[Journey] Movie streaming website - The correct way

This is a re-opening of my old thread since it's really outdated.

So let's start over;

For years i wanted to start my own movie streaming platform. Why? Because i love the category.
As a real binge watcher living in The Netherlands you get the feeling of being left out of all the US content. Our Netflix is basically the retarded bro of the US version. All we get is crap and a few good items that air worldwide.

In my life i've tried over 100's of projects in all kind of categories but this, this is the one was never able to drop. As you could read in my old thread i did drop it at one point. And now, one year later i have to pick it up again. I just feel that this can be the one. My goal isn't to reach in the big money bag but to launch the most advanced, clean and best quality platform out there. Of course with making a buck in mind but that's not the main goal.

Here is why my platform will have the ability to become the best out there;
- Always at least 720p - 95% available in 1080p and some will even be available in 2160p.
- 100% free
- New way of advertising - No annoying, nasty pop-ups and unders
- No fake bullshit ads that will ruin the whole experience
- Direct download links
- Ability to cast to Chromecast etc.
- A Watch list so you can save movies for later
- Modern UI - not a 1920 look.
- Fast streaming - little to no buffering
- Daily new movies - Adding the latest releases as soon as they are available
- Search movies by cast, director etc.
- Trailers
... And some other stuff i didn't think of yet.

Using WebRTC torrent technology
In no way you could run a high end movie streaming service by simply hosting some space to upload all videos. The bandwidth that would come with that is impossible to manage. Therefore i am using live streaming from WebRTC torrents. This is one of the reasons why i dropped this project a year ago. A lot of torrent clients still don't have WebRTC available. Luckily this improved a little but is still low. Meaning some torrents will do but most will have to be hosted on a WebRTC enabled client though. Which brings us to;

Video Hosting:
At first this will be a pickle. I will have to launch several seedboxes to make sure each movie is available to watch. My system starts sharing videos P2P once multiple people are watching the same movie. If there are enough people watching my seedbox can actually stop seeding for the most part. I'm hoping to create my own package so i can set up a seedbox in a sec, replacing them once one is (taken) down.

Monetizing:
This is one i still have to figure out. I got some ideas but I'm not sure what the best way will be yet.
I want to earn as much as possible with this project without ruining the movie watching experience. So i'll have to keep thinking about this.

Thanks for the long read, i would love your feedback and ideas!

Currently i could really use some info on the advertising possibilities and what i should look out for ( my personal data etc ). So any tips are welcome.

My tasklist:
[ ✓ ] Designing the platform
The design has been made.
[ ✓ ] Code the platform
This is checked because that's how close i am. Currently coding the very few last things.
[ ] Gather all movie data
[ ] Download, process and add all data to my database
[ ] Seting up my seeding server program
[ ] Set up all seeding servers
[ ] Testing and bugfixing
[ ] Ready to launch!
[ ] Make sure to get some traffic

Look like you know what you are doing. I would have loved to try this movie thing, but I will need one that is 100% automated. But, I don't that is possible yet.
Best of luck on your journey.

This is something else, your plan looks strong, hope, in the end, you will bank hard, I follow this only to see your reply with cash rollercoaster.
I wish you the best of luck and don't quit!

youre right netflix is really bad in our country
goodluck

Good luck

Update 1:
-------------------

After a lot of work i've finished coding the website.
I'm sure i'll do some little design / coding tweaks in the future but for now it's done.

( Just 2 dummy objects, looks empty right now )




The next step will be gathering all movie data and making it database ready.
-------------------
My tasklist:
[ ✓ ] Designing the platform
[ ✓ ] Code the platform
The platorm has been fully coded now.
[ - ] Gather all movie data
Time to gather all movie data and get them database ready
[ ] Download, process and add all data to my database
[ ] Seting up my seeding server program
[ ] Set up all seeding servers
[ ] Testing and bugfixing
[ ] Ready to launch!
[ ] Make sure to get some traffic

I like the fact that you don't only focus on make money, but you try to give a real service and a strong alternative to Netflix. I am sure this is how you will get success!

When you will launch the platform, how do you plan to promote it? What's your hosting/domain/streaming strategy to stay safe from copyrights and legal problems?

You may have to add more blur on your logo because we can see it. (maybe it's just a test logo)

How are you gonna get pass the copyright issues with this?

Good luck with your journey buddy

Nice looking design , netflix oriented that's a good point .

about webrtc it's a good choice but still slow , hope it will be faster for you

Following your journey

Thanks for sharing

blackbrut said:

I like the fact that you don't only focus on make money, but you try to give a real service and a strong alternative to Netflix. I am sure this is how you will get success!

When you will launch the platform, how do you plan to promote it? What's your hosting/domain/streaming strategy to stay safe from copyrights and legal problems?

Click to expand...

hippo123 said:

How are you gonna get pass the copyright issues with this?

Click to expand...

I have some ideas to promote but that's one part that i will not cover in this journey. I keep some things secret for my own success.

As for the domains i'll start out with a .to domain and add some mirrors later. As for hosting I'm not sure if i should go off-shore, while i am pretty much off-shore. Users from around the world choose The Netherlands as off-shore hosting but i actually live here. Honestly i'm not really sure if it's a good idea to host it in The Netherlands as the of-shore will actually be in my backyard which makes it on-shore ?

