'Satellite truck in a backpack' by Livestream

Lagging a bit here, but mobile live video services from UStream, Qik, and Skype are joined by Livestream. Via NYT Lens then Engadget, Red Ferret explains :

"They’re calling it a satellite truck in a backpack, and at $2500 a month rental ($1500 a month on the annual plan) it could just revolutionise the whole news and local event reporting business in a big way. The monthly fee covers 30 hours of streaming including data fees, so small operators suddenly have a way to compete with the big shot news reporting outfits at a price that’s a game changer. Amazing tech. US only at the moment alas.

Just hook your Firewire DV camera up to the backpack, which contains 6 load balanced 3G/EVDO SIM card modems [over three carriers - AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint], press the record button and you’re live to the world from anywhere there’s a 3G cell phone signal. The box contains the encoder and battery, and you can attach an external battery to give up to 3 hours of continuous recording at a time. The video is HD, 1 Mbps, H.264, so your viewers will not be disappointed with the image quality either."



Update: There are a few other implementations, one by AVIWest, and another release of LivePro by Kyte.

Comments from the latter article note that they'll all have to compete with 4G and the iPhone during the failing of traditional media, and "TWIT did this at CES a month ago using a home-built setup with the same basic configuration (multiple synchronous 3G cards)."

Video of San Francisco Final Cut SuperMeet

Via The Editblog, there's Live feed of San Francisco Final Cut SuperMeet mentioned here last week. Update: the recording is available too, as are some oldies on MacVideo.

Live TV : Ustream

Mobile video of the Apple iPad

Leo Laporte's mobile video of the Flash-less Apple iPad is up already, and coming live and/or in pieces at Qik, http://qik.com/twit. For more on Qik and related info, see Live video from iPhone... There’s now apps for that.

Update: Everyone is broadcasting pieces. CNN Live -- in delay! -- is working big and has good quality. Also, Twit.tv is up and down but big, but there's also nickarodriguez mobile on Qik.

Finally, Apple has the event recording posted.

But wait, there's more:

Jim Feeley adds "engadget's coverage of the iPad announcement is much much better than that of either the New York Times or Macworld. It's a new era... jasondiamond: MCGrawHill CEO must be at the bottom of a lake in cement iShoes by now. #iPad #Leak

5tu: If nothing else, I think the #iPad would make a terrific control surface for Magic Bullet Looks. Videoguys: iPad - can we attach it to a 5D as field monitor? Or use 3G/wifi to enter metadata and clip info as we record?

9 Tools for live chroma keying

Topher Welsh has a roundup of 9 Tools for On Set Live Chroma Keying at Pixel Art.

Live video from iPhone... There’s now apps for that

NewTeeVee posted an overview of activity by Ustream and others for live video on the iPhone in Live Broadcasting From Your iPhone? There’s (Finally) an App for That.

Of course there's still no video chat, but Ustream's app is free and doesn't need to be jailbroken.

There's broader detail of live video for mobile devices in some earlier AEP overviews: Broadcasting live video from phone and Mobile video reporting increasingly important, Overview of live video over the internet, and Live video streaming tips + marketing.

Update: from NewTeeVee, "Following on the heels of similar announcements from Ustream and Bambuser, Qik’s application for live video streaming on the Apple iPhone has finally been approved...Ustream also enables live video streaming through 2G, 3G, and 3GS iPhones."

Broadcast Skype: Look Ma, No Truck

Via andydickinson.net...

More broadcasters are willing to use Skype in tight spots, and (no surprise) finding that a nice camera improves the image. Here's an excerpt from KGMB9 in Hawaii:

"As Hurricane Felicia headed towards the Hawaiian Islands (The Big Island and Maui in particular) in these past 72 hours, all of the local news stations had to make some smart decisions. Who would go to what island and how would the video be relayed back to the news rooms here on Oahu. Shipping the live trucks was no longer an option for anyone. And flying our video back on cargo flights had the risk of being held because of the weather. So what to do?

On August 11th at 5:00 am from the property of the Maui Seaside Hotel all four Honolulu TV stations broadcast their reporters live from Maui …. via Skype."

