digitalbuilt

Just a quick note.

I know some of you insiders have had a chance to use at least the prototype 3Play machine that NewTek has been developing. It was floating around NAB last year. This looks to be the machine out in “the wild”.  Pic was posted on Twitpic by David Randolph who left Revision3 not that long ago. Seems it was on display at an Expo he was running.

When realeased it will allow three cameras/feeds to be fed into one box and accessed for instant replays.  There are a lot of connections on the front of the case, guessing anything from composite to component, maybe even SDI.

Update 3/10/09 Newtek will webcast the launch of the device this Friday at 12PM PST on UStream. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/3play Forum rumors have this priced as much as $22k!

First off I didn’t even get a chance to watch any of the inauguration, I was streaming a surfing event in California.  So this is more of a reaction to a piece on TechCrunch that went counter to many other stories on the day.  While UStream were busy patting themselves on the back, others were noticing it wasn’t all that smooth.   Sure the numbers sound good, I am reading about 3.5 TB/s at it’s peak, almost all of it Flash Video.   UStream stated it served up 3.8 million streams, up to 400,000 concurrent.

But in reality many people were struggling to catch a glimpse.  The article, by @erickschonfeld, points out that even the mighty CNN was having  issues.  His main point being that even with the CDNs prepared for a big day, the nature of the system limits the number of simultaneous views.

Now this is nothing new, the “series of tubes” that are the Internet do not enjoy the same broadcast nature as radio waves or over-the-air TV signals.  A radio tower outputs the same thing whether 1 person is watching, or 1,000.  Each time a new viewer on UStream comes on, another section of that “pipe” fills with data.  So how do you build capacity that is suited to a one day spike such as this, while controlling costs for the rest of the year when the traffic isn’t there? 

I think the real test will be when a huge news event hits without warning.  They had months to get ready for the inauguration, what happens when there is online interest of a similar scale for something that is unforseen?  Then we will see the democritisation of online video, if CNN.com (or more directly their CDN) struggles to handle the load, the smaller outlets have a chance to make a name.

Reference:
How each site fared – Link
Traffic reports  – Link
How Akamai handled it - Link

Many mobile phones have live streaming ability, Sprint TV, AT&T MobiTV, each carrier has a system, but these tend to be dominated by program content.  Today UStream.tv released their viewing application, allowing iPhone users to watch and interact with any UStream channel.

The iPhone has always been limited by the stringent vetting process the App store has new applications go through (Flash is still not on the iPhone).   To get around that many developers have used the SDK loophole, a limited release “Beta” version.  That seems to be the case with the UStream offering.  So until officially blessed you must send in a request for the app to iPhone@Ustream.tv.  I am still waiting for my copy, once I receive it I will post my review.

Some do get through, OrbLive will let you stream any media or live TV if you have a PC setup with their Orb software.  A simple task, but not everyone wants to watch their own media, they want to see what everyone else is doing.

If this new UStream app can get onto the official store that will open the floodgates.  Mogulus would be close behind and hopefully a native Flash app will make it’s way onto the phone so us content creators can get our existing Flash streams onto the most popular smart-phone in America.

Our friends over at Flashcomguru point out that both Flash Media Encoder and Streaming Server have been updated to 3.0 and 3.5 respectively.

While for many of us FMSS is something we leave to the CDNs (Akamai, Edgecast) there are some important new features that as content creators we can take advantage of.  Dynamic streaming, something Adobe talked about at NAB last year, is now fully implemented.  Essentially if you are running multibitrate streams fluctuations of the viewers bandwidth will not interrupt the stream, the switch from high to low  would be transparent.  That keeps the viewer watching, and happy.

The new FME lets you make use of the multibitrate feature, up to three streams can be encoding (example:  low, med, high).  Send that up to a CDN using FMSS 3.5 and you have your dynamic streaming. 

Perhaps you are using UStream, or want to, here is how: UStream help

Now if we could just get Newtek and their Tricaster to implement FME 3.0…

 An interesting article popped up today, I have been having similar thoughts (hopes) lately.  The crux of the posting is that the future of visual entertainment on the web will include more Leo Laportes in the world, small scale, niche but professional productions. 

On Twitter Leo (@LeoLaport) says his productions cost just under $500/hour.  I presume that’s with himself as on-screen talent, a couple of assistants for editing his live stream down to podcast format, plus his other costs like guest fees, travel, equipment.

Find your niche, and fill it with content, find sponsors that what to hit that niche.

Set aside political allegiances for a second.  It would appear that at least one of the inauguration events featuring Barack Obama will be webcast, allowing the public a glimpse into a part of the pomp and circumstance that accompanies a Presidential swearing in.  Another sign on the proliferation of webcasting.

Details are not clear as to whether this is open to all, or just select locations.  Details to come: http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/