Estimating Bandwidth usage and cost

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hi there,

We are planning on using Wowza to live stream billiard events.

Before I can decide how much to charge the event promoters, I need to evaluate how much bandwidth it will use, then evaluate my cost.

So my question is twofold

1- How much bandwidth (per hour?) is the feed from the camera? (I’m guessing it depends on camera, but do we know the average, can we configure the camera to a specific setting, so we can know pretty much exactly how much bandwidth?)

2- How much bandwidth (per hour?) per user watching the stream? That way, we can estimate our cost for 100 viewers, 1000 viewers, etc.

If it is setting specific, what would you recommend as a good enough settings to display good quality?

Any help here is appreciated! Thanks

2

Hello,

For 1- Yes, it will depend on your camera and the output you are setting your stream to. I would refer to the camera’s product manual for making changes if needed.

For 2- Are you planning to do a “Constant Bit-Rate” or “Adaptive Bit-Rate” output?

For the quality it will depend on your viewer’s playback platform (cell, tablet, laptop, OTT, and TV) and available bandwidth. That’s where adaptive bit-rate is great for creating multiple renditions (180p,360p,480p,720p,1080p) and can save on bandwidth cost by scaling to the customer’s needs.

Please try out the below links on getting your estimated bandwidth usage.

How to get estimated network usage:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-encode-source-video-for-wowza-streaming-cloud

Here’s a link for a load test tool:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-get-flash-rtmp-load-test-tool

Plus a link for Monitoring Usage: https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-monitor-server-connections-load-and-application-statistics

Best,

Jason Tuchler

Wowza Media Systems

3

If it helps you, i have created a cost calculator, which you are welcome to use. You can find it here:

http://www.hsimrall.com/bandwidth-price-calculator

-hsaudio

Hi there,

We are planning on using Wowza to live stream billiard events.

Before I can decide how much to charge the event promoters, I need to evaluate how much bandwidth it will use, then evaluate my cost.

So my question is twofold

1- How much bandwidth (per hour?) is the feed from the camera? (I’m guessing it depends on camera, but do we know the average, can we configure the camera to a specific setting, so we can know pretty much exactly how much bandwidth?)

2- How much bandwidth (per hour?) per user watching the stream? That way, we can estimate our cost for 100 viewers, 1000 viewers, etc.

If it is setting specific, what would you recommend as a good enough settings to display good quality?

Any help here is appreciated! Thanks

4

Hello Hsaudio,

Thank for the helpful reply, you should probably post this bandwidth calculator in the Showcase section of our forums if you have not already:

http://community.wowza.com/c/-/10

Regards,

Jason Hatchett