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CPU-biased VPS for 24/7 transcoding workload
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CPU-biased VPS for 24/7 transcoding workload

snoopstahsnoopstah Member
edited December 2017 in Requests

Hi guys,

Looking for some advice and recommendations for a VPS provider. I'm setting up a weather/scenic webcam that will broadcast a 4Mbps 1080p live stream to the VPS 24/7, and I need enough CPU power to transcode the stream down to lower resolutions for adaptive streaming, and enough bandwidth to handle serving the traffic to viewers via nginx. I don't need much RAM or disk, but it probably needs to be SSD.

Realistically this is probably going to have pretty low usage (few viewers, not much time on site per viewer), but I'd like the ability to handle higher usage levels on the off-chance it gets posted somewhere popular one day.

(I know I could use Youtube or similar services to handle the streaming for free, but I'd like to keep the software stack under my control).

So far I've not found anything within my budget, mainly because higher CPU allocations also tend to come with far more RAM and disk than I need. However, if my budget just isn't enough to hope to get close to what I need, please let me know.

VZ Type: Probably KVM

Number of Cores: 2 dedicated or 3-4 vCPUs. If vCPUs, provider needs to be happy with the transcoding running 24/7 and using probably ~1.5 vCPUs.
RAM: 2GB
Disk Space: 10GB
Disk Type: SSD

Bandwidth: 3-4TB/month + ability to purchase additional bandwidth at a reasonable cost if necessary (ideally <$5 per additional TB). I would also much prefer the ability to buy extra bandwidth through a management console, rather than needing to raise a support ticket.
Port Speed: 250Mbps+ (to handle any potential surge demand).

DDoS Protection: No

Number of IPs: 1

Location: In preference order, Vancouver/Seattle, rest of west coast USA/Canada (CA, NV, Oregon, Alberta), rest of USA/Canada.

Budget: $20/month. Accepting PayPal preferred but not required.

Billing period: Monthly/Quarterly/Annual

Also desirable would be some kind of backup/snapshotting facilities (doesn't need to be included in the $20 budget).

Thanked by 1nunuigti

Comments

  • $20 could get you a dedi at wholesaleinternet or kimsufi. Not sure of they are powerful enough and none of them has SSD but both offer plenty of bandwidth and maybe it's worth a look.

    Thanked by 1snoopstah
  • @mksh said:
    $20 could get you a dedi at wholesaleinternet or kimsufi. Not sure of they are powerful enough and none of them has SSD but both offer plenty of bandwidth and maybe it's worth a look.

    Thanks very much for the suggestions. I did look at Kimsufi (which I should have mentioned) but was put off by the 100Mbps port speed. I'm almost certainly kidding myself about the potential popularity, but on the offchance the site gets posted on my local city's subreddit, or somewhere else popular, 100Mbps will only support <25 simultaneous viewers on the 1080p rate. I'd like something with a little more burstable capacity, hence hoping for a 250Mbps+ port (~60 simultaneous viewers).

    Wholesaleinternet has some possibilities at $25 with a 1Gbps port and 100TB transfer, but the CPUs are quite old (third-gen i3, first gen i5). I might suspect they'd struggle with the transcoding load, but I need to look into it further.

  • Is there a particular reason that your stream needs to be 1080p?

    My town's own cam is 144p and I don't find high-res ones very often.

  • Because it's a fetish porn cam.

    Thanked by 1PUSHR_Victor
  • snoopstahsnoopstah Member
    edited December 2017

    @busbr said:
    Is there a particular reason that your stream needs to be 1080p?

    My town's own cam is 144p and I don't find high-res ones very often.

    Honestly, what you've described is exactly the reason -- almost all webcams suck, and I want to do an awesome one.

    I spent quite a few months researching cameras to find the absolute best I could justify buying (this is a personal project I'm funding myself), and it's pretty great -- where most webcams just show a black image at night, this one will pick up around 500 stars on a clear night, and even on an overcast night will show a completely clear picture of the landscape (albeit in black and white). I'm also lucky enough to live somewhere that has a pretty great view.

    I've been running it at home for the past couple of weeks getting the software working as I want, and the 1080p stream looks amazing. I'd rather not compromise the goal of sharing that now I've spent quite a bit of time and money on it. :)

    Thanked by 1daxterfellowes
  • I've found a possibility from VirMach:

    2GB RAM, 2 dedicated cores, 35GB SSD, 2TB bandwidth, 1Gbps link, for $20 per month in Seattle.

    Bandwidth is lower than I'd hope, but their fees page quotes $3 per extra TB, which is reasonable. Does anyone who uses them know if I can buy extra bandwidth instantly through their management console?

    Still interested in other suggestions!

  • Keeripes, get a dedi. Use icecast with fanout on some vps's to amplify bandwidth.

  • snoopstahsnoopstah Member
    edited December 2017

    @willie said:
    Keeripes, get a dedi. Use icecast with fanout on some vps's to amplify bandwidth.

    That sounds unfeasible for close to the budget of $20 per month. An Atom N2800 dedicated server from Kimsufi already takes $15 of the budget, and has a passmark of 619. I'm currently testing the transcoding on a single Linode vCPU, which theoretically has a passmark of 1872, and it's dropping about 10 frames a minute. A more powerful Kimsufi would do it, but then I need to also get 'some vps's', by which time I'm well over budget.

