To run AVChat 3 you will need:
- Some hosting space,
- A media server or media server hosting (Red5 , FMS, Wowza)
- Your web site users need Flash Player 10
1. A website or some hosting space:
Some hosting space with PHP version 5.3 or newer(for the mobile version of the AVChat client added with build 2060) or ASP.NET support is needed. This is where the video chat software will be installed and most probably where your web site is already located.
2. A media server:
AVChat (and all flash video chat apps) needs a media server to transport data (audio, video and text chat) between the clients. There are 3 big media servers out there: Red5 (free open source), Wowza and AMS (from Adobe).
You have 2 big options:
- Shared media server hosting:
You'll have a separate shared media server hosting account that will only handle data (audio video chat) transfer between your users. You do not have to move your website.
influxis.com provides AMS hosting plans starting with $19.95/month ($16/month for a 1 year period). They have data centers all over the world and they also have dedicated servers with AMS and Wowza. You can also get 15% off with this discount code: MINUS15 :D.- uvault.com provides AMS hosting starting with $15/month ($10/month for a 1 year period).
- Your own media server:
You'll have your own VPS or dedicated server with root access to it on which you need to install a media server (we can do it for you).
You can install any media server you want but most choose Red5 because it is free. Wowza costs $995 but it also has daily and monthly plans, a free 30 days trial AND a free developers edition for 6 months. Adobe Media Server costs $4500 but Adobe have a free Starter edition that allows for up to 50 connections which si great for small websites.
Any VPS/dedicated server will do but we recommend:- OVH France - 5 dedicated servers designed to meet your needs starting with €9.99/month (datacenters in France)
- Cloud Hosting from leaseweb.com starting with €9/month (datacenters in Netherlands, Germany and U.S.)
- hostv.com provides VPS servers with 512Mb and Red5 pre installed starting with $19.99/month (datacenters in U.S.)
- rackspace.com offers cloud servers with 256Mb RAM starting with $11/month (NO STORAGE AND BANDWIDTH INCLUDED, datacenters in U.S., UK and Hong Kong)
There are a few more exotic options too like FMS on Amazon Web Services (starting at $300/month), Wowza on Amazon Ec2 (starting at $108/month) and Wowza has a whole range of editions you can use like a 5$/day or 55$/month leased licenses.
AVChat is compatible with
- Flash Media Server 2, 3, 3.5, 4 and 4.5 (Flash Media Streaming Server is not supported)
- Adobe Media Server 5 Starter, Professionall and Extended (Standard edition is not supported)
- Red5 0.8 and 1.0RC1
- Wowza 1.7.x to 3.5
3. End user requirements:
A modern Internet browser with Flash Player 11.1 or above installed. Nothing else! And it looks like at least 95% of the Internet users already have Flash Player 11 installed.
The need for Flash Player 11.1 starts with build 2330 of AVChat which adds H264 encoding support.
Here's a quick scheme showing how it all works out:
