3 replies to this topic

[Mot]

Hey guys,

Let me introduce myself. Firstly, I'm noob when it comes to programming and creating web pages and for that reason I'm here asking for help/tips/pointers and general advice from the users on this site. (hoping for helpful advice, other forums weren't so inviting)

I'm interested in creating a small scale video-hosting site such as metacafe/youtube etc with a forum and combined with a torrent site like Mininova. I know. Is it even possible?. It's a mountain of a task but hey I'm willing to put in the hours and effort.

These are the questions:

1. What languages do I need to learn to achieve the targets above? PHP, MySQL, HTML, Javascript?

2: Does a database sort of holdd all the videos, music, apps etc (I'm not clear on this)

3. What sort of equipment, hardware do I need if any?

4. Is it possible to implement the kind of search engine piratebay use?

5. Also, designing the look of the webpages? E.g font background colour?
Arial, Times New Roman? Where everything goes e.g where to place search engine? How do you do this?

6. Whats the difference between server side and client side? Please in simple words.

7. How tough would this task be?

It'll be great if someone could answer all this noobish queries.

Thanks in advance.

[jackolantern]

1. Probably a bit of all those you listed, as well as CSS for styling your webpages. HTML defines the structure of your content, CSS defines the presentation, or style of your content, Javascript defines the behavior of your site and allows you to create dynamic effects after the page has loaded. PHP is used to dynamically create webpages as they are requested from a user, often using the open source database MySQL. You will also use Flash to create the streaming video like YouTube's site. Prior to Flash CS5's release, there was a separate product called Flash Encoder that could be used to make streaming videos, but now I am not sure what product is handling it. I am assuming it is all built into Flash CS5 Professional. Up to now, every language and technology mentioned was free (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL), but Flash costs money. Flash Professional CS5 currently costs $700, or you could get the bundle package with other programs you may find helpful, such as Dreamweaver CS5, in the Adobe CS5 Web Premium pack for $1800.

2. A database can be used to store videos. There are other methods as well, though, but I am actually not that knowledgeable about user-uploaded video files and the best way to handle it. Someone else will have to field this one.

3. If you are starting out with little server administration experience, you should really leave that in the hands of the experts and just rent a host. You will probably end up with too many resources running to use shared hosting, but a virtual server could be an inexpensive hosting option to start out on, then moving to dedicated hosting when you get more traffic. Shared hosts do not let you use a lot of CPU resources, but that doesn't mean you couldn't at least start out on one and try it out.

4. I am not familiar with Piratebay's search, but there are literally thousands of PHP search scripts out there to use to get almost any end-result you want.

5. This is really a huge question with no simple answer. If you want to design your webpage yourself, you probably need to Google for some web design tutorials and go from there. Alternatively, you could download some templates and borrow the hand of an experienced web designer. Making good designs is no simple task. As far as placing the search engine, you could put it anywhere, but most sites place it in the upper-right of the page. It is a best practice since most users first look there.

6. "Server-side" means scripts (small programs) that stay on your web server. When server-side scripts are requested by the user, an engine on the web server runs the scripts, which output regular HTML web pages. Server-side scripts are how sites like Amazon are able to send you web pages that give you the details on millions of products. If a web designer had to actually sit down and write those millions of web pages by hand, it could never be done. Instead, every product page is the same server-side script, simply pulling up different information from the server, and creating the web page accordingly. Server-side scripts are never sent to the user, and therefore, with a bit of security mindfulness, can contain things that you do not want the user to know. For example, if you were making a game in PHP (a very popular server-side scripting language), it would be safe to have secret game logic formulas, the answers to mazes or quiz questions, and other secret things in the script.

"Client-side" scripts, on the other hand, are sent to the user to run in their browser. The most popular server-side scripting language in the world is Javascript. Javascript is used to add interactivity to a webpage. This can include changing the background color of a button when you mouse over it, opening up drop-down menus, all the way up to more complex things, such as querying the database as someone is typing in a search box to offer search suggestions (the way Google search does), or dynamically pulling up maps from the web server without reloading the page. The last two examples are actually examples of "AJAX", which is really just a technique to make Javascript, a client-side language, connect with PHP or another server-side language on the web server.

7. Well, if you want to make it all yourself, I would be lying if I didn't say you have a very long way to go. You would first need to learn HTML, then learn CSS, then learn how to make decent-looking websites, which takes a lot of practice. Then you would need to learn Javascript, which is the most complicated technology you would be working with to-date. Then you would need to learn PHP, which is also quite complicated. Then you would need to learn how to work with Flash to make the streaming video component. My suggestion would be to find pre-made components, such as a website template, Flash streaming video component, a pre-written forum application, and a torrent site application and just learn enough to merge them in to one and administer it.

Hope this helps! :)

[Mot]

Thank you very much. Hopefully I can get to grips with this now after your invaluable help. Thanks again jack.

[bbqroast]

1. I would recommend learning PHP, Mysql isn't a language but its needed(get phpMyAdmin to it makes it much easier to make and manage databases), HTML (and CSS) and Javascript will be needed.
2. I would recommend storing all the comment, tags, names,etc in a database along with the file name then have a code like this:

echo "<h2>$name<h2> <br>

<embed src='http://www.epicvids.com/videos/$filename'> WORK OUT THE REST";

EDIT: This is the better than storing in a mysql database as it makes it heavy slows down the speed at which the queries are run and will use much more CPU than just dragging them out of files.
3. You need a server, for a vid site i'd use my own server with a massive bandwidth instead of a hosting service.
4. Not sure sorry.
5. Learn how to use DIV and SPAN and lots of CSS it will be hard going, using your tag database you could make a search engine (google).
6. Forget it, your site will be 100% server side, PHP is all done behind senes (so people can't read ur code) and plain HTMl is sent to the client.
7. You could do it... I wanted to make one of these years ago...
HERES THE MAIN PROBLEM:
HOW ARE YOU GOIGN TO STORE HUNDREDS OF HEAVY VIDEOS AND DILIVER THEM.
any hosting service will have your account suspeneded for using to much bandwidth in a few days- so will ur ISP if ur using a server (time for a direct connection).
You should have two main tables:
USERDATA
ID | username | password | ... you'll need email and every thing to.
CLIPS
ID | authorID | discription | tags | filename | ...

It will grow big...