I need to set up a website to play videos and generally sell my business, but am so overwhelmed with information that I just don't know where to start. Can you help?
First up I need a hosting package. UK hosting seems sensible (for Google etc), but the packages seem truly feeble compared to what is on offer with US hosts. UK costs seem much higher with far, far less bandwidth and storage etc. But, as I know very little about what I really need, I may be concerned about the wrong things.
As I do not have a current web presence, I can't imagine I'll get a lot of traffic to start with, but my business is expanding and I have some very big clients, who have thousands or even millions of regular hits and there could be significant referals from them within a year or so.
Video is the most important part of my proposed site. I need to be able to show good quality clips, so I suspect that will take a fair amount of space and bandwidth.
Does anyone have any initial recommendations for hosting companies?
I have gone on a bit, so I'll keep further questions for another time! ;)
Thanks all.
Dominic
Have a look at UK2.net
Stay away from pipex/global/whatever the heck they call themselves these days.
You will get a better deal on a USA or German server.
Video , can be streamed from a server running apache ( just an example ) if you set up the files properly.
http://garymackenzie.dynalias.org/streaming have a play , online till 5.00pm , esp the waste to energy and the police videos
i have found dreamhost to be amazing, Cannot recommend them enough.
Thanks Gary and Michael.
I was impressed with the videos. I watched the whole of the drink driving one and it had a couple of slight pauses in its whole 10 mins - not bad, considering the quality of the compression.
I have looked at Dreamhost and was very impressed by the sheer quantity of what they offer, for such low prices.
I do think it's important to have a UK presence though. I wonder if a UK hosted homepage that clicks through to a foreign hosted site would work?
Dominic
Dominic, why is it so important to have a UK hosted site? Or do you mean its important to have the TLD ".co.uk"? If the latter you can still purchase a .co.uk domain and host it abroad. Its just I don't think anyone really cares who hosts your site, or where its hosted as long as the site works and works well.
Don't know about uk2.net but Gary knows his stuff so probably a good bet and FWIW I use IX Web Hosting who are very good IMHO:
http://www.ixwebhosting.com/index.php/v2/pages.planBusinessPlus
HTH,
Richard
Thanks Richard.
I think UK hosting is important for search engines (particularly Google), as people tend to look for local service providers and can filter accordingly via the engine. I may be mislead about this, but it was certainly a concern in my old job (running marketing for a large FTSE company). I'd certainly like to avoid the expense of two hosts!
I'l check out IX too.
Best
Dominic
I mention uk2.net because i was using redirects from them that were as stable as any i've used.
I mentioned pipex cos they suck , they sold a package to a local 'charity' and then moved them to a slow server because they were using too much bandwidth , after pipex promised that they would never manage to get to the limits on that account.
If anyone here has good reports on a company then i would listen to them , because good reports are few and far between on the sites i use , usually only groans about whichever one have just 'shafted' another user.
Thanks Gary and Michael.I was impressed with the videos. I watched the whole of the drink driving one and it had a couple of slight pauses in its whole 10 mins - not bad, considering the quality of the compression.
I have looked at Dreamhost and was very impressed by the sheer quantity of what they offer, for such low prices.
I do think it's important to have a UK presence though. I wonder if a UK hosted homepage that clicks through to a foreign hosted site would work?
Dominic
to give you an idea of where those videos are coming from
this pc , ( p4d 1gb ram as per signature , the older one of the two ) running xp pro , with all my other networking / browsing / email / video encoding etc running at same time.
I do have a slight advantage when it comes to the network connection , 1 gb card into 1gb switch into 155MBs backbone.
Dominic,
Who is your current ISP? Do you get free webspace with them? If so, why not build a site using them and see what your requirements really are?
thats what I did and it worked fine for me. For reference my site fastroc.co.uk is 55Mb all up inc video's and photo galleries. I have some files hidden as I develop them i.e. the shop and I am now looking for a new host but I have used my ISP for two years and it has been fine.
Regards...........Neil
to give you an idea of where those videos are coming fromthis pc , ( p4d 1gb ram as per signature , the older one of the two ) running xp pro , with all my other networking / browsing / email / video encoding etc running at same time.
I do have a slight advantage when it comes to the network connection , 1 gb card into 1gb switch into 155MBs backbone.
What's your downpipe Gary as I understood that even a 8mbs connection can only allow stuff out at .5 mbs, is that right? That's why we've kept our site simple, (web site hosted on this computer)
I've been using ix webhosting for years, too. Not had a complaint, and good customer service - very prompt
you get a LOT of bandwidth too
:)
What's your downpipe Gary as I understood that even a 8mbs connection can only allow stuff out at .5 mbs, is that right? That's why we've kept our site simple, (web site hosted on this computer)
the stuff i linked to were running on my pc at work which has a connection into the Education Backbone , in the case of where i work the figures are as i posted.
At home , 8mbs/487kbs on demon home office account.
487kbs should be more than capable of allowing one stream at a time , or multicasting one stream.
I would however suggest that if you don't have an sdsl system at work , a server based in 'elbonia' may be the best idea.
If only connected by a standard adsl account , then you are restricted as to file size / type / encoding level