Server for live audio/video streaming

audiostreamingvideo streaming

I need to build a server for a website that will stream live audio and video.
The functionality will be like www.ustream.tv with channels with one broadcaster and unlimited subscribers (who can only chat via text).
The stream will have several bit-rates depending on the connection.
For start I need to be able to have 100 broadcasting users with 1000 subscribers.

Which is the best software and hardware combination? I'll start with one server for start and then I'll build more if needed.

I've heard about media servers based on flash media server 3.5 or Red5. But I dont know which one to prefer.

Thanks in advance (and sorry for my English)

Best Answer

A few thoughts;

  • What's your client software, this is very important, specific versions on specific OSs - this will define your streaming software.
  • What are your stream profiles, do you intend to pre-encode or do you have/expect-to cross-encode on the fly?
  • Have you done your maths on average and burst bandwidth requirements for this, is your top end figure taking into account the entire path from disk/memory to CPU, IO, NICs, L2, L3, load-balancers, firewalls, any VPNs you might have/need, external routing, onward transit etc.
  • Are you planning on serving non-stream traffic (front page, transactional etc) from the streaming server? if so why as this traffic can easily handle jitter but video can't - consider splitting your front-end into workload types, makes for easier scale-out.
  • Consider now how you're going to 'tap' into live content, there's a good chance that you'll need this ability for rights compliance.

As for hardware, well it sounds to me that you need both performance and resilience, you'll struggle to get this at bargain basement prices, stick to one of the mid/big-boys (Dell or better) rather than build-your-own - you're going to be busy enough as it is.

Hope this has been of some use.

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