Wild Bunch Media already offer live streaming solutions, from a 1 person web seminar to multi camera events. However it’s never quite as simple as it should be. Expensive streaming software, Cameramen, video mixers and our resident computer expert making sure bandwidth keeps up with the amount of viewers. Alternatively you can stream through third party website but risk losing your branding and image.
When we heard You Tube was starting live streaming and you could do so through your own channel we knew we had to get on board. So we went back to You Tube university and learnt how to do it. It’s not available to the masses yet but very soon…
The online video giant recently launched its YouTube Live portal that will integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into YouTube’s core platform. The system should eventually roll out to the masses, but will start off with select channel partners to ensure smooth content streaming until all the kinks are worked out.
“The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead,” said YouTube. “In order to ensure a great live stream viewing experience, we’ll roll this offering out incrementally over time.”
The service has been tested before for streaming popular one-time events such as concerts, sporting events, and interviews. Early last September, the service trial proved buggy and faced a limited viewership. But in January, a new and improved version came back and now it’s full steam ahead to build the system out to include streaming from thousands of content partners.
The new YouTube Live will not only have a landing page specifically for live streamed content browsing, it will also allow users to subscribe and mark events on the calendar for watching later. In this case, subscriptions not only alert subscribers of posted videos but also of upcoming streams.
There are already other services out there devoted to live streaming content such as Ustream, Justin.tv, and Qik, but with the juggernaut that is YouTube jumping into the ring, it will be interesting to see how this impacts the competition. For now you can go check out the YouTube Live portal.