Item: IBM Video Streaming
Rating: 10
Author: Kevin Ford

Implementation Rating

Ustream is easy to implement. It takes any stream we have thrown its way and distributed it quickly and with quality. When talking to others that are pursuing live stream implementations, I often remind them that the technology used to distribute your live stream is less important than the quality of the content you are distributing. Taking care to use the right camera equipment, the proper encoder, and quality sound gear will result in a high-quality stream that will allow the strength of the Ustream CDN to shine.

Usability

Ustream has a very easy to use interface as well as multiple articles explain the methods and procedure involved in properly utilizing their services. This is very important to the house of worship market, as organizations like ours are often utilizing volunteer to help produce our content. While simple on the surface, the platform has great depth in its customization and tracking abilities. This allows a power user, such as myself, to dig deep beneath the surface of the main settings and create the streaming experience I want to showcase.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our house of worship uses IBM Cloud Video (including Ustream) every week, multiple times a week, to stream our services and events around the world. We have a viewership of several thousand every week across 20+ countries. Ustream gives us the ability to directly track our viewership and respond to issues that may arise in the broadcast and distribution of our content. We also host a conference once a year that increases our viewership into the tens of thousands across 70+ countries. During this time, previous streaming methods have completely failed due to the pressure on our servers. Ustream has always remained rock solid due to it's multiple CDN locations. The immediate feedback of the distribution numbers and locations allow us to inform the conference attendees of the size and breadth of the conference, adding value to their conference experience.

Pros and Cons

The Ustream view ship tracking gives us detailed information of how many people are watching and from where. This helps my organization recognize trends in our international viewership and respond accordingly.
Ustream allows us to monitor and maintain multiple channels and streams at the same time. This important to my organization as we often translate our main broadcasts into multiple languages.
Ustream has maintained a 99% percent uptime during the length of our contract. This is comforting considering we stream at odd hours and over the weekend.

Our viewership often requests an audio only option of the livestream. This helps them remain connected while traveling but not eat up their data plans.
Recent bugs in the tracking tools have caused a disparity in the concurrent viewership graph versus the current viewer live counter. I'm not sure which is accurate, but I need to know the correct number.
Recent increase in their customer base has caused increased wait time in receiving downloads of our broadcasts. This can range from a few minutes to a few hours. This is more of minor annoyance that a deal breaker.

IBM Cloud Video Business Outcomes

Ustream has stretched the influence of our organization out across the globe. While we already had an international influence, we re now able to maintain and even grow that influence via international broadcasts every week. We are also able to offer this features to outside clients that come to our campus and utilize our facilities. This flexibility is, honestly, expected in this day and age. Ustream helps achieve this quickly, efficiently, and as affordably as possible at our scale.

Likelihood to Recommend

Any organization that needs to distribute and interact with live internet broadcasts will find that Ustream meets a majority of their needs. Their level of customer support and quality has been second to none for our needs. Also, their interface can be very simple to use, resulting in volunteers being able to use the system. The only setback, specifically for house of worship markets, is that this power and ease of use comes at a price. Ustream, at the enterprise level, can be very expensive. This price made sense for our organizations, but I can understand if it is far outside of the reach for many in the house of worship market.

Ustream is a blessing to the House of Worship market

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Video (including Ustream)