See also similar reports by Al Tompkins at Poynter and Broadcasting & Cable, and the AEP roundup of live web video resources from April, Overview of live video over the internet.

Update: Lost Remote posted Skype outage good reminder for TV newsrooms in December 2010.

LiveStream: rebrand of live video service Mogulus

NewTeeVee and others report that LiveStream is the newly rebranded name of Mogulus, whose website and UI has also been refined. There are other views at Silicon Alley Insider, Beet.TV, TechCrunch and Mashable! (via Techmeme)

Cisco readying high end teleconferencing for consumers

An Overview of live video over the internet, the AEP post from April, summarized some options available up to early 2009. Now it looks like options will be expanding, as Beet.TV reports on a New York Times article on high-end systems from Cisco (TelePresence) and Teliris., and that Cisco is Readying High End Teleconferencing for Consumers.



Of course this fits another recent Cisco move; see Cisco & Flip: video editing on the cloud.

Update: For a broader perspective, see Cisco’s Latest Consumer Play: The Smart Grid at Earth2Tech.

Overview of live video over the internet

Here are some aging-as-we-speak notes done for a short survey of live video over the internet, as an alternative to investing in more costly and so more sexy satellite uplink systems. But then again more expensive systems may weather hurricanes and economic meltdowns a bit better.

Internet broadband services have proven capable in many live video events, including the 2009 Presidential inauguration, even if it did push the system to the edge (see below). Access to these services should expand in capacity at reduced prices over time with development of cable and VDSL broadband services. But there are many low-cost options available right now that should be putting pressure even on dedicated video conferencing businesses and services included in IPTV (Internet Protocol Television):

1) Chat software
Apple provides live video in iChat AV. And of course Skype can do video chat and now screen sharing, and is used by in broadcast TV by the major networks like CNN. Gmail is about to get HD options added to its video chat & it's not Adobe Flash, but something developed at Google.

2) Web services
There are a number of services doing lower end webcam live video that could become the YouTube of live video, and that includes YouTube as Google has let it be known they were developing live services for YouTube. This should be part of every social network in the near future. Here's a few current services:
Stickam
Blogtv
Justin.tv
Broadcaster.com
Nowlive.com
There were some earlier roundups at AEPortal News.

3) Mobile phones
Also slated for mass expansion is live video via mobile phones. I actually saw video from a Fall 2007 Adobe conference sent over a Nokia phone. Here's 2 overviews: Broadcasting live video from phone and Mobile video reporting increasingly important.

4) Flash web services
HD-quality video services can be built with Adobe production tools including Flash Media Live Encoder and Flash Media Server, although various services already leverage this technology for you.

Ustream.TV (http://www.ustream.tv/) has integrated Flash Media Live Encoder into its business to deliver high quality streams with interactive features. Ustream's FME Broadcast Console will enable users to:
* Start and stop their FME broadcasts
* Create FME broadcast recordings
* Add customized graphic overlays to their FME broadcasts
* Add polls
* Invite cohosts

Another internet service for live video is Mogulus, (update: now Livestream) which gives you the capability to easily broadcast live, 24/7 linear, and on-demand content for FREE. Mogulus PRO gives you the same features but adds a bundle of new features geared toward professional producers. Gannett had live hurricane coverage on the Mogulus platform in Fall 2008; see Live hurricane video and data..

5) CDNs
Whichever software encoding and server system is used (Flash, Silverlight / Windows Media, QuickTime), you'd have to have dedicated upload capacity or use a content distribution network (CDN), like Akamai at the high end. An aside, QuickTime Broadcaster can serve sessions for live video -- it works but the codecs weren't optimized previously so you need a good amount of dedicated bandwidth (a T1 could serve 7 content-hungry clients 320x240 10fps in 2006).

6) Compression and server/networking
Cisco is moving in, so it's a big market, but it's early to make sense of the role rack-mountable IPTV units for video compression and server/networking in many contexts. Various services use their software and server; see notes by Real World Video Compression and Matrixstream, and this on software encoding from Kulabyte.com.

