Streaming video hosting costs are a lot less than most companies expect, and in many cases, zero! In many cases, depending upon the level of traffic you have on your web site, you’ll conclude that you don’t even need additional hosting for your streaming video.

The majority of streaming video on the Net is coming right from the same web server that hosts the web site itself. The ability to stream video does not require that your ISP have either a Real Video or Windows Media video server. If they have one, fine. If they don’t, you can still stream video from your web server without any additional cost.

Streaming video storage size (in the common file system measurements megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, and so on) is calculated from streaming bandwidth and length of the media with the following formula (for a single user and file):

storage size (in megabytes) = length (in seconds) · bit rate (in kbit/s) / 8,388.608
(since 1 megabyte = 8 * 1,048,576 bits = 8,388.608 kilobits)

Real world example:

One hour of video encoded at 300 kbit/s (this is a typical broadband video for 2005 and it’s usually encoded in a 320×240 pixels window size) will be:

(3,600 s · 300 kbit/s) / 8,388.608 = 128.7 MiB of storage

If the file is stored on a server for on-demand streaming. If this stream is viewed by 1,000 people using a Unicast protocol, you would need

300 kbit/s · 1,000 = 300,000 kbit/s = 300 Mbit/s of bandwidth

Some streaming video hosting providers include

• Streamhoster.com
• Rackspace.com
• Upstreamnetworks.com
• Advecton.net
• Powerstream.com