AH.FM On Demand *feedback needed*

[Tarek]

I got an idea which I think it is possible to be implemented, with NO COST really, assuming that download is legal and agreed by DJs.<o></o>
Instead of<o></o>

* paying for coding and designing new website<o></o>
*paying for servers, HDD etc...,<o></o>

Why not host it on one of the available and very reliable web servers?! BOOOO, nothing to pay for! if there is cost, I am sure it is nothing comparing setting up a full server. and it can be easily covered by donations.<o></o>
Some hosting websites are offering direct link to the files with the option to embed if necessary.<o></o>

What I mean by direct link, is that one-click will immediately start playing/downloading! Which is pretty much acting as ON DEMAND system

The embedding will give the ability to present it in AH STYLE.<o></o>
By creating dedicated thread for it, with a little bit of organizing, it will make it perfect.<o></o>

Definitely, I know that this involves a lot of work/time to upload sets to the web servers. To be honest, I find it necessary for the events ONLY (in the mix,...etc) to be organized and hosted for downloading! for the regular shows, I can live with links posted by Djs for each show, Or:<o></o>

Create another dedicated thread for regular show, make it very organized (only titles and links) and searchable by DJ name/show name, then it is up to the DJ if they want to share their sets or not, and you can make an action button like the Report

button, so any member can hit this button if wants that particular set but link is not posted, this reports directly to the DJ that a number of listeners would like to download his/her set. Make it easier for to get the sets.

I have found the all 300 EOYC sets hosted this way.

Question here..Wouldn't we need to upload them from different hosts worldwide in order for everyone to have decent download speed? If every set is uploaded in ...Korea lets say, people from the West or Europe would have a hard time getting a decent speed (ie: over 50kbps), no? Or does it depend on the actual host?

 

[SentriX]

Question here..Wouldn't we need to upload them from different hosts worldwide in order for everyone to have decent download speed? If every set is uploaded in ...Korea lets say, people from the West or Europe would have a hard time getting a decent speed (ie: over 50kbps), no? Or does it depend on the actual host?

A few points having been down this avenue myself.

a: the 300 EoYC mixes are ripped and obviously illegal. Any host that finds that out is going to go "No pal you aint hosting illegal shit here" and close you down.

b: The amount of bandwidth needed for that would be MONUMENTAL - At the peak of one of my DDL sites I was using at least a terrabyte a month. Servers become sluggish and the hosting company will purposely slow down peer connections to and from your server.

c: It's different with a box - but much more expensive

d: DL speeds will be dramatically decreased i) when too many peers connect and ii) when you live so far away from the server, not to mention it would be relatively slow anyways due to the constant uploading and FTP activity of uploading more recent shows and deleting older ones.

 

[Wailo]

Question here..Wouldn't we need to upload them from different hosts worldwide in order for everyone to have decent download speed? If every set is uploaded in ...Korea lets say, people from the West or Europe would have a hard time getting a decent speed (ie: over 50kbps), no? Or does it depend on the actual host?

Hello Tarek

These websites are specialized in File hosing service, I think they are aware of all the induced issues with it.

from an experience, they were reliable, no complaints with downloading/streaming at all.
To stream 192Kbps mp3, you need at least 24KBps of bandwidth, the average speed I was getting is 90Kbps with my 1Mb connection. 3 times higher.
As you are located in Canada, I believe it is far better than mine :beat:

A few points having been down this avenue myself.

a: the 300 EoYC mixes are ripped and obviously illegal. Any host that finds that out is going to go "No pal you aint hosting illegal shit here" and close you down.

Hello SentriX

I know they were illegal, I was pointing the functionality side of it, 300 sets (26 GigaByte) uploaded, and then streamed/downloaded on the other side with no problems. I think this is all what we need.

We are beyond the legal issues, since AH crew is taking care of it.

b: The amount of bandwidth needed for that would be MONUMENTAL - At the peak of one of my DDL sites I was using at least a terrabyte a month. Servers become sluggish and the hosting company will purposely slow down peer connections to and from your server.

What bandwidth? All the sets will be hosted in one of the hosting website, using their bandwidth.
I am not an expert, but taking EOYC again as an example, I haven't experienced any difficulties. there were no bandwidth limitation at all, plus I think that these sites are dealing with Terabyte per week, or maybe per day.

c: It's different with a box - but much more expensive

How come to be more expensive? since all what need to be done is to upload and then post the link. No hardware, no coding, designing and maintaining costs. even if there is a cost asked by the site for offering this service, I think the number will be a fraction of the cost, of establishing a whole new server. Donations may cover the costs.

d: DL speeds will be dramatically decreased i) when too many peers connect and ii) when you live so far away from the server, not to mention it would be relatively slow anyways due to the constant uploading and FTP activity of uploading more recent shows and deleting older ones.

