Probably a dumb question

What's the maximum time a machinima can run? Based on the server capacity/access based on bandwidth?

AKA complete and utter noob in this area!

Time wouldn't actually be the issue. I think you maybe confused here. SL dosen't host or stream any media onto your system, they are only broadcasting the url (http) address to your system, the client (window you see SL within) gives that information to the Operating System, which links to the internet and fetches is down for you to see it.

If you host your own media, then technically, you are only limited by the amount of hosting space (Hard Disc) you have available. However the equation doesn't stop there. There are 2 issues which effect bandwidth.
1) Size of the bandwidth used for the single stream.
2) Size of the bandwidth required to show the same media to lots of people at the same time (note I'm not refering to live broadcasts). This can be simply a lot of people watching the same movie, that are downloading that same file to see it at the same time.

Say a movie stream was running at 100kbps bandwidth, and 100 people wanted to watch it at the same time, the calculation would be around 100x100=10,000kbps or 9.76mb (mb=1024kb) bandwidth required. Thats a full 9.76mb bandwidth for the duration of the media (or download if cached).

A lot of live broadcasting media that use RSTP streaming, charge by the viewer that will concurrently be watching the stream, as this fits the bandwidth calculation.

Thats a basic analogy.

Hope thats the information you were after?

That all depends on the server being used to host and/or stream your video. Since you can compress, store, and then serve out dl'd video of practically unlimited sizes, then your bit of machinima could be as long as a present-day feature film presentation. And depending on the compression settings, that same feature-length machinima video could be streamed, as well.
Since quite a few folks rely on third-party servers to host and stream their video, they're limited by that service's terms (video must be in format x, file size limited to y, etc.)
Hope that helps...or at least furthers your obfuscation in a friendly fashion.

What they said. lol

Thanks guys, that does all help. Slight complication that the guy who was going to host the webserver (a colleague) has given notice and also given himself garden leave a la incommunicado ... the mind boggles but at least it isn't doing so having forked over any money.

So back to the drawing board but a little more equipped