Item: IBM Video Streaming
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Video (including Ustream)

Implementation Rating

We reached out to uStream during our analysis of platforms and were connected to a BDM at uStream who was helpful at answering our questions and also connecting us with key technical team members within uStream to answer our very specific technical questions. Having direct (email addresses and DDI phone numbers) ease of access to technical people at uStream was extremely helpful for implementation as we were able to email and call and get answers quickly - rather than having to go through 'generic' support email or phone numbers.

Usability

Our day to day usability is automated through the API. However, the uStream control panel is user-friendly and our admin people have no issue in jumping in there to perform tasks as required. End customers have a great experience using the uStream embedded player within our custom website.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using uStream across our organisation for streaming events both internally and to the general public. Our software developers have developed an in-house AV/media management platform for all of our locations, which includes in-depth API usage of uStream for automated video streaming and recording for on-demand viewing and archive purposes.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Excellent API integration for automating business processing - such as starting and stopping streaming etc.
White Labelled solution - all Ustream branding has been removed and presents well to the public/our customers.
Easy web control panel for managing streaming, channels and recordings.

Cons

Some of the 'private' video functionality was hard to implement (especially via the API) when we integrated in 2014, however I believe uStream has been working on improving this since then.
I don't believe you could dynamically create channels via the API - so some of the more advanced actions may not be available programatically via the API.

Alternatives Considered

Akamai, Brightcove Video Cloud and Livestream

When this project was evaluating streaming providers in 2013, Livestream was the closest to uStream in feature set. However, we found the packages that uStream provided were financially better considering the volume of customers who were going to stream our content. We also felt at the time that uStream had a superior API.

Likelihood to Recommend

well suited to companies who want a turn key streaming and recording solution - you don't need to worry about CDNS, different stream qualities and different platforms etc. Just send your feed and let uStream broadcast it. We found the API had the basics covered which allowed us to do what we wanted programatically.

Comments

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Bob Lee
commented 9 years ago
Hello. I'm Bob from the Voice of the Customer team here at Ustream, an IBM Company. Thanks very much for your review of our platform. We appreciate your insights and your business. We have indeed continued to improve our APIs and we'd love to know more about how you're using them. If this is something you'd like to discuss, please let me know and I'll connect you with our API team to see if we can answer any questions and explore how we can help. Thanks Again.

Rock solid streaming provider - excellent personalized support

Software Version