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.

Ustream.TV

The first thing your going to notice if your not using an AdBlocker is the large number of adverts all over the place, both on the page itself and inside the video. The adverts come in and last for 30 seconds, this is even before you get to see the content on offer. They have a chosen streamer on the front page, this used to be the little guys before but now it features the larger stars. Along the top we have the sections but this is not all of the sections, you will not see ‘Tech’ Listed on there – for this we need to look at ‘All Live’ and drill down to the correct section.

A Look down the Tech Section will normally not bring you anything computer related as such but should you find a show you want to see – this is were it started to fall apart. You can be logged in but as soon as you type, the chat tell’s you that you need to log in and provides a login box. With some luck, you may get around to actually typing something but even though Ustream provide a IRC Server (of sorts) – most Tech people seem to have there own IRC Server and for you to venture off onto this new site of you want to chat. Before I go on about a separate IRC Server, there is more bugs – the chat does not scroll as people type (sometimes it does) and this is very annoying indeed having to keep scrolling down to see what is been said.

My Feeling on this IRC Server thing is of course two fold, I can fire up an IRC Client and chat away with the video listed (even on a separate computer) but I would only do this if I knew the person already. What I suspect will happen is people will stay on the Ustream page and not chat but just watch until they get bored (will not take long) thus you have now lost some visitors.

The other aspect of Ustream is the person streaming has to press record to save the show for later viewing but most do not it seems and unless you are there at the time, there is no way to go back over what is been watched or to watch later in the case of people with different time zones. If you do not feel part of the cast, you probably will not come back.

Justin.TV

This is much like Ustream, adverts coming at you thick and fast – the most annoying is the one played inside the video and a lot of times it will display an advert over the lower 3rds and even worse, a full screen popout for Poker, advised you go in with Firefox and adblock to get a better experience (Chrome and adblock does not block them it seems).

The Video part offers all of the controls inside the video so when you mouse over, you can mute, full screen and so forth. The chat for most part works, its not great but it scrolls down and if you are logged in, it works. They do run a sort of IRC server but make it next to impossible to connect to (White lists and such). Once again we see a lot of people diverting the chat to an IRC Server of choice – this means leaving the site of course.

The best feature though is the ability for the last 24 hours worth of broadcast to be automatically recorded – this means as long as the producer does not disable this feature – you can catch up with the last few shows. What is even better with this method is I can skip through a 2 hour show with great speed once it has buffered up. This feature alone is what I feel is good about Justin and I get to watch a lot of shows from people on a much different time zone and keep up with what they have been doing.

Thoughts

As a viewer to shows, if the show is on too late for UK people such as a show starting at 8:30pm EST – then the chance of me tuning in even on a Saturday is slim to none. If there is a way for me to catch up easily (such as Justin recorded feature) then I will probably keep up to date with what that show is doing but if they only record the odd segment or none at all – I will probably never get to see this show ever. To give a analogy, imagine a TV Show you heard about was on TV at 2am, unless you really wanted to see this you would neither stay up for this or set something up to record that show but had you the chance to ‘catch up tv’ and watch the show at your convenience, you may love that show and stay up late for the next one and so forth.

Should the die hard Ustream people stick with there choice and the low numbers or jump ship (like the rest) and come to Justin? If somebody keeps visiting your streaming page even on a recorded segment (and NOT Streamed over and over like many do) – they will learn of your website and you shall have more followers.

TV in the old days

In the UK we had a choice of 3 channels over the air broadcast which consisted of BBC1, BBC2, ITV – they introduced Channel 4 in 1982 and Channel 5 in 1997. In reality then, we had two main channels to watch – BBC 1 and ITV. TV’s back then had 4 buttons you pushed in and made a definite ’clunk’ – the extra 5th channel presented a problem but soon TV’s got upgraded and this did not matter.

If someone had showed me Live streaming back then and told me it was the future, then I would have agreed with them 100% as there was little else to watch in them days. The problem of course was back them computers were low powered, the internet was too young and speeds were just not there.

TV comes of age

We have a choice of Satellite and cable boxes (I have both) and with these comes a choice of many channels catering for ever need such as cookery programs, DIY, movies and so forth. On top of this we have Big Screen TV’s with good sound and combine this with the relaxing of sitting on a sofa without have to press any buttons or type into a chat room – great.

Streaming – can it replace TV?

