live streaming host

[churchtech007]

Is anyone using watershed by uStream? If so would you mind giving me some feedback.

If you are happy with the service you use for live streaming please feel free to throw it in the mix.

Iv'e been looking at live streaming services but frankly there are so many options I'm hoping to narrow it down.

Thanks!
Jonathan

[jlandells]

We're currently using uStream and whilst it works, we'd love to find a better solution - particularly one that doesn't display ads. Of course, the price is what's keeping us with uStream right now....!

-John.

[churchtech007]

John,

I was under the impression that watershed didn't use ad's. You have ad's on yours?

Thanks!

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

Watershed doesn't have ads. Based on his post, it looks like they are using just the free Ustream

[jlandells]

That's correct - we're using the free version.

-John.

[sempei13]

I talked to our IT guy last night. We've used Ustream (free), LiveStream (paid), and WaterShed (paid). The reason we're with WaterShed is that they support 16x9 which is what we shoot.

Paul

[JoshGuerette]

Originally Posted by sempei13

I talked to our IT guy last night. We've used Ustream (free), LiveStream (paid), and WaterShed (paid). The reason we're with WaterShed is that they support 16x9 which is what we shoot.

Paul

How are you liking Watershed? Our church may be looking to start streaming sometime this year, and I'm curious as to how Watershed stacks up to other streaming hosts.

Oh, and does it support multiple resolutions? By that I mean, does it allow people to choose a high quality, low quality stream, just audio stream, etc.? That's something I haven't seen with some providers, but since Watershed is a little more inclusive and developer-ready, maybe?

[sirtimbly]

I'm curious about this as well. I'm thinking we will try watershed for a while.

[churchtech007]

I'm waiting on my analog to video converter to arrive. It should be here Monday. I'll let you know how it works when I get it set up.

So far my it's been pretty easy to put it in our website. Not sure if it works though.

[kschurch]

We have been streaming for over a year now on a variety of platforms including Flash (for web), and streaming for android and iOS devices. We started with livestream (the week an ad for hot tub time machine came on with a sexual joke right before the sermon was the last week we used them). Next was watershed which was fine, but was expensive. We have been using a wowza instance on an amazon server which makes the whole livestream scalable easily (you can just start another instance). you only pay for what is used (bandwidth and small fee for the instance). We stream 3 services (about 4 hours of streaming) each week to several hundred people a week and pay about a hundred dollars a month. Which averages out to aprox $.10/ user/ per a week. The encoding software we use (Flash Media Live Encoder) is free with a audio plugin (1 time fee of $200) for encoding to iOS devices int he same encoder. We use a JW player as the player (Free or commercial license). The setup is a bit technical but not crazy. We are beta testing a free platform from lifechurch. tv that adds features (live chat w/translation, prayer area. etc) around your stream. We currently use a wordpress page to show our player with an browser detect to switch to android of iOS streams. I put a space in the urls so I could post them.

[UBC]

we have used ustream (free) and justin.tv for a while, and after some some bad ads we decided to go paid. I liked watershed because of HD streaming, but they dont have the right amount of usage hours. $50 plan was not enough and we always ended up paying from $70 to $90 a month. So we switched to christianworldmedia.com which is $60 flat, no matter how much you stream, they support 16:9, iOS devices, chat. So fat its ok.

[MessiahTV]

You could have a look with messiahstream.tv a Christian Ministry,
This is a sister site of messiahtube.com which is totally Free
Both websites you can enter with one username and one password.
Messiah Stream Television has unlimited live streaming, 24/7 channel, video on demand and radio station in one affordable premium account. Free accounts livestreaming 45 min.