Lately, I’ve been looking at solutions for broadcasting live events on the web. This past Summer, I helped the Martha Graham Dance Company produce a live web broadcast of their open rehearsals (see ClytemnestraProject.com).
The service provider we ended up choosing was UStream.tv.
Not only did they offer us a live broadcast, but we also featured a chat moderator, so online audience members could ask questions, ask us to zoom in and out, or simply give us feedback on the show as it was happening.
In addition to UStream.tv, there are many other live broadcasting options available, including creating your own using Quicktime Broadcaster
When considering what service to use for live web broadcasts, consider these issues:
1. Archiving – What kinds of archiving options are there? Can you choose to make it public or private? To only friends + family? Can the broadcaster/producer control these options? Can you download the archive? In what format? Can you control the time frame it’s public? i.e. only 30 days? Can you sell the archive as a download? Can you set the price point?
2. Embedding – Can you embed the live feed on another site? For example, UStream.tv allows you to embed their video player anywhere on the web, so you don’t have to go UStream.tv to watch the live feed. You can embed the player on your own site, or have other blogs feature your stream, so there’s more distribution.
3. Control – Can you monitor the audio + video quality while the stream is occuring.
4. Support – When there are issues, who do you call or email? Is there some kind of chat support service? Afterall, if it’s live broadcast, there should be live support .
There a quite a few other live web video solutions:
I also recently discovered Live Wedding Broadcast which allows you to broadcast your wedding for those who just couldn’t make it to the wedding.
In addition to the above services I mentioned above, I’d like to know – what live streaming services are you using. What have you seen that just rocks?
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