[Web Development / Database Help needed.]

Your best bet is going to be PHP/MySQL. ASP.net is an option but it limits your hosting a lot more, and many hosts charge am premium for ASP.net. You'll also find fewer ASP.net developers than you will PHP.

As for the actual system, it's fairly straightforward to code. It's mostly just busy work... there's nothing radical or difficult about it. How much you end up paying for such a project would depend on the coder you go with, and how much polish you need in the code (admin systems, etc)

I use a flash streaming script on http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/ and it works just fine. Very easy to implement. However a large quantity of people streaming those 100+mb files WILL be taxing on a server, so you should factor that in and either relegate the files to a separate server, or serve them with something lightweight like lighttpd.

tl;dr version: Yes, it's doable. It's a fairly decent amount of code though.

Thanks for the advice. Do you think you could give me a quote on how much you think something like this would cost?

[Web Development / Database Help needed.]

lol, thanks for replying kyle.

As far as my web host, I don't know alot, but I know that it's a linux server, I have unlimited space, and unlimited bandwidth.

Currently I already have an archive player that plays these podcasts from a playlist (read from an xml file), but the player is in flash, and a real pain to update. Users seem to be able to handle streaming these files perfectly fine. They are mp3's at 128/160/192 kbps (mostly 128), but they can be as long as 3-4 hours, so that why they can be very large, but still streamable.

As far as MYSQL, PHP, Rails, and ASP.NET is concerned, I literally have 0 knowledge. I know that my server had MYSQL on it for a previously cancelled forum I had on there, but again, I don't know a thing about it.

[Web Development / Database Help needed.]

I want to build a website where a small number of users (30-40 at the most) can have the following abilities and functionalities:

1) User login (obviously) (no register option, explained below)

2) User Page with:

- A short profile section (very minimum, maybe a picture, a short bio)

- Blog (updated either through an rss feed from somewhere else or updated through user posts)

- Audio Archive & Player (explained below)

3) Archive Database

- Users upload large (100-200 MB) mp3's via a site uploader

- Site Uploader includes text fields to add additional information (which may or may not be automatically filled in from the user's profile information) regarding the associated mp3 (basically extra metadata)

- Uploaded mp3's become available in that user's archive player, which is basically an mp3 web player

4) User Page can be viewable by non-users (site visitors), but non-users cannot upload mp3's or sign-up for an account. Accounts are given/created individually by the administrator.

There are a few other features that I'd like to have, but they are secondary to these very important features. I have very little experience with databases. I attempted to learn a few years ago, but became too complex for me. I know this is beyond my skill set currently, so I need help on where to look for answers.

I'd like to know your advice on whether or not this is possible, the best course of action I should take in order to make this a reality, and if this MUST be a custom job, how much you think it would cost. Regarding design, and the rest of website, I can do that, I would just need help with the database, and some of the functionality of the user uploading.

I'm just looking for advice on how to proceed right now. Thanks.