This is the video from NewTek Broadcast Minds panel at NAB 2011. It has some of the big players in streaming media like Leo Laporte and Adam Carolla talking about the future of streaming media and how it fits together with old media.

Vimeo at CES 2011! from Sam Morrill on Vimeo.

Vimeo does their usual great coverage of tech events like CES and Photoplus the only way they know how. I really love Vimeo and the great creative community there, the 59 dollars for plus membership is some of the easiest money for me to part with.

In my opinion on of the best audio podcasts and programs on public radio is Radiolab from WNYC in New York. Recently PBS’s Newshour did a piece on them and it is well worth watching their profile. Go to http://radiolab.org for more about Radiolab.

Great interview with Tim Street on The Kevin Pollak Chat Show. He talks about his history in production and how he got started on the internet. I first heard about Tim on This Week in Media and came across one of his first online video projects, FrenchMaidTV. The two talk about the future of podcasting and revenue models. Worth the time for any content producer.

I’ve talked about the YouTube alpha test of live streaming for some of their partners, and many people complained about the quality of video that was streaming. I’ve been watching some of YouTube’s Farmaid live stream and it looks significantly better than what I have been seeing in the past. I’m not sure if they are using someone else live VEVO, who they have used in the past, but I’m not familiar with the look of the player that they are using for the Farmaid live stream. I have seen very little buffering, and the macroblocking is some of the best streaming video I’ve seen.

If this is the quality of video and the sleek and simple player that we will see when YouTube live streaming rolls out to more people, than the other guys like Ustream and Justin.tv should be worried.

Vimeo.com does their standard fun and entertaining coverage of IBC 2010. They show off some of the new cameras coming out soon and new video gear.

Vimeo at IBC 2010 from Stephen Niebauer on Vimeo.

The long awaited YouTube Live streaming service that we have seen tested with the U2 concert last year and various White House events it starting a two day beta test in normal Google fashion. The two day long event gives some of the most popular YouTube partners to test out the new service.

Testing, testing…YouTube begins trial of new live streaming platform

From U2 to the Indian Premier League to the White House to E3, we’ve worked closely with our partners to give you a front row seat to a wide array of live events. Today and tomorrow, tune in as we open a new chapter of YouTube live streaming. Starting at 8:00 a.m. PT, we will begin a limited trial of a new live streaming platform in conjunction with four of our partners: Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood.

This new platform integrates live streaming directly into YouTube channels; all broadcasters need is a webcam or external USB/FireWire camera. Included in the test is a “Live Comments” module which lets you engage with the broadcaster and the broader YouTube community. For the purpose of the trial, this offering will only be available today and tomorrow. Based on the results of this initial test, we’ll evaluate rolling out the platform more broadly to our partners worldwide.

Check out all the live broadcasts via the interactive schedule below, and feel free to share this schedule across the web via the embed functionality. Bear with us as we test this new platform as there may be some bumps along the way. Please share your feedback in the comments section below (though note that the section is moderated due to spam). Thanks!

Joshua Siegel, Product Manager, and Christopher Hamilton, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched “Fun with Google Instant – We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

YouTube is the eight hundred pound gorilla when it comes to getting video onto the internet and their expansion into live streaming can only help assert their dominance. Hopefully there will be a stream recording feature much like that of Ustream, that provides better quality and will give content producers one place to manage all of their video content.

Live streaming video is a huge area of growth and this is a perfect time for YouTube to introduce this type of feature as many content producers are leaving Ustream over placing pre-roll ads on many of their live streams. Justin.tv has been the benefactor in this exodus from Ustream, but a cleverly introduced and useful live video product from YouTube could easily grab a large portion of the market share.

I’ll be watching closely to see where this goes and waiting until YouTube lets more people into their live stream beta. What do you think, would you switch to YouTube?

YouTube unveiled their new online editor that allows YouTubers to do simple edits and add music from the AudioSwap library of songs that YouTube has. The editors is very simple and has no transitions and I found it works best if all you want to do is splice together several videos you have already uploaded. YouTube has released it under their TestTube labs feature and no doubt they will be improving and adding more features to make the process faster and make the editor more useful. Watch the video above to get an idea of how to use and acces the editor.

I tried it with several videos that I had uploaded from my vacation and found the process very quick and useful if splicing together videos is all that you want to do.

Allows you to:

• Combine multiple videos you’ve uploaded to create a new longer video
• Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos
• Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs

Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click — no upload necessary

YouTube in an effort to be more transparent and help cultivate the YouTube community has been asking for questions on various topics and then having YouTube employees answer them in video form. The first topic they tackle is on the YouTube partnership progam which is a revenue sharing program with big YouTube content producers and is currently in 14 countries. The program allows content producers to earn part of the advertising revenue that appears on and around their videos. Watch the video for some more details on the YouTube Partner program.

So if you live under a rock or are unfortunate to not be able to surf the Internet while at work than you might have not heard about the new iPhone 4G that was revealed during the Steve Jobs keynote speech at the World Wide Developers Conference. The device revealed was almost exactly what we saw when Gizmodo got their hands on a prototype earlier in the year. I will leave all the drooling over the details to the big gadget blogs and focus my attention to the camera and iMovie for the iPhone.

