Streaming for University Events
August 24, 2019
Streaming for University Events
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Streaming Manager (Ustream Pro Broadcast)
Modules Used
- Teradek VideU
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming
In the event world, we receive a lot of requests for streaming live events across campus. We use IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming to connect with audiences around the world. With our camera setup and a local streaming kit, we're able to bring our event to overflow rooms across campus, and stream online for anyone at home.
- Adaptability. We're able to configure our livestreams to the needs of our clients.
- Detail-oriented. There's a lot of options to look into, compared to the bare-bones packages that many of the competitors offer.
- Cost. Many other services offer similar services at no cost.
- Viewer hours. This is a confusing concept for our clients, and we don't like the idea of a limited number of viewer hours allotted each month.
- Tiered membership system. This should be simplified.
We get thousands of viewers each year for our graduation commencement ceremony. We use the in-house production team and are delivered a video feed with open captions for the Livestream. We've never had issues with bandwidth or number of viewers. The only drawback is the rigidness between the membership tiers and cost from viewer hours.
It's hard to determine how much we use a software-defined content delivery network within our regular day to day operations. We definitely do continue to experience lag with all of the content we stream, but very few timeouts or jittering effects due to any software content delivery network usage or packet loss.
We love looking at the metrics IBM provides us. As we said earlier, we have an annual graduation commencement in June. As a very diverse university, we look at the number of viewers and which parts of the world they tune in from, and where they access the link. This has helped us determine where we should advertise the stream (Facebook, our website, twitter, etc.)
We have not delved into IBM video streaming closed captioning software yet. Most of the events that require closed captioning have an on-site stenographer for any caption-related duties. This allows us to live caption for audience members in the room (via jumbotron) as well as to stream a feed with open captions for online and streaming distribution.