hi there everyone, i am about to build a webcam site( adult related industry) and so far i am trying to figure out what are the things that i will need to prepare or provide to my web developer who i hired to help me build this site and i was told i will be needing a dedicated server, payment processing system, and the last thing is a video streaming software.
Now the last item, video stream software is what i do not really understand much about … What is this and how does this work? Will this use my servers resources for bandwidth? WIll i have to get huge amounts of bandwidth? For example my web developer said that he could use this:
cometchat
can this be used to stream in live? as i was reading and searching around i saw some mentioning about this :
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So i am totally lost here and would really need some help or advice from you guys on what or how my webcam video streaming should be. Like which is the cheap method and what would be the high end method etc… Thanks alot for any help guys
This is a popular RTMP (flash) video server: http://www.red5.org/
You will use insane amounts of bandwidth, you’re streaming video.
If the stream is 100kbps (not even HD) and you have 40 viewers, that’s 40*100kbps = 4000kbps (about 4mbps)
4mbps isn’t a lot. But, that’s just 40 viewers on 1 cam. To be somewhat successful, you’re going need multiple cams right? So say 10 of those, that’s 40mbps. That adds up quick. Now say you’re running this 12hrs a day, that’s 1,728,000mb per day of bandwidth. Almost 2TB PER DAY for 400 viewers either. That’s not a ton of viewers. Sitepoint gets a ton of hits and I have no idea how many exactly, but I would bet they use about 2TB Per Month.
Not to mention, you’re going to have to do heavy configuration if you use something open source like Red5 because this is a heavy load on a single server, because you also have to process the video and all that. It’s also RAM intensive So, brushing up on your Java and Flash would help a lot because you’re going to need multiple servers.
There are web hosts that have “unmetered bandwidth”. This is what you’re looking for. Good ones are pretty hard to find and you’re adding in the adult aspect on top of that… good luck! 
You’re going to run into a lot of crap hosts with terrible uptime and overselling hardware and you’re going to run into a lot of very expensive hosts.
If you start researching more, you will probably find things like WebRTC. Do not use this for an adult site, or any site with random visitors. It is Peer-2-Peer and will expose the IP of every streamer and viewer to every other streamer and viewer.
Making a cam site isn’t hard. Making one scale is a pretty tough technical challenge. I’ve helped out off and on on one (non-adult) for the past 2-3yrs.
HI there, thank you for taking your time to explain this to me. Now i am lost to be frank haha. that is alot of bandwidth. i had no idea it will comsume this much bandwidth. Is there any other thing that i could do like is there a way that the webcam connects directly with the end user or it’ll still have to use my server’s bandwidth since that’s where the webcam is hosted? sorry i am new to all this. IS there any way to work around this or other alternatives?
Yes there is. The WebRTC I mentioned at the end. Please do not do this for adult sites, there are lots of insane people on the internet and you would be exposing sensitive information to everyone.