Selling streaming content through WP

#1

I have a new WP site. Been tuning and tweaking it – still not live yet.

I initially set up a store using the WP e-commerce plug-in, but now I’m not sure that’s the right one.

See, I want to sell content people stream from the site. Some video, some audio recordings. They pay a small amount and then have x days to access the content, whereupon (presumably), their link expires.

A bonus nice thing would be if they pay a bigger fee, they would have access to all digital files for x time.

As far as I can tell, the WP e-commerce plug-in doesn’t do that. It lets you sell digital material that is DOWNLOADABLE, not streaming.

Anyone selling streaming video from Wordpress have ideas?

I’m not married to WP e-commerce. I’m not keen to jump into a solution that has me paying a flat fee. No offense to folks who are working hard on their plug-ins, but I just can’t afford it. I expect to maybe make 5-20 bucks a month – if I’m lucky – on this. Most products would be a buck.

Anyway, advice sorely wanted.

Thanks!

Edward

#2

Sounds like something a subscription plug-in might accomplish.

#3

“Sounds like something a subscription plug-in might accomplish.”

Well, yes, on the management side.

A variety of WP plug-ins have subscription management, but the thing they DON’T seem to have (from what I can tell) is a way of allowing STREAMING.

The difference that’s frazzlin’ my brain is the difference between downloadable content versus streaming content.

There is one streaming plug-in for WP, but it streams ONLY from a paid service.

As far as I can tell, DH allows us to stream from our host accounts.

I just can’t figure out the links of chain to make that happen.

I figured there has to be SOMEONE doing it, or someone who can point me in the right direction.

I’ve been searching for plug-ins on the WP org site, too. Can find plugins that stream video and plugins that are stores with subscriptions – but i can’t find the intersection. Maybe I’m missing something…?

#4

EasyDigitalDownloads has a plugin - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easydigitaldownloads-hoststreamsell-extension/ - which hooks up with HostStreamSell to do this.

http://hoststreamsell.com/ seems to be the server component you’re missing.

#5

“EasyDigitalDownloads has a plugin…”

Right, but it only hooks up to their paid server.

I have plenty of space in my account and Dreamhost allows for me to serve streamed content.

Now if there was a similar plug-in that allows me to hook into my Dreamhost account and serve streamed media from THERE, and that allows me to manage subsscriptions via e-commerce, that would be PERFECT.

I just can’t find that.

i know people must be using SOME kind of tool to serve streamed content via a Wordpress e-commerce plug-in – I just can’t figure it out.

#6

Honestly? No, they don’t. And there’s a reason. It can slaughter your CPU. That’s why so many people move video and images to CDNs. They suck up resources, slow down your server, and are hellish to manage.

It’s one of these moments where just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should :confused:

#7

Of course they do. Thousands of them. But it’s not a “tool” - it’s just HTTP streaming. Create a media file in your format of choice, upload it, and either link to it or embed a player in your page. DreamHost even have a Flash Media Converter in Panel specifically for the purpose if you want to go the Flash route.

Panel > Goodies > Flash Media

#8

That isn’t streaming, though… Not the way the term’s meant to be used at least. Streaming is when you’re constantly transmitting data which is played back (like the radio). Compared to how most media’s downloaded online, we pull it all down (or in the case of video, enough to play things back), but then you get those annoying hangs and pauses when you hit a point that not everything’s downloaded.

I was assuming he meant that and not just “I want to play a video on my site and lock it down per person.” Which if that’s the case, yes, there are plugins and .htaccess rules that help with that.

#9