7) Background
For more background, see naysayer Mark Cuban in The Great Internet Video Lie, and a rebuttal from Veoh, a streaming video service like YouTube.

There were some looks at the 2009 inauguration broadcasts by: Streamingmedia.com and Techcrunch.com. Not covered by Streaming Media was a reportedly a good inauguration effort by Move Networks, which partnered with CBS and Microsoft. Move offers a complete “signal to stream” delivery system not based on Flash or Windows Media, and is "not a CDN" as reported earlier. More info is here:
http://www.movenetworks.com/move-media-services/move-live-services
http://www.movenetworks.com/move-media-services/move-simulcode
http://www.beet.tv/2008/11/move-networks-a.html

Update: see also Cisco readying high end teleconferencing for consumers. And is Facebook Video Chat on the Way?

Update 2: note the previous post on Strobist's How to Improve Your Cheapo Webcam Picture Quality -- note that a better camera will work even better with better light.

Update 3: with the iPhone now doing live video streaming in December 2009, the Livestream CEO says that Live Video Will Comprise Half of Web Video Programming in Five Years.

Live video streaming tips + marketing

via News Videographer, the blog Innovation in College Media has a post with thorough tips for doing live streaming video using Mogulus; see Mogulus live streaming tips.

The post includes reasons why they used Mogulus over Ustream; for more see Ustream vs. Mogulus: Which Live Video Streaming And Broadcasting Service Is Better? at MasterNewMedia.

Still unanswered is Who Will Be The YouTube Of Live Video? And now, there's an added question of how much of this will be from mobile phones -- see this AEP note from last August, Broadcasting live video from phone.

Lifehacker tips sometimes help me shove off free tech support requests from friends. Here's a one that helped: Strobist's How to Improve Your Cheapo Webcam Picture Quality.

Update: P Diddy adopted live video with Ustream.tv as a way to drive his audience, according to Mashable and Watching TV Online.

Also, Ustream has "signed Oracle, Duke, Sun, UC Berkeley and Sling as customers for its paid white-label live video service, called Watershed, which launched only a month ago," according to NewTeeVee. Liz Gannes continues, "The company is also adding mobile broadcasting capabilities, which it released to consumer users a few weeks ago. While many broadcasters might be interested in white-label mobile broadcasting, at this point the Ustream/Watershed service is limited to high-end Nokia handsets. Competitors in the consumer space like Qik have moved onto other platforms, such as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile."

Update: Promotional notes in comments are fine, but they should address specifics in the particular post and link to web pages of specific concern.

YouTube's live video is March Madness in Silverlight +

NewTeeVee reported that YT's live video coverage of March Madness is displayed through Silverlight, with the same embed UI and quality as/from CBS Sports. See March Madness! YouTube Gets Live Video Via Silverlight.

And Coke Zero wants you to, umm, taste the madness.

Update: Check out Alex Zambelli’s blog and Ben Wagonner (at Microsoft awhile now) who gives you some details on the March Madness web video, the Silverlight player powering it, and resolutions and data rates used. Via Andy Beach, now at Inlet, which is the first company to make use of Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming initiative.

Live hurricane video and data

First, from USA Today there's an image pan of a child's eye view of hurricane flood waters.

Beet.TV notes that Gannett Has Live Hurricane Coverage on Mogulus Platform....msncbc.com has New Flash Hurricane Tracker.

NBC's hurricane tracker is nicely interactive but has no video. By the way, another nice weather site is Weather Underground. Google Earth has been used to visualize tracking data from Hurricane Hunters planes, but it's can be complicated, so see Google Earth Blog and Google Earth Design on the Tropical Atlantic visualization effort.

The Gannett widget pictured below integrates several live feeds from Mogulus (the embedding was imperfect).

Mobile video news reporting increasingly

Following reports of services like Qik, Livecast, and Flixwagon for broadcasting live video from mobile phones, Poynter Online reports that the Washington Post and Newsweek started posting live video reports via phone during the Democratic Convention.

A Post rep told Beet.TV, "We will be using cell phones equipped with a live streaming application from Comet Technologies," and built complete TV studios at the conventions for continuous coverage from reporters and blogging guests.

