Online TV, Webcasting, etc.

[Chugach3DGuy]

A client of mine has expressed interest in setting up a webcast or "online TV" broadcast for an upcoming event. It won't be broadcast live, so it's a prerecorded setup. All my experience so far has been with TV and on-air broadcasters, and this webcasting thing is new to me.

My client gave me a link to a place called www.niftytv.com . I'm currently waiting for them to return my call, but I wanted to know if anyone out there in B-Roll Land can offer any advice on what else is available out there. Anyone I should avoid, what important details to look for, what kinds of costs should I expect, etc. The few websites I've found on my own don't seem to give any details other than "Wow! We're so easy to use!"

 

[Alaska cameradude]

A client of mine has expressed interest in setting up a webcast or "online TV" broadcast for an upcoming event. It won't be broadcast live, so it's a prerecorded setup. All my experience so far has been with TV and on-air broadcasters, and this webcasting thing is new to me.

My client gave me a link to a place called www.niftytv.com . I'm currently waiting for them to return my call, but I wanted to know if anyone out there in B-Roll Land can offer any advice on what else is available out there. Anyone I should avoid, what important details to look for, what kinds of costs should I expect, etc. The few websites I've found on my own don't seem to give any details other than "Wow! We're so easy to use!"

I've done this before a couple times. Costs run from free (they insert ads into your
'programming') to pretty expensive. Depending on the money they are willing to
spend, you can even set the entire thing up yourself. I've done it and I know for a
fact that you are better with the computer programming thing than I am. Most
websites that do this are catering toward the 'youtube' crowd, so that's all they
will tell you is 'We are easy.' Look at Ustream and Livestream and such.

The hardest thing for me was figuring out how much 'bandwidth' to allocate for. I had
no idea how many viewers I was going to get so I bought a relatively small amount to
start, as the company I went with allowed me to 'scale up' later if needed. I was
also producing LIVE content as well as archiving it as a 'prerecorded' show for later,
so it was a little bit more expensive. I never paid more than a couple hundred a
month for it, and that was for both the live content and the prerecorded version.
You can probably get it cheaper, I was using one of Akamai's partner's as I wanted
the best support possible for a fairly high profile gig, and built the cost into my contract.

 

[Chugach3DGuy]

Thanks, Alaska Cameradude! I'll check out Livestream shortly. I've heard of Ustream, but a few events I've seen through them seem to have jerky motion or fairly low frame rates. Poking around on Google, I found others that had the same issue.

This would be this client's first foray into webcasting, and even though they are really excited about it and all but salivating over it, I want to make sure I make a good choice. This could lead to bigger things for me!

 

[Alaska cameradude]

Oh yeah, one more thing. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend that you get
a subscription to Streaming Media. You're a business owner now, so you can sign up
for free and they have a TON of information about CDN's and such. You could
probably find 10 different places that would work for you, just in the ads in the
magazine. Now for example, I just picked up the edition I got yesterday. I don't know
exactly what you are looking for, but in 15 seconds since I picked it up, I have these
websites for you to take a look at:

http://trial.kaltura.com
www.qumu.com/try
www.kyte.com
www.powerstream.net
www.digital-rapids.com
www.ignitetech.com
www.accordent.com

Now I didn't go to each of these sites, but they are all companies offering streaming
video services. A couple of them require you to buy hardware, but most of them
do not. Many of them offer free trials.