(Clarification Update on the video: The above video was sent in to us – not produced by us. While the source indicates that the devices were both running on 3G, there’s no way for us to positively verify that one wasn’t running WiFi while the other ran on 3G or EDGE.)
With Qik, Kyte, and FlixWagon all battling for their share of the live mobile broadcasting market, is there room for another contender? Ustream.tv seems to think so. We’ve just received word (and even better, video) of a Ustream.tv mobile client already in the works.
While details are still somewhat sparse, we’re hearing that Ustream.tv’s got at least one trick up their sleeve to make their offering stand out: drastically shorter delays in getting your live content onto viewer’s screens.
Currently, competing products in the mobile live streaming market have a delay often reaching times between 30 seconds and a full minute. According to our sources (and as confirmed in the video), Ustream.tv’s solution manages to take the delay down to just a few seconds (6 seconds in the video) when transmitting over a 3G network. It’s not 1:1, but it’s about as close as you get when dealing with the latency of modern wireless data networks.
While no one’s really looking to share the secrets of their methods, we’re being told that Ustream.tv has shifted a good amount of the video transcoding process to the hardware, presumably for maximizing bandwidth and better utilizing free processor time on the handset. That said, we do wonder what the spec requirements for Ustream.tv’s client will be; the video above shows it running on an N95, which totes a 330Mhz processor. While that’s not the utmost top of the line anymore, it’s not exactly entry-level, either.
We’ll dig as deep as we can on this and update as details come in.
Update: A few more details on the application not shown in the video:
- The Ustream application does have chat support.
- If your handset has dual cameras (rear and front) and you press the 5 key on the numberpad, you can switch between the two.
[Thanks for the tip, Captain3]
Big boy enters….very exciting! Mobile is early and taking off!!
dam…didn’t know Qik/Kyte was that DELAYED!!!
Measure of a good user generated video? I can tell what’s being said/conveyed with the sound off.
Great hand gestures!
Ustream.tv is really really lucky… they had that Shiba Inu puppy cam that went crazy viral for WEEKS. There’s no better way to explode onto a scene than combining a basic human emotion (happiness/cuteness) and technology. Hopefully they can take that and turn themselves into an internet establishment. They’ve got all the right elements… I can think of at least 10 things they can do to build their traffic and usage even more.
They have been working on this for over six months. Better be superior if they’re going to take this kind of marketing approach.
It’s streams to my Ustream account, yeah!!
My life just got a whole let better. :P
hey – that music right at the end after the ticking watch – anybody know it?
Its about time!
Thank you Ustream… Iphone hopefully?
Hi, we, Solaiemes are streaming real time from mobile with 1-2 second delays, QCIF format, 15 frames per second, we can embed the streams from our server platform to whatever public site (blogger, OVI, youtube (for posting) and powering live and posted video for online social media.
We need 3G videoshare feature, we do not need install on device application. We based our core technology in server infrastructure avoiding on device apps.
If I’m Qik or Kyte… I’m worried:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ustream.tv+kyte.tv+qik.com/?metric=uv
Damn… Ustream is growing.
@ Susan Ayers
Big difference between Ustream and Kyte is that Ustream is a destination and Kyte is not. I don’t think Kyte cares about site traffic one bit.
BTW, http://stickam.com/mobile.do
You forgot Stickam already released their mobile platform a while back…Curious how it compares to Ustreams?
Unfortunately for ustream they have too many issues to make they worthwhile for streaming. The quality of the videos on the main site are far lower in quality than many of their competitors and the support provided is absolutely terrible.
@Jack,
Isn’t Stickam’s mobile just a whitelabel of something else, I think flixwagon?
I chose to broadcast on Ustream BECAUSE of their AWESOME SUPPORT.
So BCK – you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’ve actually called them before and they helped me out.
I’m so excited for mobile on Ustream! I can’t wait until they let everyone have it. My audience is going to love coming with me when I’m out walking about :)
BCK, you are crazy. Its the only site that has decent video.
You’re obviously a novice.
I believe so, either way, there are still many features to qik.com that they will have to beat to take away members. I mean, if you have the ability to use it already, then why move on?
Stickams only addition to it was the ability to rotate the back camera on the N95 (nice but not enough).
Qik vs Stickam:
http://www.cypher-sec.org/blog/?p=355
The others services really don’t hold a candle, yet.
and 35 seconds, (way to many factors there).
Thats why if Ustream ever came out with mobile (looks like they are) I would use Ustream.
Ustream FTW!
Hopefully they release a Iphone App! The N95 is like $800
I <3 Ustream!
Ustream should do a better job editing – LOL!!! The camera angle on what is shown on phone and the video shown on the computer don’t even match up.
@John G
Actually it does. Look closer.
Kinda hard I guess if there is 35 seconds delay
If Qik is 35 seconds, Flixwagon must be like 2 minutes.
Ustream is soo amazing! I broadcast with them all the time and they’re so great! don’t have an N95 but I can’t wait for the other phones. I’m a huge Ustream fan and this is such exciting news!!!
Looks great–and it’d look even better on my iPhone.
Yup. Speed is nice, but it really doesn’t matter.
First to the iPhone wins.
O snap!
Xmas present for Ustreamers! More cooler gadgets the better for us all!!!
Can’t wait to get my hand on it….someone please post where I can get one!!
It seem nice
Greg, why don’t you include the best one in this? http://www.bambuser.com – outstanding in many ways to all of the above
I agree with Peter, why have you not included http://www.bambuser.com ? “drastically shorter delays in getting your live content onto viewer’s screens”, if this is what makes Ustream unique, then Bambuser has been unique for a while now, and the best part: its public already.
U forgot to add another one: http://www.mbit.tv
For me the most important addition of the Ustream app is the to stream my Ustream show. I tried mobile with Qik but none of my visitors were there. Low latency is a nice thing and I can see that being important for others but for me Ustream compatibility is the main thing.
Thumbs up.
qik, kyte.tv, flixwagon are all long behind http://www.bambuser.com for live streaming with mobile device.
35 seconds is alot. Didn’t know that. Thanks for the information.
Video is hilarious! Great hand work!!
Very informative…didn’t know lag/latency was such