WS.WebTV Professional Video CMS: Hosting Requirements (PHP, MySQL, FFmpeg, etc.) | Web TV, Video Portal | WebTV Solutions

Hosting Requirements and References

Don't understand technical aspects about hostings/servers?
... No problem, we can help you.

Although below you'll find the full list of technical requirements for hosting WS.WebTV, if you don't understand these kind of technical aspects, we can help you choosing a hosting plan.

Do you understand technical aspects?
... Here are the requirements for installing WS.WebTV in your server + list of tried hosting plans

Any shared hosting, VPS or dedicated server with the following features:

• Active Web server (1) (accessible from a Web browser).
• PHP version 5.6 or greater - PHP 7 or greater recommended - (with "mysqli", "gd" and "xml" extensions enabled - these extensions are normally enabled on most servers).
NOTE: WS.WebTV supports PHP 7.4, 8, 8.1 and 8.2.
• MySQL version: 5 or greater - MySQL 5.6.4 or greater ... or ... MariaDB 10.0.5 or greater recommended -, with InnoDB storage engine enabled.
• Varnish incompatibility: Since WS.WebTV relies on PHP sessions, it won't work fine if Varnish is enabled in your server.
• We do not recommend installing WS.WebTV on Windows hostings/servers based on IIS (Internet Information Services).

Additionally, your server must:
• Allow you to modify the following PHP settings (normally, from .user.ini, php.ini or .htaccess file), according to your needs:
    max_execution_time
    max_input_time
    upload_max_size
    post_max_size
• Have enabled/properly configured the E-Mail sending functionality of PHP or, instead, allow the E-Mail sending through SMTP.
• Have the PHP Multibyte String functions (mbstring) enabled for full UTF-8 support (these are normally enabled by default on most hosting).
• Have the PHP cURL functions enabled. This is required for several functions like uploading videos or images to AWS S3 (4), use the PayPal integration of the "Store" extension, launch asynchronous processes, etc.

Other feature-specific requirements:
• Apache mod_rewrite (.htaccess editing required) for advanced friendly URL support (standard friendly URLs are supported without any special requirement). Please note that we only provide rewrite rules for Apache based servers.
• The PHP OpenSSL extension (with AES-256-CBC cipher) is required for data encryption and for using the Amazon CloudFront signed URLs with the StreamClip extension.
• The PHP Exif functions are required by certain image-related features (like detecting image orientation, etc.).
• The PHP FTP functions are required if you want the WebTV to upload the video or image files to an extrenal server, by using FTP (4).
• The PHP option "allow_url_fopen" must be enabled in order for the WebTV to access remote files; for example, to download images from YouTube or Vimeo when using a specific feature of the "EmbedClip" extension.

Optional - Specific requirements for video compression:
These requirements only apply if you want to use the auto-encoding functionality.
• The PHP function "shell_exec" must be enabled.
• FFmpeg 1.2 or higher with:
    » H.264 Video compression library: libx264.
    » AAC audio compression library; any of the following: libfaac, lifaad, libvo_aacenc, libfdk_aac, aac (internal AAC encoder included in recent versions of FFmpeg) or similar.
Note, regarding FFmpeg support: WS.WebTV includes general purpose compression profiles. We will not offer technical support for anything related with the adjustment of the compression profiles. The client will have access to the profiles and will be able to adjust them according to its needs and by checking the FFmpeg online documentation.

Generally speaking: Regarding servers with Linux + Plesk Obsidian/Onyx or cPanel&WHM 64+
For your reference, and to make it easier for you to find a hosting plan, it is worth mentioning that a "Cloud", "VPS" or "Dedicated" server with Linux 64-bit operating system (like "Alma"), and a control panel like "Plesk Obsidian/Onyx" or "cPanel&WHM" version 64+ (with PHP-FPM and EasyApache 4) should should allow you to meet all minimum requirements in order to use all WS.WebTV features. Anyway, if your server meets the requirements detailed above then those control panels are not required, but we wanted to include this highlight due to the popularity of the aforementioned server configurations.

For more info, check out the installation tutorial.

References: List of tried hosting plans

Below you will find a list of hosting services where WS.WebTV has been installed (by us and by our clients) (2).

Testing methodology:
In order for us to include a service/plan as "OK" in the followinf list we:
- Install WS.WebTV following the standard procedure.
- Use the diagnostics tool to check if all PHP basic settings and extensions are OK.
- Try creating a Standard Clip and uploading a 794MB video file (it must succeed).
- If FFmpeg is available in the server, or if we succeeded in installing it, then we try creating an Auto-Encoding Clip and processing it (it must succeed). If the previous test fails, the service/plan may still be "OK" but the FFmpeg column will display "No". If the test succeeds, the "FFmpeg" column will display "Yes".

Featured hosting services/plans

Disclaimer: The following references have been "featured" because they have worked fine with WS.WebTV. Additionally, we may be enrolled in a referral/affiliation/exchange program with the corresponding company. In the case of been enrolled in an affiliate program, we may earn a sales commission from them. Note that, other than the previous, WebTV Solutions is not related in any other way with hosting companies and the service selection decision is totally up to you.

Other hosting services/plans

Legend
(1) The Web server must be associated with a domain name. WS.WebTV Professional won't work in "localhost".
(2) The table is supplied as a reference. The list is parcial and not exclusive, as we have only be able to try/install our solution on a limited number of providers; additionally, most of the table information was provided by clients. Current technical conditions of the hosting services may have changed to date (to better or worst). There can be additional limitations that have not been reported so far. We do not guarantee that the supplied information is free from errors.
(3) Manual file upload workaround available for uploading bigger files.
(4) This is only applicable for WS.WebTV Professional.
(5) The server did not have FFmpeg installed. Although the previous, normally, FFmpeg can be installed in any dedicated server and most VPS. Check with the hosting company.
(6) It was possible to successfully install FFmpeg (static build) in the server.

General considerations regarding hosting

As a general rule, you get what you pay for. Cheap shared hosting plans, normally, will impose greater restritions and limits than VPS and dedicated ones; also, it is very unlikely that the speed of a shared hosting plan could match the speed of a VPS or dedicated one.
Depending on your expectations regarding number of visitors and traffic, it is very important to choose a hosting solution that best suits your needs (Shared / VPS / Dedicated or, even, CDN in combination with any of the previous ones).
VPS = Virtual Private Server. A halfway hosting solution between shared and dedicated server.
CDN = Content Delivery Network.