I know for large files RTMP streaming will save bandwidth. But will it help much for smaller files - like promo videos? I mean if the entire file is just 10 or 20 MB will streaming really save much bandwidth?
Google is back to liking my Spanish porn blog (they’ve had a love/hate relationship with it in the past). The visitors seem to like it - they’re staying on the site for 4+ minutes and watching a lot of promo videos. My bandwidth has gone up considerably because of it, but they don’t seem to buy much of anything, so I’m wondering if I should switch to streaming, but since it’s just promo videos I’m not sure how much help that will be.
Re: File Size & Progressive Download vs. Streaming
I’ve been working on both RTMP/HLS and straight forward MP4 files all day today. I’m trying to solve a problem with getting it working on Apple devices, Androids and normal browsers. It’s just a absolute pain and not a single solution works for all.
The only way to get it working on all devices always includes offering a MP4 file. It’s not possibly to offer a streaming only solution that works on everything. Ideally you would offer: Flash with RTMP, HLS for Apple devices and fallback to normal files (in HTML5 player) for non-apple devices that do not have flash installed. That pretty much covers all devices IF they have Java installed…
What I’m trying to say is that you need to take the hassle of getting it working on all devices into account when you decide. Normal file works on most devices.
In terms of bandwidth saving, it really does come down to how large the files are. As a comparison on how quickly something downloads you can look at these:
Re: File Size & Progressive Download vs. Streaming
Pseudostreaming using Longtailvideo’s JWPlayer is the best solution I’ve found. Put the iPhone mp4 as the primary video source, then tell it to have HTML5 with webm, configure the player to default to HTML5 first or Flash. No way to avoid multiple versions. And pseudostreaming does save bandwidth.