Ustream, Justin.tv, Vbrick???

[jonereb]

There are several webcasting sites: Ustream, Justin.TV, Vbrick, Streamingchurch.tv and more... Which one do you use and why?

[randyvogl]

We are using Ustream... and honestly the reason we are using it is because the person that was championing the project had used it before for other projects. Overall functionality wise it works great for us. They have some nice API's to hook into their back-end.

I was able to program a small script using a CSS lightbox and ustream to launch the streaming video as soon as the user visits the website if we are streaming live, otherwise it just takes you strait to the website. There are lots of other call functions that are detailed in the API manual as well.

[southerngent]

We were using Ustream but the ads became a problem so we are now using Watershed which is a private label of Ustream without the advertising. Or costs for the basic package is $49 per month.

[jonereb]

The ads and recommendations to other sites also concerns me. Thanks for the Watershed tip. Does $49/month include live chat?

[southerngent]

Originally Posted by jonereb

Does $49/month include live chat?

It does include that as well as the option to customize several aspects of the players. It also includes 500 hours of viewing each month.

[jonereb]

southerngent, are you using Watershed? I've been to their website but haven't had time to study the ins & outs. I understand that Watershed is encoding Flash files, which is good. But Flash files are more difficult to embed in a website, at least for me. Does Watershed handle embedding and coding for you for On-Demand, or are we left to our own devices? I know they will write the code so you can copy and paste, but honestly, this approach often doesn't work as advertised.

[jonereb]

Oh, I forgot. I'll want to stream an entire worship service (1 to 1.5 hrs), but archive only the sermon for On-Demand. Anyone know of a good FLV editor that can lift the sermon from the entire service? Otherwise, I'll have to record an AVI to disc and use Soren Squeeze or similar to extricate the sermon, then encode, then uplink via FTP. I'm trying to avoid unnessary steps.

[southerngent]

Originally Posted by jonereb

southerngent, are you using Watershed? I've been to their website but haven't had time to study the ins & outs. I understand that Watershed is encoding Flash files, which is good. But Flash files are more difficult to embed in a website, at least for me. Does Watershed handle embedding and coding for you for On-Demand, or are we left to our own devices? I know they will write the code so you can copy and paste, but honestly, this approach often doesn't work as advertised.

It works fine for us. We just copy the code and embed in into our web page. Works like a charm. You just have to be careful if you change the customization of your player, then you have to copy the new code and embed it again.

[southerngent]

Originally Posted by jonereb

Oh, I forgot. I'll want to stream an entire worship service (1 to 1.5 hrs), but archive only the sermon for On-Demand. Anyone know of a good FLV editor that can lift the sermon from the entire service? Otherwise, I'll have to record an AVI to disc and use Soren Squeeze or similar to extricate the sermon, then encode, then uplink via FTP. I'm trying to avoid unnessary steps.

With Ustream or Watershed, you have the option to record what you are streaming. You could just wait to hit the record button until the sermon starts and then you have it already recorded on their site. After your finished, get the embed code for that file and past it into your website.

[jonereb]

southerngent, I like the "hit record when the sermon starts" function. What about encoding? Are you using a realtime encoder card in your computer, an encoder appliance or encoding software? I'd like a laptop solution, but I'm not sure this is viable. One option I'm considering is a $895 Osprey Stream 500 for a desktop, which I believe will encode Flash amoung other files. What would you recommend? What are others doing?

[Arlin]

We use the Osprey 210 with Ustream and Flash Media Encoder on an intel dual core machine.
Works great!
CPU load stays pretty low and we never have problems with it.

[jonereb]

Arlin, are you using a laptop or desktop? And which version of Flash Media Encoder, 2.5 or 3.0? (I went to Adobe's website and they have a Ustream image as an example of the encoder's use.) I can envision having to back-up a live image on the same computer for DVD's or other usage. Can the same computer handle live streaming and recording?