In With the New Livestream

While at Streaming Media West last week, I checked out some new offerings from live streaming service providers Livestream and Ustream. This post focuses on Livesteam, I’ll cover new stuff from Ustream next.

Livestream has evolved considerably over the past few years. Originally called Mogulus, Livestream rebranded itself in 2009 to their current, more memorable name. Earlier this year, Livestream took another evolutionary step with the release of what it calls New Livestream. The big difference between old (or original) and new is focus has switched from the notion of “channel” pages to what they are calling “event” pages. Channel pages were akin to TV channels, in that a producer could broadcast any number of events over time to the same channel. Though one can create multiple channel pages, many producers would set up one channel and call it a day.

The New Livestream event page switches focus to a particular scheduled event. The idea being, each event has its own URL that lives on as an archive once an event concludes. Event pages are also much more dynamic than channel pages in that producers and viewers can post text, photos and video updates that flow down the page in a familiar timeline format. The primary event video, whether live or archived, always lives at the top.

Another excellent feature that you will find with New Livestream, is DVR functionality built right into the live player. If you look at the screencap above, notice the << DVR icon in the lower right corner. Clicking this allows the viewer to rewind to any point in a live broadcast. Missed the first 5 minutes of a keynote? No problem, just scrub the slider back 5 minutes and you’re watching it from the beginning before the talk has concluded.

Pricing has also changed with New Livestream. No longer is ad-free broadcasting based on the number of viewer hours. You can now use New Livestream totally free, without ads being inserted into your content and for unlimited amounts of time in HD. That’s a pretty sweet deal. Anyone who has ever watched any amount of streaming will know how annoying and irrelevant pre-roll and mid-roll video ads are.  The caveat with free is that your viewers are required to register with Livestream (also free) before watching. For $49/month they do away with that requirement, as well as give you unlimited archiving and Google Analytics integration. For $399/month, you can embed your event channel on your own site. That might seem steep, but it’s not out of line with what old Livestream used to cost for ad-free viewing with a 3000 viewer hour cap.  No viewership caps on the New Livestream.

The other nice thing about the New Livestream is seamless integration with their Livestream Broadcaster product. This iconic red camera-top device, created in partnership with Teradek,  allows a producer to encode and stream directly to their event page without the need of a computer. If you’re doing a single camera shoot with an HDMI compatible camera, this is a pretty sweet way to go. The Broadcaster can stream over ethernet, wifi or a single 4G cellular modem. Just select the bitrate profile you want from the menu UI and you’re ready to go.

The newest and probably coolest thing that Livestream has added to their aresenal, is the Livestream Studio HD500 production switcher. If you’ve ever used a Newtek TriCaster before, you’ll be familiar with what this box does. It’s essentially a portable, five SDI input, HD, digital switcher and encoder. It’s positioned to compete nicely with Newtek’s TriCaster 450. The HD500 hardware is your basic Intel i7 Quad Core processor based Windows 7 machine with a Blackmagic Design DeckLink Quad video capture card and LCD monitor integrated into a luggable design. It does most of what you’d expect from a Tricaster; transitions, DVR playback, stills, titles, lower thirds and assignable audio sources. The encoding and streaming piece is handled by Livestream’s integrated Procaster software, with support for multi-bitrate streams.

Max Haot, Livestream’s CEO, told me they’d be releasing a software only version of the HD500 in the first quarter of 2013. I asked Max what the impetus for this is and he answered that they wanted to get this into as many hands as possible. The software version will be free for use with Livestream and a paid unlocked version will also be available that can be used with any streaming provider or CDN.

Taking a cue from Apple, Livestream is clearly moving towards an ecosystem approach, owning each critical piece of the live streaming experience. At the same time, they don’t require that a producer use any of their software or hardware, but doing so can certainly eases the pain while maximizing the gain.

Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event – Liveblog Notes from Streaming Media West

I’ve been in LA for Streaming Media West the last couple of days, checking out what’s new in the world of live streaming. This morning’s panel session Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event was a good overview on what to think about when planning to live stream your event. Here’s my notes.

C201: ROUND TABLE: Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event

Moderator: Jon Orlin, Executive Producer, TechCrunch
Speaker: Alden Fertig, Product Manager, Broadcasting, Ustream
Speaker: Howard Kitto, Group CTO, PERFORM
Speaker: Adam Drescher, Partner, Suite Spot
Speaker: Jeff Varnell, EVP, Business Development, Livestream

Q: What did Ustream and Livestream do during Hurricane Sally?

Jeff V: We set up an event on Livestream. We combined user feeds. 2 million streams to all Sally content

Alden: Ustream combined national news feeds w/user feeds. Lots of viewers. Giants World Series post-win mayhem was interesting to watch.

Q: What are things you need to ask of clients before doing a planned event?

Adam: Find out what clients expectations are. Do they just care about numbers of tweets vs viewers? Location, location, location makes a big difference on what can be done.

Howard: What is the expected the production value? PERFORM does lots of downstream broadcasts of satellite feeds. Logistics as well.

Alden: Is this content that should be live vs on-demand? Is this the right event for live? Lots of aspects to live. Workflow, promotional structures need to be put in place.

