OPINIONS: Webserver....RA vs Windows

fosko wrote on 8/1/2002, 2:16 PM
I'm about to launch a web page for Multi media showcase. The Hosting company I'm thinking about going with (POWWEB.com.... check them out. great price & features) says they have UNIX servers and do not support Windows Media.

What do you think ??
I've read some pretty negative press on here about RA, and I prefer Media player...but is it really that much of an issue ?

Comments

dsanders wrote on 8/1/2002, 2:36 PM
I have a hosting service that I use that is about the same price. But... you get what you pay for. There is NO telephone support at all. Emails are answered in a week. Once, their email server screwed up and lost all of my emails. And the list goes on and on. But I'm just screwing around so it isn;t that big of a deal. If you are doing this for a businees, make sure you look at the fine print. Check them out for a couple of months first before you sign any long term contact.

Also, another trick that a lot of these cheap guys are playing is to offer to register a domain for you. Lets say you want www.MySite.com. For $10 these guys will register you and then setup you up for $8.00 a month web hosting. But what they don't tell you is that they registered the domain in their name and are leasing it to you. That way you can't move the domain to another hosting service since you don't own the domain. You're stuck with them forever.

I don't know if this is the case with the one that you suggested - its just something to look out for.
theigloo wrote on 8/1/2002, 3:08 PM

If you encode to .wmv, you can put it on a unix box. That format is smart enough to stream itself. I use it for one of my movies on my site (which sits on an linux box running apache).

http://www.theigloo.com/download.php?request=Japan%20Snapshots

The problem is that Mac users will need Media Player - most of them don't have it. Even if they do, their browser will not automatically assciate the file on the page with the player.

fosko wrote on 8/1/2002, 3:57 PM
I was thinking that but wasn'y sure.

AndDS.. I know what you mean.. My previous Host went out of business over night. ONe day I went to pull up my website and NOTHING. I went the the hosts website and there was a Latin band there. He hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Interstingly enough... I chose that Host becasue they were the ONLY ones who offered telephone tech support in that price range.
briand wrote on 8/1/2002, 7:11 PM
The Apple Darwin Streaming Server is an Open solution for streaming QuickTime, and builds on a variety of UNIX platforms (Linux, Sol8, FreeBSD) and got very favorable reviews against Real and WMV in a recent test (It was linked from Slashdot, I can go find it if you're interested). I don't do any streaming myself so I haven't used it, but it seems like it's worth a look, unless you choose to rule out QT completely.

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/streaming/

(edit)
Here's the review. The second page covers the servers, later pages devoted to capture cards, etc.

http://www.networkcomputing.com/1306/1306f1.html