While controversy surrounds the lack of Flash on the iPhone, and rips on Flash Lite from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, some developers have avoided the war of sound bites and embraced Adobe's flagship Web technology.
Starting today Veodia, a service we've covered several times, and even attempted to use when livestreaming the Facebook platform launch (unsuccessfully) is ditching competing Web media player Quicktime. Coming in the next few months Veodia will switch over to Flash entirely for its livestreaming needs as well. For now it's stuck with Quicktime until the next spec of Flash, which is due in June. The changover should bring out higher resolutions at lower file sizes, which is far better for re-watching recorded content that was streamed to begin with.
CEO Guillaume Cohen said one of the major motives was simply the saturation of Flash, and that despite the prominence of iTunes, a lot of people don't feel the need to install Quicktime since popular video sharing sites don't use it.
In the future Cohen says Veodia will offer HD video as part of its services, although he doesn't believe the consumer hardware or network infrastructure is there yet--especially for livestreaming. He says the company is a year or longer away from adding it to the services despite what's being done in the consumer space of video hosting--a market that Cohen says doesn't offer the kind of security or platform possibilities Veodia offers for its enterprise and education clients.
I've embedded an example of the new player for streaming after the break.
On our weekly Real Deal podcast today, Tom and I discussed lifecasting (e.g., Justin.tv) and the live streaming tools ordinary people (as opposed to 24/7 exhibitionists) can use to broadcast their own cams in real time: uStream, Stickam, ComVu (review), and Veodia (review).
Here's the show:
How (and why) to put a real-time video of your life online.
Our discussion wouldn't be complete without a live demo of streaming, so Tom and I both streamed ourselves during the taping, using uStream. We had some problems (most related to the ancient laptop I used to record the show, I think), but I grabbed a recording of the stream.
We used uStream, by the way, because of all the live-streaming products I've tested, it's the only one with a good chat function. However, at the moment, the chat function uses IRC ports, which are blocked by many firewalls. A uStream co-founder told me that within a few weeks a new chat technology will roll out on the service, which will route around this problem.
Kyte.tv's (review) chat function actually comes close to uStream's, but it doesn't offer the real-time video, just timed snapshots.
If you want to join the ongoing discussion, come on over to the Real Deal forums .
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Apparently, I did sign up for this.
I am at the SF New Tech Meetup, I've got a webcam on my laptop, and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm trying out Veodia (preview) to stream the event.
Update: I had two dropped connections and crashes, and gave up on the streaming. Here is the archive of the first segment Veodia recorded:
It seems like the current Web 2.0 boomtown (figuratively speaking) is in broadcast tools that allow you to bring your self-programmability a few steps above the YouTube + 20-dollar webcam norm. We've seen Kyte.tv recently, which allows you to create your own live vlogging stream--a phenomenon that certainly got a boost from the popularity of Justin.tv. I recently heard about another emerging player in the business, Veodia, which appears to be catering to a slightly more highbrow breed of video blogger.
Veodia promises that it'll allow you to create professional-quality video in "one click," eliminating the process of capturing, encoding, uploading, streaming, and the like. As a result, you can broadcast it live or opt to serve it up on-demand. You can instantly create an RSS feed to syndicate to a podcast download service like iTunes. You're also allowed to retain control and ownership rights to the videos you create--and the company assures it won't downgrade the quality as many "consumer" video-sharing sites do.
Right now, it's in a limited beta and appears to be free of charge, though something like this (in the manner of Adobe Lightroom) will almost certainly become pricey once it's in its full version.
Additionally, Veodia is primarily banking on use by professional clients, as evidenced by its recently-announced involvement with the developer network for online conferencing service WebEx's WebEx Connect platform. But when I spoke briefly with company representatives, they stressed that Veodia is also relevant to "professional" bloggers and video podcasters. (Which means it's a little too high-end for your cat videos.)
The beta version of Veodia is still limited: you can only have 100 simultaneous viewers, for example, and there are bandwidth and storage caps. Broadcasters need to be running Internet Explorer on Windows XP, though apparently Mac and Vista compatibility is in the works. This MacBook user, as a result, is shut out. Any video bloggers out there want to take the beta for a spin? I'd be curious to know what the actual process is like.
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