    Additionally, even excluding the cost aspects, I then have several machines to manage, keep up to date with security patches, fix when they break, etc., all of which takes up time.

  • It's possible that online.net will run their winter sales around January as they did last year if you can hold out till then?

    There's a thread from last year which should give you some idea on what to expect.

    Thanked by 1snoopstah
  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider
    edited December 2017

    $20 and I'll give you a VDS with a dedicated E3-1270v6 thread, 3.75GB RAM, 50GB NVMe, 100Mbps unlimited (I'll increase port a bit to math your req). Quebec, KVM. Basically my managed VDS without management.

    I know it's under your CPU requirement, but it's probably newer than whatever else you would get with 100% dedicated CPU alloc on an already underutilized system, you wouldn't be fighting for core use.

    Otherwise, should really grab one of the Kimsufi servers or one of the Online.net deals during Christmas assuming they will have some.

    Thanked by 2snoopstah Aidan
  • You're not going to be able to use more than around a quarter-core vCPU with VirMach unless you pay an extra fee to do so.

    Thanked by 2snoopstah Aidan
  • snoopstahsnoopstah Member
    edited December 2017

    @Dextronox said:
    It's possible that online.net will run their winter sales around January as they did last year if you can hold out till then?

    There's a thread from last year which should give you some idea on what to expect.

    Thanks, that looks possible. Most viewers will inevitably be local, so it seems a waste to send all the data from the west coast to a server in Europe, and then send it all back again to the viewers, but it might be a better deal than trying to host this in the US/Canada.

    @MikeA said:
    $20 and I'll give you a VDS with a dedicated E3-1270v6 thread, 3.75GB RAM, 50GB NVMe, 100Mbps unlimited (I'll increase port a bit to math your req). Quebec, KVM. Basically my managed VDS without management.

    I know it's under your CPU requirement, but it's probably newer than whatever else you would get with 100% dedicated CPU alloc on an already underutilized system, you wouldn't be fighting for core use.

    Otherwise, should really grab one of the Kimsufi servers or one of the Online.net deals during Christmas assuming they will have some.

    Thanks, that's very tempting! I'll do some tests on the Linode I'm currently using -- the E3-1270v6 has a single thread rating of 2297, whereas the Linode server I'm on has a single thread rating of 1872, and isn't quite fast enough to do the transcoding (plus I need some amount of excess compute power to actually let Nginx serve the content!).

    However, I doubt I'm actually getting all of that performance from Linode. I'll try and find something I can run as a benchmark on the Linode and compare to public specs on your Xeon. If I can get double the actual Linode performance, that should be plenty.

    @WSS said:
    You're not going to be able to use more than around a quarter-core vCPU with VirMach unless you pay an extra fee to do so.

    Thanks! That quote was for their high-CPU option, which according to their AUP allows bursting to 100% at all times. However, their AUP also says you can't have a 24 hour load average over 0.7 per core, which seems to contradict that. I've e-mailed them for clarification.

  • mkshmksh Member
    edited December 2017

    oops

  • williewillie Member
    edited December 2017

    If you don't mind EU-based transcoding, look at an i3-2100 dedi on worldstream.nl for 10.8 euro/month if you pay annually. The Linode vps will start out fast, but throttle you if you hammer the cpu for long periods.

    I was involved in a streaming thing a while back where we did the transcoding on a laptop (live video from a camera) and then used icecast on vps's to stream it out to clients. So we didn't need any significant amount of cpu in the cloud. The main advantage of transcoding locally was decreasing upload bandwidth though.

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    @snoopstah said:
    However, I doubt I'm actually getting all of that performance from Linode. I'll try and find something I can run as a benchmark on the Linode and compare to public specs on your Xeon. If I can get doable the actual Linode performance, that should be plenty.

    If you want to run a benchmark on it just to compare I don't mind giving a trial, just PM if so.

  • @willie said:
    If you don't mind EU-based transcoding, look at an i3-2100 dedi on worldstream.nl for 10.8 euro/month if you pay annually. The Linode vps will start out fast, but throttle you if you hammer the cpu for long periods.

    I was about to recommend that too but they are all 100mbit in the default config and gbit links cost 19€ extra on the specials. Just 10€ on the regular ones but those only start 15€ also. So cheapest server OP could take would be 25€.

  • 100 mbits is plenty for a handful of clients. Use those clients (cheap VPS) to propagate the stream at higher speeds.

  • If you dont mind EU-based servers, this could be interesting for you:
    https://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server/dedibox-xc

  • HarzemHarzem Member
    edited December 2017

    Didn't you guys usually recommend netcup for requests like these?

    https://www.netcup.eu/vserver/

  • Stop throwing NetCup for every "I need tons of CPU" responses. I'm sick of trying to keep reliable, cheap services and have to migrate once or twice a year.

    That said, the Germans will get sick of shit and just terminate the account.

  • I apologize @WSS

  • @Harzem said:
    I apologize @WSS

    That wasn't to you specifically. We good bro.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
  • PUSHR_VictorPUSHR_Victor Member, Host Rep
    edited December 2017

    1080p to HLS with 720p, 480p and 240p outputs (libx264) transcoded simultaneously is the limit of an i7-950 dedicated server for real-time encoding (depending on the codec of the input stream, it may be incapable to do even that). You definitely don't want to go with a VPS.

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