Item: IBM Video Streaming
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Video (including Ustream)

Implementation Rating

There were no problems. We did our research, did a trial, purchased a subscription and a few months into that upgraded to our current level. Ease of implementation was part of our consideration in making the investment.

Usability

There have been no problems with the software, and we've been using it regularly for over a year at this point.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We communicate with distributors of our products more than twice a month using Ustream. Audience size is from three or four hundred to 2000+. Rather than use the Ustream channel, we embed on our own live video page. We use the chat function provided by Ustream. It allows distributors access to news and information about the company, featuring the company president and various VPs. The broadcasts serve distributors in the US and Canada markets.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Support pre-IBM was excellent. (Haven't required assistance with anything since IBM purchase, so I suppose that's a "pro" too.)
Quality and reliability of the video stream has been consistently very good. We opt to use multi-quality streaming, and low-quality streaming works well for viewers with a marginal connection. Desktop and mobile equally good.
We use the supplied chat function in virtually every broadcast. It's worked well for our purposes, no hiccups.
We record locally, but use auto recordings as a backup. There have been some sync issues, but those can be solved without too much difficulty.

Cons

As mentioned, there is a sync issue with autorecords, and it's pretty consistent, even though the actual live stream is perfectly in sync. Support at Ustream suggested a) it was my player and b) that it actually was in sync. I guess my standards for "in sync" are higher than tech support's.
It seems a little pricey, but I don't have much to compare it with. We're paying about $1k/month minus a discount for paying a year in advance. (That's about double what we're paying for hosting of about 450 videos we keep on-line for our viewers, with 1GB of bandwidth/month). The subscription we have offers more channels, more storage and more viewer hours than we wanted or needed, but there was nothing in the middle.

Likelihood to Recommend

We do fairly sophisticated multicamera productions in our corporate in-house studio. Years ago, we would distribute programs like these on videocassette, later DVD (both infrequently), then offer them as downloads. It's easier and cheaper to distribute this way. We can do it much more frequently. Being live and having audience participation makes it more attractive to our audience and makes them feel more a part of the company. Archiving and replays are simple to achieve.

Comments

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Bob Lee
commented 8 years ago
Hi. I'm Bob with the Voice of the Customer team here at Ustream, an IBM Company. Thank you for taking the time to review our platform and for sharing your insights. Your input in these reviews is very valuable and we really do appreciate hearing from you. I'll be sure to flag your mention of your sync issues with our Customer Success and Product teams to ensure that we address your concerns and keep earning your business.

Communication with Independent Distributors

Software Version