Video Streaming Services - Status and Survey

[Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Hi everyone,

those video streaming things have been the #1 cool thing for me in 2009, 
and I continue to do a bi-weekly performance series (first official 
session this Saturday) and have done daily ones this past week since 
Sunday. Also, Rick's festival has been transmitted nearly in full (and 
archived online), so there's even a looping relationship here...on to 
some findings and a call for your inputs to these topics.

My own experience:
I have worked with three services in total: ustream.tv, justin.tv and 
livestream.com. At least livestream also has a "premium" version with a 
hefty price tag, but all of those offer "free" (meaning ad-financed, no 
charges for viewer or presenter) accounts.

What they have in common:
They're free, allow you to record your shows and make them available for 
posterity, and allow embedded players to be placed e.g. on your website 
and viewing them does not require registration for the viewer. All of 
them allow you to transmit via a browser-based flash plugin or with the 
free Adobe FME software.

The lowdown on all three of them:
a) ustream:
This is the one where I started, and where I have the most experience with.
Nice:
*   the system of announcing your own shows, following other people etc. 
seems laid out fine. There also seems to be a large viewer crowd.
*   there are some basic editing functions for your archived videos 
which are, as I might say, sufficient.
Not nice:
*   they have a service which allows cueing in other performers (called 
"co-hosting"), drop in clips form youtube etc. Unfortunately, the last 
time I checked (at the VSV festival in October), these functions were 
flawed or didn't work at all.
*   even when using the FME encoder, you still need to run the web 
browser plugin, which can be an issue for older computers (and "older" 
here means anything with a passmark below 900).

b) justin:
Nice:
*   This is the simplest of the three. Set up your account, download the 
xml file for the FME, fire up the FME.
Not nice:
*   Well...doesn't offer that many nifty features as the others do.

c) livestream:
This seems to be the most powerful one of the three in terms of features.
Nice:
*   A nifty wealth of features, including some configurable banners at 
the start of the video etc. There's the so-called "studio", which allows 
you to also upload videos, create an on-demand playlist, define 
storyboards for a live (or archived show), cue in other performers etc.
Not Nice:
*   There are some limitations to the free accounts. First one is you 
need to get your channel certified to be allowed to transmit to more 
than 40 viewers. This is not a big issue, as it's just filling out a 
form and waiting for a day or so.
*   More limitations for free accounts: the biggest is that you are 
limited to a 500kbps stream bandwidth and 4:3 aspect ratio.


Ok, now it's your turn. More observations to add? Other services which 
do something like that? Comments? Questions?


Yours,

             Rainer

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