Poynter.org also covers How Online Video Improves Journalism, a talk with the Washington Post's Travis Fox, a leader in online video storytelling. Blogs have been covering this beat, including Andy Dickinson and News Videographer.

Poynter's most e-mailed post right now is Video SLR Camera Coming From Nikon, which has also been covered by Prolost and others recently!

Update: Camcorder.info adds advice in Camcorder Overkill for Print Reporters.

Update 2: From the YouTube Blog, "in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, YouTube presents Project: Report (www.youtube .com /projectreport), a journalism contest (made possible by Sony VAIO and Intel) for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be covered by traditional media"

Broadcasting live video from phone

Broadcasting live video from a cellular phone seems like it'll hit big soon. Someone did live podcasting from a Flash conference last year with a Nokia device I think, but I lost the reference and froze perhaps in fear of being Scobilized.

Now the LA Times is reporting on investments in Qik, "a service which is championed by celebrity technology blogger Robert Scoble, has gained in popularity particularly as it adds new features such as integration with Twitter, YouTube, Mogulus, MySpace, Orkut and Justin.tv. Qik is used by a wide array of users, called Qikkers, including both professional and citizen journalists." The video below is from Qik (on "jailbroken" iPhone support); Beet.TV has an interview with a Qik rep.

Similar services include the Silverlight-oriented Livecast (was Pocketcaster) and Flixwagon, which is covering Nokia and like Qik "jailbroken" iPhones.



Update: Poynter Online reports that the Washington Post and Newsweek started posting live video reports via phone during the Democratic Convention. A Post rep told Beet.TV, "We will be using cell phones equipped with a live streaming application from Comet Technologies," and built complete TV studios at the conventions for continuous coverage from reporters and blogging guests.

This should change with more smart phones, like iPhone 3.0.

Update: NewTeeVee adds another player to the list, Aylus Networks, in One to Watch: Aylus Mobile Video.

Live web video

Oh yeah, it looks like YouTube is the answer to previous posts on Who Will Be The YouTube Of Live Video?

Live video on the web does matter but not in ways used right now. Here's a backgrounder on live video via NewTeeVee; at around time 1:50 (in the middle of the time bar), YouTube co-founder Steve Chen tells Pop17 videoblogger Sarah Meyers that YouTube is moving in:



Update: live from mobile devices is next up; see Live from your mobile. The next big thing? at Watching TV Online.

Live blog.tv people

NewTeeVee notes that the lifecasting site BlogTV launched a new Flash video player, which includes live broadcasting, fullscreen controls, chat, and embedding into other sites. Lifecasting as is won't replace the deadtime of a writers' strike -- here's an example of a live show recorded:

The panopticon of social-networking TV

As EBN mused, "Participate in your own manipulation!"

Watching TV Online posts about the electronic panopticon of "Social-networking TV":

"According to New Scientist, Microsoft is working on a version of its instant messaging system that is designed to connect to your TV, DVD player or media player and keep track of everything you've watched - to make TV viewing a less lonely viewing experience.

"The messaging system allows online buddies to see what the others have been watching. So groups of friends can synchronise their viewing habits and chat about what they've seen.

New Scientist thinks it's a powerful idea as Marketing experts have long recognised that personal recommendations from like-minded peers are far more influential than adverts or other forms of publicity."

Microsoft is not the first to believe in social TV, both Joost enables viewers to chat live with others watching the same channels and the service also works with Gmail. and Jabber instant-messaging accounts. And Babelgum will enable viewers to discuss, discover and recommend their favorite programs through a social network."

Who Will Be The YouTube Of Live Video?

Covered in March, read the latest at TechCrunch: Who Will Be The YouTube Of Live Video?

Social networks go live

TechCrunch has a discussion of interesting sites that feature live video: JustinTV (a bit personal), Ustream.tv (a network of Justins), and the silly & amazing Stickam (varied network of live webcams and movies with the MySpace singles bar feel).

Meanwhile, Advertising Age twitters 'what me worry' in Bob Garfield's Chaos Scenario 2.0: The Post Advertising Age. Business 2.0 has more on the next net.