What sort of hosting & FLV formats?
 

Sorry for the total noob questions but this is my first members pay site. I've been running a free site for years with about 6,000 members but now I'm creating a new WordPress based one. Obviously, the paid membership will be a tiny fraction of what I have now but free members will also be able to browse public content (very limited access to video/photo galleries). The site is fairly niche so I don't expect massive traffic.

As I want to have videos and photos, I'm using UUGallery (UUG needs ffmpeg ideally). Firstly, what sort of hosting am I likely to need to start with? I went Servage recently but they don't have ffmpeg and I have heard they are crap anyway.

I'm confused by the hosting options as the more expensive VPS and dedicated servers seem to offer fairly small disk drives (50-250Gb usually). If that is what I'd have for data, it seems nothing by today's standards. Bearing in mind that I'd be likely to have very few people simultaneously viewing videos, what is required? Since, I'm using UUG, video files will be in FLV format. Any recommendations on what resolution to have them in for optimal storage versus quality?

As I'm UK based, I'd like a reliable European host that accepts SM content and runs ffmpeg. Any suggestions?

Anyone?

Another question re UUG, I've got videos in a lot of different screen sizes. Some seem to fit UUG's viewer perfectly but others have a much bigger viewer and a massive black border. Should I set up AVS Video Converter to output in a set size? If so, what size?

Standard FLV quality seems pretty crap :-( Anything higher res obviously means bigger files. Is there an optimal setting?

I think most videos have gone to 16:9 aspect. Multiples of 16 is suppose to provide the best playback quality. So 768x432 would be a medium resolution for your encoded videos. MP4 (H.264/AAC) would provide the best quality for your videos and FLV (H.263/MP3) would provide the lowest quality.

I have no idea what the standard is most people are using. But I would say from this, maybe a 768x432 encoded as MP4 would be your best choice. Video Quality/Bitrate of around 26 and Audio Bitrate around 128.

Don't think they are UK based, but the following hosting companies have ffmpeg on their servers:

CertifiedHosting
CirtexHosting
PacificHost
AptHost

The following have European Data Centers; exmasters.com, webzilla.com, and adulteuhost.com. Make sure you contact them directly to get the best quote possible.

Encoding with Quicktime and flash is a good balance, but maybe and probably :)

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Thank you sir :thumbsup