Who's Your Video Streaming Host?
As our weekend service stream gains more and more attention and usage we're revisiting our entire streaming process. A major component of which is how our stream is distributed. We're currently uploading to christianvideochannel.com and they are then delivering the stream to the world.
We're checking out the new Light Cast Media host ... another development birthed from our pals at Fellowship Church :-)
They'll be streaming our ICC Film Festival entries later this week.
So who are you using to stream your weekend services? Who else did you look at? What swayed you one way or another?
We are using DreamHost's Code Monster plan which includes Quicktime's Streaming Service. If you don't mind taking on some of the presentation effort in-house, it is a hard to beat low-cost (no-cost?) way of streaming. No bells and whistles, just a streaming server with more data-xfer (1.6Tb) a month than most churches will ever require. We use the service for our Sunday livecast, and also for VOD.
Posted by: Kevin | September 25, 2006 at 03:05 PM
We've been using LightCast Media for about 9 months and it's been a great solution for us. Plus, they've recently came out with a new interface with a bunch of great tools to manage and analize your clips.
Posted by: Trace Pupke | September 25, 2006 at 03:39 PM
We're using PlayStream. We've been using them for years with no complaints. I know there are cheaper options, but PlayStream works really well so we haven't had a reason to look elsewhere.
Posted by: Clif Guy | September 25, 2006 at 07:34 PM
Hey Jason-
Since we are on the topic of streaming video... I was just wondering if they did something the past couple of weeks to the stream of the service because it seems like the quality is a bit down. I like to watch it full screen on my laptop, and just seems a bit more grainy. I know some sacrifices in quality must be made for size and download speeds, but I was just curious... that and I wanted to know if I am imagining things or not!
I've really enjoyed the fact that I can still watch the services on the weekends I am out of town, or share them with my friends who don't even live in the area. It's been a great ministry tool and I'm so glad it is available. You IT guys keep up the great work!
Posted by: Jen | September 26, 2006 at 10:15 AM
Hi Jen,
Thanks for the feedback :-)
We have not changed anything that I'm aware of ... I'll verify though. We are planning to offer a much higher resolution stream later this year which I think you'll enjoy :-)
Jason
Posted by: Jason Powell | September 26, 2006 at 11:09 AM
Have you thought about co-loing?
We are considering getting an Xserve and colo-ing it.
This gives us both streaming live and streaming from file support out of the box qith quicktime serving, plus the ability to use the machine for other stuff if we so choose
We can either get dedicated bandwith, or monthly allowances - and it gives us an offsite machine with lots of bandwith if we want to replicate data across for DR
The price is comparable to anywhere between "starter" and "pro" packages of LightCast.
That said, we are still considering LightCast, as there streaming system really does appear to be quite advanced.
Posted by: Karl | September 26, 2006 at 11:17 AM
We are currently using Windows Media Services on a dedicated server
with a 100 Mbit connection hosted at ServerBeach, it
runs us about $180 a month (if I remember correctly, non-profits get
some discounts on the online price). We have run live streams
with up to 120 viewers (340 Kbps) without any problems. We
have found that when we bump up the quality, client machines have a
hard time keeping up and do not automatically adjust to available lower
quality streams.
We are also in discussions with Light Cast.
Posted by: Andrew Mitry | September 26, 2006 at 02:39 PM