How does running videos on your site affect CPU usage?

[donmarvin]

I have a client that wants to setup a website where the site members can upload video for website visitors to preview and download.

How will having, say, 50 videos on your site, playing them and downloading them, affect the cpu usage on the server? What kind of plan would be recommended for this type of site?

I am currently developing it on a Baby account, but of course there is no traffic yet and just a few sample videos.

[cleanxhost]

Well I reckon a dedicated server is in order for that sort of website... The amount of CPU usage will depend on how many people you have at one given moment downloading videos...
Not sure if that will be allowed on a Baby package,you will have to check with HG.

[Eric]

It's definitely allowed on the shared plans, but once you cause the CPU to bog down, your account will get suspended. I survived doing this for about a year and then my account was suspended in a really bad time (when a new trailer for 24 came out and there were probably hundreds of people trying to access it at the same time) so I moved to one of the bottom of the line dedicated servers and I've been really happy since then, granted I haven't really had a chance to test out how much the server can handle thanks to the stupid WGA strike...

[Goddess Dix]

Originally Posted by donmarvin

I have a client that wants to setup a website where the site members can upload video for website visitors to preview and download.

How will having, say, 50 videos on your site, playing them and downloading them, affect the cpu usage on the server? What kind of plan would be recommended for this type of site?

I am currently developing it on a Baby account, but of course there is no traffic yet and just a few sample videos.

it's impossible to say, because you don't know how many people are going to be hitting how many vidieos at once or how much processing power each video will take, which i would expect to vary depending on the video and the kind of traffic you are getting.

you ain't gonna be able to set up youtube jr. on a baby plan, but i'm guessing you will probably be okay for a while. if the site continues to grow and the processor starts to need more juice, then you'll need to look to upgrade to a dedicated later on. hopefully, by the time you need it, your site will have grown enough to pay for it. that's the idea, anyway.

if you start hitting the cpu enough to slow down the box, HG will contact you. if you are concerned, though, once you start getting traffic, you can ticket support and ask them to help you review your cpu usuage. you're not going to be able to see the stuff you would need to see on a shared plan to know clearly how they're impacting the server.

peace out.

[donmarvin]

Thanks for the all info and advice, everyone!

If he has Youtube or Google host the video files and he is just playing on his site from an embed link, does that have a different effect on the CPU usage, because the video file resides on someone else's server, or is it the same because it's being accessed through his website/server?

[Eric]

Originally Posted by donmarvin

Thanks for the all info and advice, everyone!

If he has Youtube or Google host the video files and he is just playing on his site from an embed link, does that have a different effect on the CPU usage, because the video file resides on someone else's server, or is it the same because it's being accessed through his website/server?

It's going to put virtually no strain on the server at all if you're embedding youtube or google videos, plus you'd be saving tons of bandwidth. The only thing I don't like about doing this is that Google or YouTube sometimes deletes your videos if they're deemed copyrighted which can be annoying.