Livestream Broadcaster Review: Deliver Rich Live Events for Less

StreamingMedia.com by Jan Ozer

This $495 device helps Livestream transition from a channel-based service to an event-based service.

Livestream Broadcaster is an exceptionally easy to configure and use live encoder that produced very good quality over a range of relevant bandwidths. The only significant negatives are that the unit doesn't work with the older Livestream system, and doesn't currently offer adaptive streaming, though Livestream promises to address the latter concern in the near future.

Livestream is in the middle of a transition between a mature, channel-based service, to a more nascent event-based service. The channel-based service presented a producer with a static channel page and URL that never changed, and all live broadcasts occurred within that page. However, the live stream could be embedded elsewhere, like into your own home page, with a well-featured player with lots of social media support and access to your library of videos. Mobile support was also very well developed for the channel-based service, with apps for iOS and browser-based playback on some Android devices.

The new Livestream is event-based, and each event has a separate page and URL. The experience is much richer and more participatory, as you can upload still images and videos, and make blog-like posts on the event page. However, live streams cannot be embedded during the live broadcast, though after the event, Livestream converts the broadcast into an on-demand file that you can embed. While the live streams are compatible with most mobile devices, the on-demand streams are not. The new service is also much, much cheaper than the old service, with unlimited streaming for $45/month. (Check out this interview with CEO Max Haot for a brief demo.) read more...

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	Livestream Broadcaster Hardware with 3 months Unlimited Streaming $479.00