On the TV, I grab the remote and either pull up a TV listing or surf the channels on offer and normally, most of the time, I can find something interesting to watch. The ease and speed of doing this operation far outstrips what you have to do a computer. If we were to compare let us say Justin.TV – I look in the ‘Tech’ Section and low and behold all the channels presented there are on full repeat mode, I can compare this in a way to Catch up TV but without the ability to Fast Forward and such. These people are clearly only after numbers – like some sort of game to see who can have the most watching them or something.

Entertainment section is mostly people re-broadcasting South Park, Simpson’s and so forth, If this is what I wanted to watch, I would find a better way and a better quality then watching a low resolution broadcast. Social is mostly people sitting in there house with a webcam pointing at them – sort of like watching Big Brother then.

Where Streaming falls over

Most if not all the streams seem to originate from USA, this means they are going to be broadcasting at a time that is too late for me in the UK. While I love chatting with people about all things Technical, some hands on stuff would be great. I would like to compare a UK based Tech show (Gadget Show) to a Tech Based Streaming show.

…….Gadget TV Show……

They cover the Tech news, most of this I already know of, they demonstrate some new gadgets and they also do a hands on test of a range of items (Such as Rugged camera’s for example) and rate them. They of course have a full production team, a budget to buy these items or they are big enough to get the items for test from the makers, they have a full camera team, a team of people to push the buttons, proper equipment and are trained presenters.

…….Live Tech Stream…..

They normally go through the tech news they found on various websites and move on to talking about a subject which somehow always end off been about Apple and the people they have on as guests do not always have the full background to warrant there views – such as never owning an Android yet happy to say it is worse then the iphone. It then goes into questions or topics from the chat room and finally ends after 2 hours – this is when they now Loop what they just did for the rest of the day.

The difference there is the Streaming is done via a webcam, this cannot compare to full blown TV camera’s and even if you could get the quality – the upload is never enough for such ventures. There is no production crew, people to press buttons, no outside broadcasts and so forth. I agree it not a fair comparison but this is the sort of thing you have to compare if you are to say Streaming is replacing TV.

What about the people who don’t watch TV?

There is a number of people who do no more than sit in front of there computer day after day and never watch broadcast TV in the normal form, preferring to instead use the computer as a means to get this content. I can only assume more USA people work from home or something as most people I know seem to go out to work on a daily basis and have no real need to sit in front of a computer for the rest of the night.

Bottom Line

I think streaming shows has a long way to come before they are more mainstream, no amount of creating one place for a set of shows will make me think otherwise unless they remove the need for the streaming sites (such as Justin.tv).

I thought I would write a few words on live streaming shows, how it effects me (and most European people) and time zones. I was thinking back when I used to spend most of my time on Ustream as the site of choice to catch the latest person streaming a show from there web-cam and even stay up late so I could feature on these very shows, armed with IRC Client of choice and be part of a community of Tech minded people from all over the world, mostly USA based though. Of course time changes everything and some things have to fall by the way side, this is my update if you like on how it interacts with my life now.

Ustream

I noticed a full shift from people wanting to stream on Ustream to now wanting to go via Justin.TV Instead. Using only the web based side of Ustream has its own share of issues – the main one been the chat does NOT scroll on its own and this makes talking hard, the solution is to use an IRC Client instead to chat with as Ustream at least support a fairly normal IRC Server. The other aspect at least for me is that if I click back on the browser (Firefox) – nothing happens, this is because the list is filled with the current page – a bug for sure.  As a Broadcaster – you have to use there recording interface to Record the show and if you started say a ‘Tech’ Show – you will be swamped by the number of people in that section broadcasting nothing much, your viewer count will be low, Guaranteed.

Justin.TV

So why is every has people jumped ship to this medium? One of the reasons is the ‘Tech’ Section is quite small with current live broadcasters but once more people start to broadcast “re-runs” – Expect this section to be the same as Ustream. There is some good shows for Tech but they are not actually listed in the Tech section at all, very strange but as they only allow you one choice, this is what happens. The chat on the page flows with the chatter unlike UStream but it is very hard to control the spammers and trolls, to this end a lot have chosen to ditch this form of chat and instead run there own IRC Server.

Time Zones

I am based in the UK and this means that EST (New York and so forth) is -5 hours behind me, a show starting at 8PM over there means I would have to stay up till 1AM and given a show might last a couple of hours, I would not get to bed until 3am. As we move across the USA Landscape, the time difference only gets worse. The west coast is -8 hours behind me – even if they started the show at 6pm, this is still 2am though most of them like to start a show at 8pm.

