Can I get your advice on video downloads? [Archive] - GayDemon.BIZ

View Full Version : Can I get your advice on video downloads?

Boys4Porn

08-14-2009, 04:28 AM

One of gaydemons reviewers contacted me by email yesterday telling me that she couldnt download our largest HD videos (it seems to timeout) and I also sent her a screen print to show that I had no problem downloading myself with a simular browser. I suspect that these problems are related to file size, packet size and user connection speed. I uasually split our videos into 3 sections instead of one. But is it enough? How many of you have issue playing the following videos?

http://www.boys4porn.com/1491_10000.wmv
http://www.boys4porn.com/1492_10000.wmv
http://www.boys4porn.com/1493_10000.wmv

basschick

08-14-2009, 04:32 AM

i was checking a new reviewer's work but could not download the videos - what would happen is about 2 mb of each video would come in, then firefox would say it was finished. one video said "failed" when i tried to download it. that was 2 days ago. i am able to download the videos now, btw. i also have no problem downloading these videos that are outside the member area.

dirkpeddler

08-14-2009, 04:35 AM

Those are some big ass files. Usually the surfer is given the option for streaming video (high or HD quality) and download of smaller sized files to their computer usually in multiple formats. Almost a gig for 1 file is a bit much, I would try to keep downloadable files under 250MB. With large files like that one problem surfers or reviewers might run into is expiration of their login credentials which could abort the download.

basschick

08-14-2009, 04:35 AM

he does have smaller versions of each of the HD videos.

Those are some big ass files. Usually the surfer is given the option for streaming video (high or HD quality) and download of smaller sized files to their computer usually in multiple formats. Almost a gig for 1 file is a bit much, I would try to keep downloadable files under 250MB.

Boys4Porn

08-14-2009, 04:40 AM

Well there shouldnt be any difference between "in the members area" and out, other than the size of the download. I dont use any 3rd party software to limit anything since I did all the scripting myself for the site. I would post links to videos in my members are here, but I didnt want to expose any security holes.

Boys4Porn

08-14-2009, 04:46 AM

One thing I have noticed since we we live with our new HD site is that I am getting alot more signups from users with screen resolutions in excess of 1920, so that tells me that people want to see this higher quality videos, and to be quite honest the reviewer was the first to bring this to our attention since we went live a few months ago. I dont act stupid about the problem, because I have seen the problem on rare ocassions myself when roadrunner isnt giving me the speed I pay for. We also have these videos in large format(720x540) and they fall under 250M.

basschick

08-14-2009, 05:38 AM

not using software like strongbox to limit member access will cost you money and trouble someday. i know dozens of paysite owners who thought their processor and .htaccess would take care of them who literally woke up one day to discover they were being hit by password sites. they found their sites crawling and their bandwidth allotment for the month already all used up and more. usually they had several people in on each password, all downloading the max videos they could at one time plus thousands of guys trying to use each password that had already been shut down, which seems to have used all their system resources. a real mess!

Well there shouldnt be any difference between "in the members area" and out, other than the size of the download. I dont use any 3rd party software to limit anything since I did all the scripting myself for the site. I would post links to videos in my members are here, but I didnt want to expose any security holes.

Boys4Porn

08-14-2009, 06:05 AM

I appreciate that. I have personally seen what that can do to in terms of hosting costs and server resources. I used play around with brute force software in my teenage years when I was'nt old enough to have own a credit card. Its so much easier to pay for it now, lol.

gaydemon

08-14-2009, 09:07 AM

Files seems to download fine at the moment, but I've seen exactly what Basschick mentions before (on other sites). It does seem to be very large files.. not what one would expect.

Could you not split them up into scenes? Dogfart do it really well on their sites with large HD videos but they offer them in parts of scenes, 1-5 clips, each one being something like 300meg.

(let me know when you want me to disabled those links for your vids)

rawTOP

08-14-2009, 10:34 AM

The first download crapped out for me after 668Kb. The second one seems to be working though. I'm using FF Mac and with the first one I navigated around a bit to find the folder I wanted to save it in. With the second one I just saved it quickly in the first folder that came up.

basschick

08-14-2009, 02:43 PM

hmm... perhaps it's a server error since that's pretty much what happened to me the other day.

The first download crapped out for me after 668Kb. The second one seems to be working though. I'm using FF Mac and with the first one I navigated around a bit to find the folder I wanted to save it in. With the second one I just saved it quickly in the first folder that came up.

Adam Mason

08-14-2009, 04:30 PM

I will attempt some downloads tomorrow (I am uploading my next release at the moment) but from my experience such issues usually relate to issues on the network / connection of the end-user or his/her ISP.

It's just so simple to blame the site's host or server... but that's rarely the actual cause. And people hate it for sure, but 9 times out of 10 they won't raise the issue with their ISP...