Jon: Tuning into a 3-minute event probably isn’t best to do live. Just getting people to show up in time is hard.

Howard: Sports and news are best for live.

Jeff: What is the goal of the live stream? Pre-production is everything. Once live is there it has be to perfect. Only one shot to do it. Timing is important, need 2 to 4 weeks to plan things out right. Livestream has gone to event pages now, rather than channel pages. Allows us to extend campaign, mix in photos and updates.

Adam: Fashion industry also. Gucci saved money not having to fly in execs from Milan to NYC.

Q: How do you deal with producing a live event from a place with crappy Internet?

Alden: Ustream broadcasters age from home internet to fiber, satellite to dedicated bandwidth. Bundled cellular stuff is popular. It’s really good, we like it a like. We use LiveU. News and sports attract a lot of people so challenge can be that cellular networks are overloaded in those areas due to number of people present.

Jon: We’ve used bonded cellular solutions. Testing a week beforehand before people show up isn’t a good test. CES is an example.

Alden: We drove here from SF with a LiveU, didn’t lose our stream down the I-5 at all.

Adam: Test from the viewer locations is important. You don’t want customers congesting their own network while trying to watch the stream. You don’t want a surprise doing a live stream.

Howard: Old-school satellite is rock-solid, tried and true tech, works everywhere. Expensive.

Jeff: We all expect TV. Challenge is in the transmission business. 99% of importance is the encoding/uploading on the ground. Always recommend a dedicated connection on the ground.

Point-to-point internet, we can get that working in many places in the US. If budget allows, satellite. We use All Mobile Video. We are fiber-linked from the switch to our New York HQ as well.

Alden: Buy more time than you need for satellite. Recent example, Apple product announcement event went over time and got cut off right in middle of announcement. Was watching the feed and it switched immediately to bars and tones with satellite provisioning information slate.

Q: What bandwidth do you need typically?

Alden: Rule of thumb 2x what you want to stream. Really hard to say sometimes. Is it shared connection? ISPs throttle people. Might be 20Mbs all day then 400k for a few minutes.

Jeff: 2x is about right. We can do up to 4 bitrates in our player. Make sure you stream in lower-quality too.

Howard: 2-5Mbs is what we normally do.

Q: How do you make a webcast look like TV?

Adam: Work with professionals, people who have done this before. Work with broadcast directors, work with people who have broadcast industry experience. We’re working on a new climate reality project we are doing with Ustream. We have the director from the Red Bull Stratos event with us on that.

Cameras have gotten cheaper. Technology is out there that helps to make it look like a million bucks. Graphics is important, other content that can be cut in. Proper lighting, audio. Good graphics go along way.

Jeff: Most interesting is that people creating content exclusively for the web. Our Livestream Sessions in NYC – bands come in and do a live show with fans interacting with them. Kids today want to interact in real time.

Alden: It’s not TV. You have the luxury of extra time. You do want to turn on early so people can tune in and get ready. Don’t just put up a slate. Use video clips. Use a dynamic shot, maybe a wide shot of venue, slightly blurred.

Adam: Two-way conversations is key. People want to participate.

Jon: At our event, we have a GoPro to let people see behind the scenes.

Q: Sometimes the before is more important than the during?

Jeff: Live blogging element of Livestream platform lets fans socialize before event goes live. Can happen weeks before event. Add pix, videos, comments. Cool way to add content prior to event to build hype,fan interaction. Create highlights live to add VOD clips. After event, it’s all about analytics. All clients want that.

Howard: Our ultimate case study. Our live content goes our on betting sites prior to going live. People are betting prior which builds interest. Filipino Basketball is one of our biggest events. Tons of betting. Tennis as well.

Adam: Post-production is important. We did a 3-minute sizzle reel for Macy’s, over a million views.

Alden: Get VOD up as quick as possible. Right after is when it’s still hot, people still showing up.

Howard: Our stuff has to be up straight away. Adds logistical challenges.

JON: Let’s take some questions from the audience.

Audience Q: Do you use portable satellites?

Howard: We use almost exclusively. One camera + satellite.

Audience Q: What can we do before end around the player, with the player?

Alden: Social stream is big for us. Talent can request tweets.

Audience Q: What is your take on a simulated live event?

Howard: We do some of those. We will do a full match replay at a certain time broadcast as live.

Jeff: Our preference is always live content. Good social experience around a live event.

Audience Q: How do you deal with an event that went horribly wrong?

Jeff: Most common is Internet connection problems at the encoder. We had a concert where Internet was fine for 3 hours leading up. When it came to event time, it died.

Alden: We did an event with American Idol. Building lost power. Took a long time to get powered back up. Internet was down, but We had a LiveU cellular pack on-hand.

Howard: Lots of logistical things… audio track switching. Power failure, weather.

Jon: One user complaining might not be accurate. Validate that it isn’t just a single user problem.

Adam: Make sure a backup plan is in place. Backup plan with audio, video and Internet.

Audience Q: What about insurance for problems?

Adam: Buy production insurance. Find out what are they trying to insure against. Is it for the production or media side?