Why should it matter about these so called ‘Time Zones’ at all though? Well I personally do not know of any decent, frequent UK based Live show that I can visit on a regular basis and as I work Mon-Fri, any of this “Staying up late” is just not an option. What if I started my own show? well the same happens, all the USA people are either asleep or at work, so same problem really – a show with no audience.

The way forward from here

Let me list some shows I used to watch and how now that list is very small indeed:

The Tech Buzz – They have 3 shows a week, Tuesday is both Late (10pm UK Time) and all about Apple. Thu/Fri is more fitting at 6pm my time but they run there own IRC Server which to this day I refuse to ever join. I am banned from the Justin.TV page, so I get none of the chat. Of late this is starting to grow a bit boring and the adverts seem to be increasing (I HATE Adverts period) – I have a feeling I will soon drop this show from my lists.

The Tech In All Things – Fletch has a great show and I used to enjoy watching this guy but he works and I work, he is -8 hours away, the bottom line is neither the two shall meet. He broadcasts on Ustream and I suggest if you are in his time zone – go check him out.

Compute-Ability – They broadcast a show every Saturday 8:30PM EST (though of late these Saturday Shows have failed and moved to Sunday), I have lost track of the last time I seen this show live!

The Computer Store – Based on the East Coast USA, this is not so much a tech channel but more of a fun place to be. Shot inside the computer shop with the owner named Anthony, this also fits in with my time zone nicely. I spend most of my time on this channel these days.

Ron Knights – Has a show 8pm EST Friday and 3pm EST Saturday and for a while I watched this guy but the interest only lasted so long and now I am happy to let this show slip (if he still broadcasts that is).

Slow start  -  my own show

I have started to broadcast randomly at first with gaming while playing music via iTunes, I Tweet out when I am live though I am sure Games and my music will not be of interest to most. I want to produce a tech based show but as of yet, not got there – Sorry.

Your Views

I would like to hear from the other side of the fence, are you happy with the shows out at the moment? Do you feel Ustream has gone more commercial and is Justin.TV the answer? Would you like to see more shows and do you think the buzz of streaming yourself on a web cam has in fact worn off?

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.

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.

Regular viewers of UStream.TV may have noticed yet more changes under the hood that effects how people find shows. I thought I would show how it had changed and my thoughts on this very move.

Previously….

We started with a flash strip of live shows and the only way to find people was to go through this strip and see if any of the show names or picture’s matched what you wanted to watch. This eventually evolved through various things till we arrived at people been able to put themselves into a section (such as technology) and people been able to drill down to the type of Live shows they wanted.

The good thing about this method was that shows which you may have missed in the past now show up in that section, there was still no policing of the sections though and you would find a church broadcast inside technology.

Out with the old, in with the new.

 I have taken a screenshot of the page and will describe how it works:

No more bar along the top with Technology and other types but now a drop down, which sorts ALL the shows ever created, so instead of seeing 4 pages with Technology for example, you now see there is 11 plus. The next drop down can further drill into the group, so in this example we have gone to Computers and the number of shows change but still many pages and finally the sort method, in this instance we have chosen Most Viewers.

As you look down the list, it will get to the point were the shows listed are not live and this night not make any sense at first but this is similar to LiveStream for example were as people pop into your show, it racks up the numbers so even a show that is not online all the time gets moved up the ratings.

Will it change anything?

The question is, will more people find the show they need, your show if you went live or totally miss you? Most people will not have any idea about how the above works and the to listed shows will continue to get numbers while the little guys will sit there with a brilliant show but sub 10 people watching.

How can it be made better?

The first thing that needs to happen is better policing of shows and sections, more tools for the end user to flag a wrong section for example. The next thing is to maybe have a rule that says if the show is not in the live castings section and they broadcast 24/7 (Repeats) – they get moved. Lastly, Offline shows needs not to be listed unless searched for, give the little guys a chance basically.  

What does this software do?

The program allows the input of Webcam’s, FireWire CamCorder and via means of a internal  card, HD Camcorders which operate on HDMI for example. The other aspect of this is to set up shots with transitions as well as placement of Titles, Logo’s and Audio tracks as required. Using the extra download from the site, you can run “Desktop Presenter” on any machine on your network (both Windows & Mac) and bring the entire desktop or part of the desktop into the shot along side your webcam etc.

