What factors should be considered when serving large video files from a web server in PHP?

When serving large video files from a web server in PHP, factors to consider include server bandwidth, file size, server load, and user experience. To optimize performance, it is recommended to use streaming techniques, such as byte-range requests, to allow users to start playing the video before it is fully downloaded. 

<?php
$videoFilePath = '/path/to/video.mp4';

if (file_exists($videoFilePath)) {
    $fileSize = filesize($videoFilePath);
    $handle = fopen($videoFilePath, 'rb');

    header('Content-Type: video/mp4');
    header('Content-Length: ' . $fileSize);
    header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');

    if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'])) {
        $range = $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'];
        $range = str_replace('bytes=', '', $range);
        $range = explode('-', $range);
        $start = intval($range[0]);
        $end = $fileSize - 1;

        header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content');
        header('Content-Range: bytes ' . $start . '-' . $end . '/' . $fileSize);

        fseek($handle, $start);
    } else {
        $start = 0;
        $end = $fileSize - 1;
    }

    header('Content-Length: ' . ($end - $start + 1));

    while (!feof($handle) && connection_status() == 0) {
        echo fread($handle, 8192);
        ob_flush();
        flush();
    }

    fclose($handle);
} else {
    http_response_code(404);
    echo 'File not found.';
}
?>

Keywords

video files web server PHP streaming bandwidth

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