Technology Matters

Posts in category Streaming

Streaming Nation

Jan05
2012 Written by Mauldor

I want to take you back all the way to 2007, this is when the first sites started to come up which allowed anyone with a computer, webcam and a microphone the ability to have their very own TV show if you like. Back in them days, of course, we had no adverts and there was many people jumping on the bandwagon to start their very own show. If we look towards the tech shows of the time, two people were ahead of the game; this being Chris Pirillo & Leo Laporte. These people were no strangers to TV, they used to be on the USA show TechTV and many people strived to be like them, the same sort of show, the same graphics and even the same format. I wish to chart the rise and the fall of Tech Shows in general and look towards the future. READ MORE »

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Streaming Movies to Justin.TV via VLC

Dec19
2011 Written by Mauldor

Recently I tested streaming a movie to Justin.TV via wirecast and this worked very well indeed, the quality was as good as watching it local and it played without breaking up, lagging or anything like that. There is a few issues with using Wirecast though, the first is the fact it can only play certain file types (mostly MP4) and second, you have to babysit the process to swap movies. After some searching, I came across JTVLC - this can stream content from VLC which in turn can use a playlist.

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The Mentalist – Truth or Fake?

Sep06
2011 Written by Mauldor

I have seen my fair share of shows on the streaming side of life but when I came across a show going by the name of the Mentalist, this is when you have to wonder what it is all about. This person is from Ireland and his name is Tom Williams, his blurb claims he is also a psychic medium and one of his party tricks is to give you a ‘reading’ – he does private video sessions (£60 per day) – go figure. Let me tell you about the one night that I happen to catch him live on air.

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Justin.TV taking a few wrong turns?

Mar20
2011 Written by Mauldor

The Streaming site Justin.TV has made a few core changes “for the good of the end users” and this has caused some head scratching in my behalf as to why would they feel that these would be a “good” thing? The first thing they did is introduce a new player which now has a constant bar on the bottom.

This means when you embed the player, instead of been hidden away (the controls) until you need them – they are right in your face. My Guess is too many people had no idea where the volume control was and such on the old player. Next up we have splitting of Chat rooms – when it feels there is too many in one room, it puts you in room 2 and so forth. What this means is the mods will be in room 1 while people are going wild in room 2. I have not come across an IRC Server that has problems with 200+ people in and feels the need to split into more rooms, I have no idea what this achieves. Lastly then – the IOS Justin.TV player / broadcaster which used to be free is now $4.99 – wow is all I can say and I suspect nobody will buy this anytime soon.

I also heard (through the grapevine) that they are extending the channel bans for anyone playing music, a lot of people play music in the background and banning them will drive people away. They have to do this I guess for copyright issues.

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iPad as a Streaming Consumption Device

Feb13
2011 Written by Mauldor

One of my past times is to sit and watch various shows on both Justin.TV and Ustream. A person who goes by the name of Ron Knights (from the USA) went on about how he wanted an iPad as he could sit on his couch with the ipad and watch the streams instead of sitting in front of the computer all the time. I tried to explain that streaming was not up to much on the iPad due to the fact there is no adobe flash installed – so it is with this, I made this quick video.

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Wirecast V4 loses Serial

Dec12
2010 Written by Mauldor

Although I am not streaming a great deal, I do tinker from time to time with Wirecast, in case your not sure what Wirecast is or does – then head to there website for the full low-down. The last time this software broke was in Version 3 when Apple updated Quicktime and it just so happens that Quicktime recently had an update. I Started Wirecast today and was met with the Watermark, this only happens in the Demo Version by chance. I checked my Preferences and sure enough, there is no Serial listed:

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Streaming Sites suffer downtime

Nov29
2010 Written by Mauldor

First the issue started with Justin.TV and then later on visiting the Ustream main page – I got the above error. This leads me to believe that they may be swapping things around on the back end, introducing new features maybe? This is probably the first time I have come across the sites displaying this type of info and having actual downtime. Did this stop anybody from broadcasting? Did you notice the numbers much lower than normal? Did you get some warning of this before it happened?

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Stats do not tell the full story

Nov07
2010 Written by Mauldor

If you pop along to any show on Justin, they include some figures on the bottom of each show which shows you how many people are currently viewing the show (if live), how many people follow the show and finally how many ‘views’ that show has had. These figures are great but what confused me was how a show that had 35-50 people while live managed to have almost 1 million views yet another show that had well over 1000 people while live (and it was live for many hours) only just managed to break through the 1 Million viewer barrier while the first show I mentioned was now at 2 million – go figure right!

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Streaming HD Video

Aug28
2010 Written by Mauldor

As ISP’s provide faster bandwidth speeds, webcams get higher resolution and computers get faster and more core’s – it begs the question – can you now stream in full HD resolution to offer the best video possible as well do it on a free service? I recently watched what was claimed to be full blown HD Stream but after making this full screen and seeing ‘jaggies’ on the diagonal lines (such as the nose for example) – I questioned if this was really HD and what was at fault.

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Ustream vs. Justin.tv

Jun20
2010 Written by Mauldor

I thought I would revisit the age old Ustream.TV vs. Justin.TV debate and look at how they have changed, problems encountered and write something from the end-users point of view – after all without people visiting and interacting with the chat, you might as well be talking to yourself. The quick background is that these sites along with others allow anyone with a webcam and a microphone to stream a live show, anything from pointing the webcam at some kittens to a full blow show with lower 3rds and transitions.

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