This was not the case with the 26 GB of sets, which is the highest it could be for AH to upload.
Maybe it may perform slightly better when running own server, but looking to the cost of it, it is not effective.

In regard to the regular shows, I made another thought about it in my previous post.:smile:

 

[SentriX]

Hello SentriX

I know they were illegal, I was pointing the functionality side of it, 300 sets (26 GigaByte) uploaded, and then streamed/downloaded on the other side with no problems. I think this is all what we need.

We are beyond the legal issues, since AH crew is taking care of it.

What bandwidth? All the sets will be hosted in one of the hosting website, using their bandwidth.
I am not an expert, but taking EOYC again as an example, I haven't experienced any difficulties. there were no bandwidth limitation at all, plus I think that these sites are dealing with Terabyte per week, or maybe per day.


How come to be more expensive? since all what need to be done is to upload and then post the link. No hardware, no coding, designing and maintaining costs. even if there is a cost asked by the site for offering this service, I think the number will be a fraction of the cost, of establishing a whole new server. Donations may cover the costs.

This was not the case with the 26 GB of sets, which is the highest it could be for AH to upload.
Maybe it may perform slightly better when running own server, but looking to the cost of it, it is not effective.

In regard to the regular shows, I made another thought about it in my previous post.:smile:

In reguards to your post:

Anything hosted on the net uses bandwidth. It's a fact. What is also a fact is that bandwidth is not and cannot be an limitless number. It is actually impossible for any hosting company to offer unlimited bandwidth. The limitation wont directly affect the users but more the staff of the site. If they exceed quota, which is very easy to do, it costs alot per extra GB of bandwidth. Also from a staff perspective incoming and outgoing connection speeds are limited or reduced if the server CPU is placed under too much strain.

All 'uploads' have to be uploaded somewhere therefore hardware is a necessity. Each 1 hour 192kbps set takes anywhere from 80-150MB per set. If you multiply this by the amount of sets a week, then a month then by 12 months the storage space required would be gargantuan. On top of that coding is required to get the main front and back ends operational. There will have to be a tonne of database connections to retrieve things like Artist name, tracklists, dl links etc...all very complex statements and functions and even more so on the administrative side. Design can take a bit of a back seat but it still needs to be done, in order to make the GUI friendly. Essentially your method is not too different when analysed to that of Dan's original suggestion.

My two cents.

 

[dan]

In reguards to your post:

Anything hosted on the net uses bandwidth. It's a fact. What is also a fact is that bandwidth is not and cannot be an limitless number. It is actually impossible for any hosting company to offer unlimited bandwidth. The limitation wont directly affect the users but more the staff of the site. If they exceed quota, which is very easy to do, it costs alot per extra GB of bandwidth. Also from a staff perspective incoming and outgoing connection speeds are limited or reduced if the server CPU is placed under too much strain.

All 'uploads' have to be uploaded somewhere therefore hardware is a necessity. Each 1 hour 192kbps set takes anywhere from 80-150MB per set. If you multiply this by the amount of sets a week, then a month then by 12 months the storage space required would be gargantuan. On top of that coding is required to get the main front and back ends operational. There will have to be a tonne of database connections to retrieve things like Artist name, tracklists, dl links etc...all very complex statements and functions and even more so on the administrative side. Design can take a bit of a back seat but it still needs to be done, in order to make the GUI friendly. Essentially your method is not too different when analysed to that of Dan's original suggestion.

My two cents.

Indeed no place will give you unlimited bandwidth, no such thing as unlimited or companies would go out of business

I agree with the rest of your post, its easy to say "on demand" but when it comes to doing it all its a lot involved to have a solid final system.

 

[Tarek]

The only thing I can think of is discontinuing the oldest sets as newer ones come in...

 

[jedrekmx]

my question is what will be the initial costs to implement the on demand system and then what are the costs of maintenance? Based on that you can decide how much to charge and see what people think.

It's a really hard thing to do because if you don't have enough people interested in it, then you'll never cover you costs and end up wasting money that could have been used for something else. I am wondering how many of the users that only tune in and never log in to the forums will actually be interested in this...

 

[t4e]

my question is what will be the initial costs to implement the on demand system and then what are the costs of maintenance? Based on that you can decide how much to charge and see what people think.