Normal Shot – Composing

When you add a new shot (by clicking the + Sign) you are presented with the above screenshot. The tiles can be broken up to include up to 3 parts (A + B + C). Each of these parts can be a Webcam, a Desktop Presenter or an Image with the ability via the CTRL or ALT Keys to control the size and angle of each shot – this allows as per the screenshot to put a webcam image inside a virtual TV set. The Title layer can embed a Title on top of the shot (names for example). Foreground can be used for a Logo image, Background to go behind all the shots and Audio if required.

Pre-Planning your shots

Although the software can be re-adjusted very easily on the fly, the goal is to work out what shots you require before hand. Set them all up as best as possible and once you go into production, have them on hand to quickly switch to various views. Unlike WebCamMax or CamTwist – saving your shots saves a lot of time later.

The other Tabs

As you see on the main screen – it also has Audio, Foreground, Background and Title. Seem strange for these to repeat outside of each shot? Well the answer is no, as this allows a person to have a shot with say two webcams in there and then have a separate Title shot with the name of the show. Then when you switch to a different view (say the desktop), the title stays over the top of the shots.

GreenScreen (Chromakey)

It is possible to have a green screen using this software, inside the channel. A Tab is availiable  for this very feature, allowing you to pick a colour via the mouse cursor.

Streaming Services

You can stream to the following services from the Wirecast UI:

Justin.TV

Livestream

Ustream

LimeLight

AKAMI

A Flash media Encoder is built right inside Wirecast and can stream high quality on both the Mac and PC. This is the only way I know to get FME quality via a Mac. Adobe do not have a Mac Version of Flash media encoder.

The Cost

Now you may head to the webpage and see that magic figure of $450 (UK £254). To a lot of people this is may be too much for a mere broadcasting program but you would be overlooking the obvious. It can record to disk, stream to most streaming services and gives you a professional look. The other solution is to buy a Tri-Caster for $10,000, I know which I would choose.

The complete overview

Plug-in your camera. Prepare your shots. Broadcast live.

Wirecast is a live production tool that allows everyone to easily broadcast live events and create professional webcasts from any location – all you need is a computer and an internet connection. With the intuitive and fully integrated streaming capabilities, Wirecast makes it easy for anyone to share live experiences and build a global community. Wirecast lets you stream multiple live cameras while dynamically mixing in other media such as movies, images, sounds, etc. Features including Chroma Key (blue/green screen), transitions and built-in titles allow you to create beautiful, professional broadcast productions for live or on-demand distribution on the web.

Head off to http://www.telestream.net/wire-cast/overview.htm to get the full details. Try the product for FREE to make sure it works on your system and does what you need, The free trail has a watermark and a voice every so often but it is still possible to see what it can do before you buy this great product.

Apple recently brought out both iTunes V9 & Quicktime 7.6.4 and you may well be tempted to download this, updates are good right? I was eager to update and went to the site to grab my copy (64bit Version) and update. The look of iTunes had gone from Black background to white and had a few new features. This will be no problem if you do not run Wirecast but if you do? Then you may be in for a shock.

Updating iTunes

When you update iTunes, it updates Quicktime and takes this from 7.6.2 to 7.6.4 and if you run and use iTunes (as I do), then it will update your Music library to the new format. All seems well until the next stage – you try and run Wirecast.

Wirecast Crashes

Upon running Wirecast, it tells me the program has failed and is looking for a solution with no visible reason why it has failed. At this point I wondered if I had installed a Windows update, did WebCamMax kill it or has my WebCam Driver been updated for example? Looking into the event Log helps:

Faulting application name: Wirecast.exe, version: 3.5.4.1, time stamp: 0x4a8beecf
Faulting module name: quicktime.dll, version: 3.5.4.1, time stamp: 0x4a8bee8e
Exception code: 0xc0000005

Now it was clear, Wirecast needs Quicktime to run and as they have updated in some way the windows version, wirecast will fail every time.

The Solution…..

First thing I did was export my playlist to XML format from iTunes V9, I then add/removed both Quicktime & iTunes. I had on my drive a copy of iTunes V8.2 and re-installed this – at which point it told me my library on iTunes was in the wrong format. I deleted the folder in “My Music” and it re-created a fresh one then I exported the XML back in. I now ran Wirecast and this ran straight away.

Does it kill the Apple version?

Rob from Corndog Computers did a quick test and it ran fine – so all Apple users are happy to update no problems. People may well blame windows here but it was Apple who wrote Quicktime so …..

Will it be fixed?

I have emailed a few people inside Telestream so they are aware of the issue, made many people aware in the streaming community and posted a forum post on Wirecast side. I am sure the Programmers will issue a fix soon as it could effect a lot of people – at least a handful know about this now.