Regular viewers of Tech shows may have noticed a shift from Ustream.tv to Justin.TV and it may even have crossed a few people minds as to “Why” this has happened, does Justin offer more and will you get more viewers? I will attempt to answer some of these questions and show you what each has to offer and which you should use..
Ustream
The first hurdle is the bitrate you can set – as far as I am aware ustream do not seem to say they have one which means if you have 5mbps upload, then you can push the boat out and get a really good quality stream. By Comparison – Livestream limit you to 500kbps for free users (combined Audio and video).
Next up is recording, here we can set it to record and it comes out as one session, no breaking up into lots of little bits (like justin). You need to use the broadcaster to start a recording which means if your using FME or Wirecast then no automatic broadcast mode.
Finally – IRC Server are normal type allowing much easier management of the room such as banning people and the like. You can use any IRC Client to log in and chat away which I feel is essential for this sort of thing, allow you to run a client in a separate computer and joining many rooms at one.
What is the problem then?
The problem with tech shows is you will not get many people in the room, even the more successful shows only managed 60+ on a good day and they favour (been a business and all) people such as 50 cent’s, Snoop Dog and anyone else that is famous in fact. The last point makes sense – is a tech show talking about Windows 7 (for the 100th time) going to attract the people to Ustream or 50 Cents tlaking about his new album?
Justin.TV
While Justin share’s many things with Ustream, they do a few things which are different and the main points which come to mind are recording are broken down into segments which is annoying to watch. They do have a rather nice Archive system were they store the last 24 hours of broadcasting so anybody can re-watch a show they have missed – this ONLY works if the show broadcast now and then, any 24/7 stream is pointless for this system. The other aspect of this Archive system is there is no clear method to see what time it started, how long it ran for and to pick a point in time.
As there is a lot less tech shows as a whole and the eagerness of Justin to feature shows on the front page means people can get more viewers – this is not to say just because you have 2000 people on the count there is actually 2000 people sitting there watching your stream. As an example of this – if a show is featured on the front page and I pop along – I might sit for 5-10 minutes (and jump back and forth) looking for a show which means I count as a viewer but at no point did I actually look at what is been put on there.
One last point is the chat window – this is an IRC server but nothing like you have seen before, you need to be added to the white list to connect and even then there is not one single irc server. If you ban a person from your chat, that person can create another account and get right back in, no need to even change there IP.
Which is best?
There is not a clear winner, I personally like a real IRC server every single time and the chat on Justin is a joke but I also like the idea of been able to catch up on show’s. I happen to know also that Ustream were having a lot of issues which drove people away to Justin along with Ustream ignoring the people who got them started and instead wanting the big stars which could prove to be the downfall.
