The streaming service that is Justin.TV has made some changes since I wrote my review and as they are quite good features over the rival service of Ustream, I thought I would write a quick update on what to expect.
Longer Recordings
One of the problems before was when you made a recording, it broke it up into 15 Minute segments, this meant that you had clips such as Tech News 1 of 7, Tech News 2 of 7 and so forth. Now they break it up to 2 Hours long which is better then it was.
Watch Later
While strictly not a new feature, while watching a live show, if you need to leave but want to carry on watching the show were you left off, the end user can click the button and they get a link which they can save and watch the show from that point in time much later (I think it stores it for 7 days).
Last Show
Justin.TV now automatically store the last 24 hours worth of each show so that anybody can re-watch this show without worrying about if the host made a recording. If for example you did a 4 hour show 6 days a week, then the full week will be on offer. If you do a 24 hour stream then this will be of no use to you or your viewers (they will probably only get to watch an empty chair anyhow).
Making Recording’s
While the web broadcaster still has the record feature to record in the old fashioned way, this is not there when you use FME or Wirecast and you may wonder how to make recordings? Well the answer lies in Making a Clip instead. What this means is let us imagine you just completed a 4 hour show and in that said show you talked about Windows 7, Google Wave, Wirecast along with general news and banter. You could use the clip feature to find the correct segment for each part and create a clip just from them while missing out all the boring chatter and news (as they will get old).
Note: Ignore the 15 minutes thing written above – this was the old system.
Copyrighted Content
They have signed a deal with Fox Network (and others) to run a system where they scan the recorded clips and any copyrighted material found (say you re-broadcast The Simpsons) is met with your account and channel getting deleted. While this sounds harsh – they have to protect there own backs over copyright material.
The perfect system?
Justin.TV has almost as many shows online live as Ustream and offers pretty much the same stuff but there is one stumbling block as far as I can see and that we shall say is the Chat. They run a “Twisted IRC” Server which is unlike the normal IRC type servers., You have to be on a WhiteList to connect via IRC and go through hoops to find the server address (you type /SERVER in your room) and even then you cannot jump around rooms.
You could for example disable the chat and tell people to go to a Live page which can them embed a decent irc server on there (Such as WyldRyde). The problem with this method is people do not like to jump to a dedicated page if they are just looking around, it is like looking in a shop window only to be told the entrance is located in a different street.
Ustream has a feature were I can follow people and then watch via my dashboard and they have a half decent irc chat while Justin provide the above. The system listed here would be perfect for me to watch the USA based shows as they are all on too late for me and it may even save people having to play the same crap over the over.