It's a really hard thing to do because if you don't have enough people interested in it, then you'll never cover you costs and end up wasting money that could have been used for something else. I am wondering how many of the users that only tune in and never log in to the forums will actually be interested in this...

lay off the goole donation, you know it causes blindness, and read


page#5 post#71

server: 350 euro
disks: 85 euro each 500GB each in raid
to get the application built: 250 euro
monthly cost for servers colocation + bandwidth: 200 euro

So basically 800euro to just start... Like others said its not worth it.

.

 

[Wailo]

Indeed no place will give you unlimited bandwidth, no such thing as unlimited or companies would go out of business

I agree with the rest of your post, its easy to say "on demand" but when it comes to doing it all its a lot involved to have a solid final system.

Hello Dan

Maybe I was not clear enough with spelling out my thoughts.
If you check urtrancezone.com (I think you know about it), you can see how they managed to get all the EOYC sets there, in such an plain and easy layout which make it very easy for us to get the sets.
Non of the set were hosted on there website, so there was no bandwidth worries.. On the other side, and I haven't experienced any difficluties when tried it.

At least for Special shows (events), will be more than enough.

The only thing I can think of is discontinuing the oldest sets as newer ones come in...

Good idea

 

[dan]

Hello Dan

Maybe I was not clear enough with spelling out my thoughts.
If you check urtrancezone.com (I think you know about it), you can see how they managed to get all the EOYC sets there, in such an plain and easy layout which make it very easy for us to get the sets.
Non of the set were hosted on there website, so there was no bandwidth worries.. On the other side, and I haven't experienced any difficluties when tried it.

At least for Special shows (events), will be more than enough.



Good idea

AH.FM will not deal with any 3rd party sites and upload sets there and then provide links, this is not only time consuming but its against the rules that we have here between myself and the DJ's @ AH.FM.

If AH.FM wants to provide links to downloads we must pay royalties to support the producers aswell to be legal, AH is not a small underground site, were extremely professional. Also Ripped sets and the sets that we get are different. Many sets that were on EOYC were 320K, quality will never be the same when you compare ripped and original.

 

[Wailo]

Its against the rules that we have here between myself and the DJ's @ AH.FM.

If AH.FM wants to provide links to downloads we must pay royalties to support the producers aswell to be legal,

If there is legal issues added to it, then yeah, I have to agree with you

 

[dan]

If there is legal issues added to it, then yeah, I have to agree with you

 

[Tarek]

Let's not all get in a blue mood because this didn't work though..I'm sure Dan and his crew will find something..

 

[marco18]

Hello all,

I've read around 3 pages of comments, thus not all, so maybe the point I'm going to tell is written earlier already... Furthermore I'm not a lawyer, thus I'll tell only my view on this.

Maybe it's a bit controversial, but this is my thought about keeping the server costs as low as possible:

Why not combining the benefits of torrents (less streaming costs) with a subscribe-fee + ads if necessary in the on-demand part of the website ? (If you think 'torrent, no never again', still read carefully further...)

There are many ways/techniques to get music over the internet from location A to location B.
Streaming, Downloading from a server, Downloading through peers + server (e.g. torrent), ... etc.

If it's possible to get a 'deal' with DJ's/Producers/Labels to 'sell' a set for a certain amount of money to someone interested (you're calling it 'the royalities'), then the technique how to distribute these sets should not be that important anymore, provided that the number of downloads is recorded and the 'deal-price' is paid.

Torrent can 'smell illegal', but I think It's less illegal (or even legal) if used properly. It's only a way. If there's a fixed price that has to be paid for the 'distribution' of a set, the way it'll be distributed should be no problem anymore, under condition that the price is paid. Compare sending a postal package through TNT or UPS or other companies. The way is different, but the product gets from A to B. (But I'm no lawyer...) It's good to research this topic carefully with lawyers and so. Maybe it'll turn out to be a nice precedent for the future.

Ofcourse it's then still possible to add a 'download directly' button, with a higher fee for the user, because of more costs cause integral sets have to be sent independently to each user.

----
But in some way I still think the whole on-demand idea (and how nice it smells in some aspects), can get AH into more trouble, in particular the 'selling of sets', because it's in the end hard to determine how to divide the money between the acting DJ's and the track-producers. And if it's clear, other problems arise: E.g. Some DJ's make a set consisting of 9 tracks, others of 13... That means another problem: extensive bookkeeping.

Advertising or subscribing to the feature might help a bit, since then an independent product (thus not a set itself) is then sold. But then we're almost back at the former torrent website, since the money overshoot will be to low to divide (I guess) over the DJ's/producers, assuming to go for break-even.
(As a consequence in that case, DJ's/producers will in the end all love a torrent feature above a direct download feature, since then the money overshoot should be larger.)

