Web Hosting Geekery

4 Jun 2012

I know theres a fair few web geeks on here so i could do with using some of your collective knowledge.
I'm trying to find a hosting company that have hosting capabilities for html5 video (mp4/ , theora and possibly webm if needed, as well as an swf fallback for legacy browsers)
My sites (4-5 of them so far) are pretty simple, single pages at present but some will grow to around 8-10 pages, but nothing complex- just html for the foreseeable. Its also fairly low traffic so i should be able to use a lower end non business package based on past useage which will help keep running costs down too (my current hosting suggested i upgrade to a dedicated server loon

)
The problem i'm having is finding a hosting service that list html5 video compatibility as a feature- but i'm yet to find one that clearly allows the necessary formats for html5 video, even if i have to upload a htaccess script.
I'd prefer not to use embedded video such as youtube or vimeo as it doesn't play on many smartphones and tablets directly (as its flash based, so many require an app) and i also want to avoid the transcode issues and loss of quality as well as the adverts, not to mention problems with copyright banghead

So, does anyone know a tried and tested hosting company who offer basic hosting packages (£3-5 per month) 5-20gb data allowance and about ish space. it also needs to allow multiple websites per hosting and preferably allow file management by ftp and uk based would be a bonus?
Ta very much :mrgreen:

5 Jun 2012

I have a geeky...erm...friend and he put me onto 1and1 hosting, they seem pretty good...not sure about the video thing though.

6 Jun 2012

In Edit :
Just looked into the html5 video playing as wasn't sure.
Any host will run it as long as they let you stream video.
I just tried it on my host and it ran no problem with nothing special needed so as said above, host gator or any cheap host will do but just mail them first to make sure streaming video is allowed.
Tony :-)

16 Jun 2012

Quote by Andy_Jules
not try , look undervtheir 'webhosting' section, they have a variety of different packages to suit all pockets and are pretty competitive with their pricing. They are not Uk based though.

I've used Hostgator for a few years and am pretty happy with them! They're cheap and reliable, and more importantly their terms and conditions allow adult content ... something that a lot of UK hosts don't permit.

16 Jun 2012

UK based providers are not very good at giving large data allowances hence why i host my sites out of a US provider. Yes we pay more than the £5 you ask for but our requirements are far higher, for guide we pay abt £50 but run about 2 VB forums and about 10 other sites, email, databases and get up to 3000GB of data allowance.
Note that YouTube now uses HTML5 as well for video playback alongside flash. Advantages of using external providers is that you dont have to worry about the load or data usage much.
There are a few JWPlayer/JPlayer/Flowplayer, these are fairly good but analize the features as if you set it up wrong you will have sky high data usages, ie you only want to buffer video when the user playes the video not when the page loads.