As for streaming versus downloads... I am totally lost about the comments posted here as they are TOTALLY opposite to my own member's preferences! Mine HATE the idea of chopped up clips and even more hate the idea that the best quality can only be had from streams!

Adam Mason

08-14-2009, 05:16 PM

samebb

08-14-2009, 06:30 PM

What may not work for you may well work extremly well for others - and why should a site be marked down due to issues on your own ISP's network?!?

Damn good point, but as most review sites hire 3rdparty reviewers, this will likely always be an issue.

basschick

08-14-2009, 07:01 PM

i had no trouble downloading the standard videos.

when i have normal download problems on sites, the first thing i do is check the site with my other connection, which is a totally other company. then if both have problems i ask someone else to try a video - usually someone in the uk or canada.

rawTOP

08-14-2009, 07:03 PM

rawTOP

08-14-2009, 07:21 PM

Strike what I just said... Got one to work earlier, but can't get them to download now.

gaydemon

08-15-2009, 01:41 AM

So I thought I'd do the ultimate test and download the first film while doing an FTP upload to my own servers. And the file downloaded without a problem (although it was at half the speed of a download from my own euro servers).

As a side note, do reviever's take in to account sites with geo-ip based download servers? What may not work for you may well work extremly well for others - and why should a site be marked down due to issues on your own ISP's network?!?

Damn good point, but as most review sites hire 3rdparty reviewers, this will likely always be an issue.

Well first of all, most review sites only publish what's good about a site and are not honest or critical. So if they encountered this issue they would just ignore it. Most review site owners or writers are happy to publish inaccurate reviews, they really do not care. They just want to earn money. It's all down to cost. Review site owners do not want to pay very much and order 100s of reviews in bulk. Unfortunately you get what you pay for. These "fake" reviews of your sites are likly to do you more harm than good in the long run.

We try and make sure to publish as accurate information as possible. So if a reviewer encounter a problem like issues with downloading videos, or video that do not play, we test it on more than one location and system. Those are very easy things to check.

What's more difficult is sites that are hard to navigate or understand, site owners who try to hide how much content they have etc.

Unfortunately you might not always like what we say, but I only publish honest and accurate reviews. But no matter what the reviews say, it will sell. The GayDemon brand has build up a lot of trust over the years, which means people are happy to try out sites that we review no matter if they are good or bad. They know we are telling the truth and won't be disappointed with what they subscribe too as they know what to expect.

Any ways... sorry for the long explenation but worth clarifing. In short, we do double check issues like this.

Adam Mason

08-15-2009, 03:23 AM

I just repeated the test and got the same exact results. If you choose the save location quickly everything works just fine. If you spend some time navigating around figuring out where you want to save it, it will crap out. Definitely a problem with the server config. It's like it's dropping the connection when the client doesn't start the download immediately. Upping some timeout number should fix the problem.

OK, just did as you did ang got the exact same problem - only the file download came up as complete after 2 seconds. Then I retried and it began to download properly. I think you are right rawTOP!

Boys4Porn

08-16-2009, 10:28 AM

I just repeated the test and got the same exact results. If you choose the save location quickly everything works just fine. If you spend some time navigating around figuring out where you want to save it, it will crap out. Definitely a problem with the server config. It's like it's dropping the connection when the client doesn't start the download immediately. Upping some timeout number should fix the problem.

When you mean timeout, is that something in httpd.conf? I did find something called timeout and that was set at 15 seconds, I did raise that to over 1000 and restarted the server.

rawTOP

08-16-2009, 11:46 AM

When you mean timeout, is that something in httpd.conf? I did find something called timeout and that was set at 15 seconds, I did raise that to over 1000 and restarted the server.

A 15 second timeout might have done it. A good timeout would be 2 to 5 min. You may see problems above that. I'll test it again when I get home (can't download on my iPhone :) )

rawTOP

08-16-2009, 05:14 PM

That seems to have worked. I would lower the timeout to 300 or so.

basschick

08-16-2009, 06:23 PM

what would the advantage of that be?

That seems to have worked. I would lower the timeout to 300 or so.

Boys4Porn

08-18-2009, 03:49 AM

what would the advantage of that be?

I guess you wouldnt want your timeout too high because the server would have too many unnecessary connections open and taking up resources.

The TimeOut directive currently defines the amount of time Apache will wait for three things:

1.The total amount of time it takes to receive a GET request.
2.The amount of time between receipt of TCP packets on a POST or PUT request.
3.The amount of time between ACKs on transmissions of TCP packets in responses.

Thanks rawtop for your help.

rawTOP

08-18-2009, 04:11 AM

what would the advantage of that be?

Because it's something a hacker could exploit. If I know you have a really high timeout I could send a bunch of bad calls to your server and overwhelm your server with millions of connections that are just waiting to be killed. You'd see no problems with bandwidth but your server would slow down and possibly crash.