But these are just some of my thoughts about this.

I think it's for now to early to say what is really possible and not, since the legislation is (as far as I know) rather crappy/not defined about this. People looking for a nice final project of a study Law and 'authors rights' can maybe think about this topic for further research

@JayCan (somewhere in the beginning of this thread) : Lange offers an opportunity to download his intercity shows for free on his website, thus give him a chance

Regards all!

 

[Tarek]

Torrent can 'smell illegal', but I think It's less illegal (or even legal) if used properly. It's only a way. If there's a fixed price that has to be paid for the 'distribution' of a set, the way it'll be distributed should be no problem anymore, under condition that the price is paid. Compare sending a postal package through TNT or UPS or other companies. The way is different, but the product gets from A to B. (But I'm no lawyer...) It's good to research this topic carefully with lawyers and so. Maybe it'll turn out to be a nice precedent for the future.

Ofcourse it's then still possible to add a 'download directly' button, with a higher fee for the user, because of more costs cause integral sets have to be sent independently to each user.

The way I see it, and the way I think agencies see it is as you mentioned: Torrents HEAVILY smell illegal. It's like a prejudice, a reputation, and it's rightfully earned if you ask me. It IS a way, but I think ( don't take my word for it) that torrents kinda "tarnish" reputation of any soon-to-be professional radio station/service/etc.

 

[SentriX]

@JayCan (somewhere in the beginning of this thread) : Lange offers an opportunity to download his intercity shows for free on his website, thus give him a chance

Regards all!

Technically it's streaming but some eeeejit messed up on the coding and provided the save as link in the player

Happy days, and seeing as these are now on the net and up for download doesnt that mean you are free to host given the appropriate credit? I'm not too sure on how 'public domain content' goes

 

[cavedog]

if it is easy to pay I will join. I don't have credit card so paypal and credit card payment is not possible for me. Alert pay and Moneybookers is much easier!

 

[SentriX]

if it is easy to pay I will join. I don't have credit card so paypal and credit card payment is not possible for me. Alert pay and Moneybookers is much easier!

You can get paypal with a normal debit or bankers card as far as I am aware

 

[The Cat Lady]

AH.FM will not deal with any 3rd party sites and upload sets there and then provide links, this is not only time consuming but its against the rules that we have here between myself and the DJ's @ AH.FM.

If AH.FM wants to provide links to downloads we must pay royalties to support the producers aswell to be legal, AH is not a small underground site, were extremely professional. Also Ripped sets and the sets that we get are different. Many sets that were on EOYC were 320K, quality will never be the same when you compare ripped and original.

I got a lot of those 320K sets for my copy of EOYC 2008 that's on TAP. But I didn't leave them that way. I converted them to 192K to take up less space and download faster. And yes. it does contain some rips, for which I am deeply ashamed. That whole exercise was so difficult, time consuming and stressful that I won't repeat it.

Saying that breaks my heart like you cannot imagine. It means that I can't ever carry complete AfterHours events. Sometimes I can, but you can't believe what I go through to get them. I just don't want to use rips. I'm trying so hard to be legitimate and it isn't fair that everyone else uses rips freely and my own sense of honor prevents me from doing the same. I've actually been approached by two other sites to become a ripper for them. I politely declined and invited THEM to be members of my site. Plus, with no support from AH, well, it just flat becomes impossible.

I'll put up what I can get, but it's so discouraging. Links are everywhere, so I'm not exactly "exclusive" and since I can't afford anything that's actually worth a crap, my DL speeds aren't what anyone could call fast.

Frankly, I'm surprised that I have any members at all considering those facts. But, I'm not throwing in the towel. Not yet. As long as the need exists, I'll be there for the DJs and Members. They are my only concern.

I love AfterHours. I think that fact is pretty clear to everyone who knows me even a little bit. Dan, there HAS to be a way we can achieve our dreams about this. As far as I'm concerned, this is NOT over. Not by a long shot. I'm stubborn and I do not give up, even when it's in my own best interests to do so. This is NOT over.

 

[The Cat Lady]

Follow up.

I have removed EOYC 2008 from TAP because it was not "pure". I will be replacing it with a pure version. I'm a practicing Catholic and like the rest of us mackerel snappers, I try to avoid the embarrassment and shame of the Confessional. The only way to avoid that is to avoid guilt. I feel like a great weight of guilt has now been removed from my shoulders.

Be aware that AH events on TAP will more than likely NEVER be complete because I just won't put up with the guilt associated with doing it any other way. I just flat can't hack it. Honor is everything to me. Without honor, we are nothing.

Thank you for your understanding.