Bandwith Issues - Don't understand

[browdot]

Hello all.

I am seeking advice or any kind of help that you can give me.

I have been a customer for a long time and up until now, I have been experiencing my first Bandwidth Limit Exceeded problems.

Thinking nothing of it, I submitted a ticket and was told that I can add extra bw at $1/gig...I did this 3 times and my site died down each time after about an hour or so.

I asked when the bw would be reset...at the first of the month or upon invoice payment...I was told by mistake that it would never be reset.

Adding to my confusion, support suggested that I take a look at my stats and check where the extra bw is going to...kinda hard when I can't get into my cpanel. After explaining to them my situation, support supplied me with some stats...

The total bandwidth usage for your account is 85.02 Gig now.

bfbanners.webturd.com 319.55 Meg
browdotcom.com 1.33 Gig
lermas.browdotcom.com 0.00 Meg
webturd.browdotcom.com 83.38 Gig

About a month ago, I started a radio show that streamed mp3s and I am sure that this is major problem. Since the bw message kept coming up, I went into my FTP and changed the names of the files so that could not be downloaded...just needed to do something to dig myself out of this hole that keeps getting deeper and deeper.

My question is...do I have to keep paying a dollar to have my site up for an hour each time? I just don't understand how I used up that much bw since the last "reset" if any. Is it best that I just sit and wait until for the next reset? I would love for my site to be up and running, but I just don't see any sense on paying per hour.

I am really confused and again, I would appreciate any help or advice.

[JPC-Masood]

You do not need to buy 1gig at a time. You can pre-purchase the bandwidth in bulk, like 10 or 20GB. Otherwise the reset will happen on the first of the next month.

[browdot]

Thanks for the reply.

I guess the main thing that I do not understand is how do I know how long that would last? I though for sure that the 3 extra gigs would be good, but my best guess is that I am already in the hole and I need to pay to get out.

The support is great here, but I just need help understanding.

For example, if I were to purchase 6 more gigs today...do you think that would hold me over until next month? I would like to be confident about this and don't want to go looking for other hosting providers.

[JPC-Masood]

It depends on how much traffic you expect in the rest of the January and what you plan to put on your site.

[Ron]

Identify the file(s) that are getting hit really hard and remove them till the end of the month.

[jason]

When you start offering multimedia downloads you bandwidth use can jump dramatically. For example, assuming MP3 compression makes a file of ~1 Mb/minute of audio (and a lot of things can effect your actual numbers), a download of 10 minutes with of audio by 100 people amounts to about a gig of bandwidth.

By contrast, your entire site's content, less the multimedia files probably only ammounts to a few megs. A site I just built for a client that included lots of 5-10 page (mostly text) PDF files totaled just over 20Mb for everything, and unlike with your MP3s, no one person will likely ever download more than one or two Mb at a time.

You need to consider how many people you plan on having visit your site and how much downloading they'll be doing and decide from there. If your site is popular you could end up using a lot of bandwidth very fast.

--Jason

[browdot]

Yep, thats what I did. I had three 50mb mp3s and one 110 mb mp3...I renamed them so that they would not be downloaded. The site gets really decent traffic and I will have to find an alternative to using the large files...maybe a different file format would help.

Masood replied to my support ticket with my options in plain english...which I fully understand now. ( thank you very much for that! )

I am considering paying up the amount that I am over, but I am really unsure how much I will need to ride out the rest of the month...I would like to think that one more gig would be just fine since the files are deactivated...but still unsure about that.

[Spathiphyllum]

browdot,

Can you downsample the MP3 to lower quality versions when you go back to distributing? If it's very high quality, you pay a heavy price on the bitsteam. Maybe a lesser quality distribution will save you money long-term.

[Vin DSL]

If it was me, I'd throw the downloads on my server, here at the house, and link to them via my production site...

Secondly, I'd convert those MP3s to RealAudio!

[tank]

Secondly, I'd convert those MP3s to RealAudio!

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little

[Vin DSL]

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little

LoL!

That does it! I'm converting this 1.44GB MP3 to a 533KB RealAudio file...

Thread: http://jaguarpc.com/forums/showthrea...8859#post88859

Original: http://marc.perkel.com/audio/godaddy.mp3 (24Kbps MP3)

RealAudio 10: http://www.lenon.com/sounds/real/godaddy.ram (8Kbps RealAudio)

About 1/3 the size! How's it sound? Still listenable?

BTW, if you'll notice, the RA file actually streams. It doesn't have to be downloaded, per se...

[Ron]

The mp3 version streamed also. Isn't that a browser or media player setting or some such?

(I'm not a big fan of RA anymore. I actually boguht one of the gold versions way back when for $50 I think, but then they started with the embedded ads and the recurring upgrades and nags and whatever else, finally I told'em to go fly a kite. I use mp3 now, even though the format is just a flash-in-the-pan.)

[Vin DSL]

I guess the main thing that I do not understand is how do I know how long that would last? I though for sure that the 3 extra gigs would be good, but my best guess is that I am already in the hole and I need to pay to get out...

Get out your calculator...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streami..._and_ storage

[browdot]

Thanks for the advice guys!

I did some experimenting last night with different formats and I managed to cut them down a bit.

I had a 50mb mp3 file and chopped it down to a 13.5mb wma file. Sounds the same to me.

The wma is indeed a method of streaming...correct?

[Spathiphyllum]

The wma is indeed a method of streaming...correct?

Not necessarily though it can very well. See Microsoft's windows media codecs.

Or do a search for "WMA" + "MIME".

Windows Media Audio can be streamed or downloaded depending on how the client makes a request or how one's server is set up to respond (via the headers) to a request. Most people set up downloads as a stream for a convenience to visitors since they probably wish to hear the content immediately rather than download and listen at a future date.

Your target demographic should be your guide, i.e. what do your customers typically do? Listen once immediately and in entirety? Listen once but over several sessions? Listen repeatedly in entirety? I'm sure you already know to strike a balance between your visitors' preferences and your own economic limitations to provide them.