids and adults.

If you make small enough modules, any programmer will be able to code it.
It classifies as "classic brand / name riding".
The trick is to not steal trademarks, but mention them and that's how you garner traffic.

Make some "top 5 movies - where to watch them" -> link back to app -> use their data for years.
Most people skip those last steps where they don't use accessed devices and data properly. They simply burn it and so they might have 1 billion visits, but only make $1m. Or they're too focused on coding, over-doing of one, 3 step process. They for example take such a process and they drill it for 2 years, then have the same solution re-created over and over again. Meanwhile solution to do that problem was to not do it at all or buy some stuff of the internet.

The thing is you gain more for solving 1000 small problems + personal problems than you gain for solving one "large technical problem". You need a system of modules, not one module. An idea like micro-services fits informatics and cybernetics well. Your sales and marketing can be deployed as micro-services as well.

Btw, Netflix is created by retards, but because someone planned it well at the top using micro-services, it's a nice hoopla business where fools pay $5 and argue about rises to $5.5. Hah

"please explain why this is impossible."

What's impossible. Adding videos to the internet? I used to add 50k vids when I was 14, daily.

I use computer since I was 4 year old. It burned a major hole in my psyche. I regenerate it now.
Think more of systems and how computers, informatics fit the world as a whole instead of focusing on some little goals.