Overall Satisfaction with IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming
I've been using IBM Cloud Video (UStream) for a number of years now in support of a music blog that I run, and also for events that I livestream for my clients. Although many other free solutions have come online in recent years (YouTube Live, Facebook Live, etc.) they simply are not as reliable as having a private streaming service. IBM Cloud Video allows us to stream from a multitude of professional devices, including Teradek gear that we use a lot, both reliably and easily. Also, the cloud recording is fantastic and allows me to have peace of mind that beyond our local recordings (from a camera or recorder) we will have a cloud-recorded video that we can download to give to the client and/or edit later.
- Cloud-based video recording.
- Reliable transmission of video, resulting in ease of starting a broadcast (more important than you think) and a clear and smooth picture.
- Ability to save recordings, organize them, share them, and send them to other online video services.
- The user interface is pretty good, but it definitely needs some improvements to help organize videos better, and request online restoration of videos that have been taken offline.
- As far as I can tell, new features haven't been added since UStream was acquired by IBM. It seems like development has been paused, or focused on back-end improvements that we as users simply don't see. Would like to see some new improvements being made, especially at this price point.
- The mobile viewing window lacks options and cannot detect device orientation. So I embed a video on a page that I can publish through an app, but then the viewing window does not orient correctly, without some complicated JavaScript that I personally have to write. This is an example of a feature that IBM should make and have part of the viewer window platform. Mobile friendly is essential in this day and age.
Mainly we're able to provide a quality viewing experience without the noise of Facebook or YouTube to our audience, providing a better branding experience for our users. This shows that we're not just building on the back of another company that doesn't have our users in mind. So for us, using a solution like IBM Video allows us to portray a higher level of "trustworthiness" to our users/customers.