Sign in / up

back to article Could live P2P video be the antidote to YouTube dross?

A British company is aiming to stake a claim on some of the New World of online video's unexplored territory with Selfcast, a website and application that allow people to broadcast live to an unlimited audience using a bog standard broadband connection. The system, a leap forward from flaky webcam streams, was developed by …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Peter Kay

    doomed to failure

    256kbits? Otherwise known as the entire upwards bandwidth of a fixed rate ADSL line, over half of ADSL MAX home and a third of MAX business.

    Anyone sensible is going to throttle that, especially since in many ISPs upwards bandwidth counts towards your monthly allocation..

    It might.. just.. work as downloadable TV content that isn't around forever. Youtube only works because it (mostly) has lots of bandwidth. Torrents for TV programmes tail off very quickly, and after a week, fortnight max it'll be taking an aeon to download.

    It's lovely that all these new services are coming in just as people are being capped. I think I'll hang onto my slow, but unlimited 512Kb/s connection.

    0 0
  2. Ian Ferguson

    Whatever happened to Webcams?

    It's funny how far and few between webcams are nowadays. In the heyday of Web 1.0 webcams were one of the biggest buzzwords - every startup internet bubble business (and their dog) had an office / workshop / water cooler webcam.

    Recently I haven't seen any - all the more surprising seeing the prevalence of broadband. Any idea why this is? Youtube and its ilk is all very well and nice but none of these services seem in the slightest bit interested in live streaming.

    The only application nowadays seems to be videoconferencing, not streaming from one camera to a website. It's very strange. I was looking at setting up my MacBook camera as a webcam to keep an eye on my kittens from work, and couldn't find any suitable software for love or money.

    0 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    no, it just means 'live' dross rather than on demand dross

    School kids kicking each others heads in 'live' from the park

    0 0
  4. Morely Dotes

    Windows codecs on non-Windows systems

    "Like iPlayer, Selfcast uses the Windows Media codec, so Mac and open source fanciers are in the cold until Microsoft sorts out its Silverlight cross-platform browser plug-in."

    Well, actually, the Windows codecs do work in Linux, ergo, probably work in Mac OSX, if you just know how to install them. Legality may be an issue; I'm not a landshark, so I don't know.

    http://pimpyourlinux.com/linux-feature-review/linux-movie-codecs-and-dvd-experience/

    0 0
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Whatever happened to Webcams?

    We still have them :-)

    http://www.plus.net/webcams/

    0 0
  6. Daniel Ballado-Torres

    Too much upload!

    I think that software will be out of my reach, as my DSL link is 1024/128. Instead of upping the upload, they halved it down, in a lame attempt to cripple VoIP software (which, BTW, is *illegal* here in Mexico unless you have a long-distance licence). Which means that 256 Kbit/s will effectively kill my connection.

    And I'm not about to put out $600/month just to have 2 DS0 lines ...

    0 0
  7. Dillon Pyron

    Solution in search of a problem?

    I agree with many here. The demand, and content, will likely be nil and crap. Crap University (an NCAA class C school) won't be able to afford the TV system necessary to put together a show that the fans will want to watch. Unless they sell advertising. In which case nobody will watch it.

    250 Kb/s? Sure, I can do that on my cable. 6Mb down, 720 Kb up. Of course, it's only a matter of time before TW starts shaping. Probably not down, but definitely up.

    0 0
  8. Dillon Pyron

    One more thing

    Dissing? Doing any kind of PR? What a name.

    0 0
  9. heystoopid

    For some reason

    For some reason , Murdoch's biased and unbalanced illogical racist crappy Faux News Network , seems to be very afraid of both Youtube and Internet Bloggers!

    Such is life , when lies are exposed for all to see!

    0 0
  10. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    It's not Craptown United...

    ..it's FC United! Already doing live radio and video http://www.fcum.tv

    Server bandwidth hasn't really been the problem so far: getting signals to the server via mobile data networks is a bit more of a challenge. The problems with licensing the content remain: obtaining permission from the leagues or the FA (the worst culprit in these matters) can be a bit of a challenge. We've looked at various P2P solutions including Peercast for multiplatform compatability but Sopcast, et al are the real leaders: premiership football to your PC via P2P. Premium content rules.

    Forza FCUM!

    0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.