Anyways i'm not too worried about hosting. The website can be deployed in a few secs and be switched if ever needed. All movies will be done by seedboxes. I'll run multiple at once at different locations. If one gets down the others pick it up. Just a rinse and repeat seedbox system which will make it pretty much impossible to get them all down.

I guess if it becomes big i'll piss a lot of copyright guys off but hey, it's impossible not to.

I'll simply hiding behind as much filters as i can. To be honest i even didn't want to share my design since it's something that can put me to the project but ah well.. We'll see.

aioMarket said:

Good luck with your journey buddy

Nice looking design , netflix oriented that's a good point .

about webrtc it's a good choice but still slow , hope it will be faster for you

Following your journey

Thanks for sharing

Click to expand...

True, but doable. I got it to the point where if you wait about 10 seconds at start it will run the movie without any issues. You can actually skip into different timelines of the movie and it will be playing within seconds.

how can you manage the copyright issue?

Following your journey

Linu said:

how can you manage the copyright issue?

Click to expand...

I don't. I will ignore any copyright issues.

So a quick update; currently bot is up and running.

It is downloading all data i need from about 14K movies. If no error during the night occurs it will be done by this morning.
After that all i have to do left is convert it to a sql file so i can import it to my database.

Once that's done i can see how my platform holds up and probably apply some more design and coding tweaks.

I will also add a "Request movie" button.

After that i will continue my list
[ ] Seting up my seeding server program
[ ] Set up all seeding servers
[ ] Testing and bugfixing
[ ] Ready to launch!
[ ] Make sure to get some traffic

I also decided that ones this platform is up and running i will also launch a serie streaming plafrom and an anime streaming platform.

Good luck with your journey OP. There's a lot of competition in the niche already, did you think about the traffic sources? Google deindexes a lot of links because of DMCA complaints

denisallard said:

Good luck with your journey OP. There's a lot of competition in the niche already, did you think about the traffic sources? Google deindexes a lot of links because of DMCA complaints

Click to expand...

I do have some ideas in mind to get me that first traffic. I am not planning to get my traffic from Google since as you say, the moment you get big Google will drop your links.
My goal is to make the project perfect so that people want to let all their friends know what great website they found.

If you make a project that's perfect you will get your visitors. In my opinion good experiences spread like a virus in these kind of niches. If you are "that guy" that has the perfect website for movies you will make sure to let your friends know, because you found that gem and you want to share it before some one else does. At least that's what i think. Besides that i'll make sure a lot of the URL's will get indexed, just not by the main domain.

So a quick update;
Turns out my "quick mafthss" was kind of off. I thought all movie data would be gathered about 20 hours ago but i am still ripping all data. Currently i have all the data i need for 10.800 movies and there about 3.500 more to go.

So this will surely be done by tomorrow morning. Once i got all the data i can import it and fill up the website. After that i should be left with a fully working, filled website with over 14K movies.

The next challenge is to launch it without too much cost. Currently i will have 14TB of 720P quality movies and 32TB of 1080P files. This totals at 47TB.
This brings me to a few options:
- Let users view both 720 or 1080P
... Means i have to upload and seed the full 47TB
- Stream only at 720P
... Means i only have to upload and seed 14TB
- Stream only at 1080P
... Means i have to upload 32TB of data
- Stream all on 720P and leave the 1080p files up for download via a custom downloader, this way i don't have to seed the 1080p files.

This is pure a financial thing though. If the website turns out to earn me enough i have no issues at all by going for the full experience, a.k.a. uploading all qualities and even add 3D and 4K.

In the meanwhile i also want to figure out my options for monetizing. I will not use a content locker. Sure you can make the biggest buck with that but i'm trying to build the "go to" place here not just another money-grab. With that option out i also don't want to work with pop-ups and stuff. If any one has any tips on monetizing this project i would love to hear them.

About the traffic - I think social media is your best bet. If your service is as good as you describe, people will share it.
About the monetization - maybe you could try a smarter approach - show more relevant ads to users (based on their location), show it once a day for a user, don't show the same ad to a user twice. This can all be achieved with cookies.

Wow! I will follow this thread. Actually I have a movie site. At first I had good traffic, but now I am around 300uv. I do not know what to do.

denisallard said:

About the traffic - I think social media is your best bet. If your service is as good as you describe, people will share it.
About the monetization - maybe you could try a smarter approach - show more relevant ads to users (based on their location), show it once a day for a user, don't show the same ad to a user twice. This can all be achieved with cookies.

Click to expand...

Yes I'm thinking of building my own advertisement system behind is for video ads. I don't mind showing a video ad of max 30 sec before, in the middle and just before the end. It's just a little harder because of course the whole platform isn't, well, pretty legal so yeah.

Sweetdiamond said:

Wow! I will follow this thread. Actually I have a movie site. At first I had good traffic, but now I am around 300uv. I do not know what to do.

Click to expand...

Can i ask how you monetized it? Because i am really focusing on user experience and one of the reasons is that i think users changed. I think an incorrect way of monetizing will make users lose interest and look for a new one.

This will be interesting

Good luck

Excited to see progress. Good luck!