Live video online streaming services.

[Omar]

Hi everyone!  I was wondering if anyone here has used any companies for live video online streaming of events.  Our college is interested in live steaming our commencement ceremony and we are looking for companies that provide this service.  I would appreciate any recommendations.  Thanks!

[Erik Hagen]

We've been using Watershed (Ustream premium) since September for special events and sports games. Overall, it works, but in my experience the image quality isn't great and there are no controls to adjust it. We use Adobe Live Media Encoder at high quality settings, but Watershed still seems to really compress it. I also find the support and documentation really lacking. It's hard to get a hold of someone for help. That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but for simple setups it works decently.

 

I'm also interested in looking at other vendors. Edgecast looks interesting. They claim to support iPhone, iPad and Andoid, which I would love to do, but I have no idea what they cost. http://www.edgecast.com/services/streaming/#features_tab

[Omar]

Thanks!  I contacted Edgecast and they are helping me get in touch with a local vendor to produce the whole thing.

[Erik Hagen]

Just curious, were you able to find someone?

[sethodell]

Not intending for this to be pitchy (@Markgr, please delete if it comes off as it) but I actually provide colleges and universities with live stream training. Should you ever be interested in getting someone from your team up to speed on how to do it I'm happy to help. Vendor solutions definitely make sense for big events like commencement, but generally speaking you're going to get charged an arm and a leg for something you can handle in house. I've seen vendors charge upwards of $25,000 for a two hour live stream. Crazyness.

[Erik Hagen]

We went with Watershed because we don't have the bandwidth or human resources to manage it in house. What sort of platforms are you familiar with? Aside from Flash server, Wowza has piqued my interest. I've thought about looking into getting an Amazon cloud account and running Wowza there. It supports iPad/iPhone which, among many others, is one reason I want to move away from Watershed.

[Ken Zirkel]

Brown just signed up with Edgecast. We'll be live streaming commencement this year. We're actually running a test today, please check it out if you have a few minutes:

 

http://brown.edu/vidtest

 

We also purchased a piece of hardware called a "Tricaster", which to my understanding allows you to do broadcast quality effects.

[Erik Hagen]

Wow, very cool, this is the exact setup I'm looking into. Works great on desktop, iPad and iPhone. What is Edgecast's pricing like? Do they have monthly plans, or is it based on viewer hours/bandwidth used?

I see your HTML5 stream playlist is hosted on your domain, but is the video feed running through Edgecast as well, or are you serving it directly from the Tricaster? Lastly, what Tricaster model did you get? Thanks!

We just had Commencement this past Saturday, and I'm determined to find a better streaming service for net year.

[Tadge OBrien]

I am not sure if it will do it but if you have seen Kaltura http://www.kaltura.org/ it is pretty amazing. I believe this is the route to get it so you can do live streaming. http://www.kaltura.org/kaltura-ce-v30-red5-integration-guide