One of my first thoughts when Jobs began talking about the new iPhone being able to record, edit, and upload HD 720p video, was that this was really bad news for the Flip. I haven’t heard any recent rumbling of a new Flip camera that is going to be able to compete with the new iPhone. Their newest model the Slide mainly just added a sliding touchscreen. Last year I heard about the possibility of a Wi-Fi flip and have really, really wanted an external audio input much like that of the Kodak Zi8 to be added to the Flips.

The reason the so many people bought the Flip was because of it’s ease of use and price. It was the camera that you wouldn’t mind letting the kids play wit, and is the one that people carry around in their bags when when they need to shoot something real simple. Newer models need to stay true to their roots while adding features to keep the product line competitive with the new iPhone coming soon and other small HD video cameras like the Kodak Zi8 that are out in the market. I have to say that it doesn’t look good for the Flip, and I haven’t seen the kind of commitment from Cisco that I would like to keep improving the Flip.

What I want out of the next flip

1. External Audio Input (w/ ability to turn of automatic gain control)
2. Flip Ultra Form Factor: for the ability to switch out batteries, and use with other flip ultra accessories
3. Wi-Fi w/ auto upload similar to Eye-Fi cards
4. Live HDMI out while recording

The guys over at TechCrunch noticed that on a screenshot in a help article for the new YouTube moderator feature, that there is a button for Live Stream to edit setting for a YouTube channel.

YouTube has been experimenting with Live Streaming events like a U2 concert, and various other events, mostly politcal in nature, but this could be hinting at a not so distant future rollout of Live Streaming services to the whole YouTube community.

Live Streaming is exploding in popularity as Ustream.tv recently received 75 Million dollars to help expand their services worldwide. If YouTube really does turn on Live Streaming to all users, it could be really interesting to see where producers alliances will lye as each of the services will no doubt fight for exclusive deals with content producers.

(TechCrunch.com)

Last week Ustream.tv announced that they are adding Global Production Services (GPS for short) to their growing list of offering. This is another tool in Ustream’s arsenal that is make Ustream the live stream provider the choice of more and more producers. They are offering three different packages to meet the different needs of many of the Ustream producers. The packages list base prices that don’t include travel or other costs that are based on the location.

The Ustream backpack has gained a lot of attention while Leo Laporte was using it to live stream his coverage from this year’s SXSW. They are offering two different options with the mobile LiveU rig. There is the $3,000 a day rate that includes camera and technical staff and there is a month to month or yearly rental option to just rent the backpack equipment and includes 40 hours of streaming a month. Twit.tv and Pixel Corps have rented the Ustream Mobile Livepack and swear by it’s quality.

Conference streaming has blow up in the past year or so, and it used to be really expensive and you had to deal with some hairy technical goo with distributing the video. That has changed with the growth of services like Ustream and Justin.tv that make the distribution easy. The conference level package includes 2 cameras, Tricaster Studio and all the staff you need to make sure the video go off without a hitch. With the conference and concert packages you have to provide a beefy enough Internet connection to stream the video to Ustream.

The concert package is pretty close to the conference package, but adds a third camera and operator and a director to help give the production a coherent overall look. To note with both the conference and concert packages you’ll still need audio people and they will have to provide a audio feed to the Ustream production staff, which shouldn’t be any problem if you have competent audio people you’re working with.

Today YouTube rolled out a new feature that only lets people watch videos you upload to YouTube if they have the link to the direct video. It keeps it from being able to be searched in YouTube, but lets more than 25 people view your videos like what happens if you make a video private.

From the YouTube blog:

With this feature, you can mark your videos as “unlisted.” This means only people who have the link to the video will be able to watch it. It won’t appear in any of YouTube’s public pages, in search results, on your personal channel or on the browse page. It’s a private video, except you don’t need a YouTube account to watch it and there is no limit to the number of people who can view it. You’ll get a link when you upload the video and then it’s up to you to decide who to share it with. Unlisted is the perfect option for that class project, video from last summer’s family reunion or your secret Broadway audition tape.

Nice feature if you want to share a video with people that follow you on Twitter, but not the whole world. What would you use this for?

The Electro-Voice 635 has been the go to microphone for generations of news reporters. It was designed to survive and thrive in the various conditions that news reporters find themselves in. It has a 4 stage pop filter that helps block out wind and the long handeled body is a perfect size to fit a mic flag on and still have enought handle to hold.

More and more I see reporters and producers moving to the 635′s younger cousin, the RE50. The RE50 adds some upgrades to the 635 and is the next evoultion in the product line. Both mics are in a similar price range from about 100 dollars to around 150 dollars.

If you’re looking for a good mic to do interviews and what someting with the professional touch then either of these mics are great choices.

Some of the guys at Vimeo headed out to Las Vegas to cover the new toys at NAB 2010. I really liked the videos did at CES this year and this one about NAB is great too. Love seeing some of the new things people are thinking up. Really want to get my hands on the 3D GoPro Hero rig they showed in the video. Check it out for yourself.

Vimeo at NAB 2010 from Stephen Niebauer on Vimeo.

Good lighting is key in helping improve the production value of your videos, but getting pro level equipment is very pricey. Litepanels are the drool worthy LED lights that caught the eyes of ENG photographers and new media focused content producers like TWIT and Mahalo that turned to litepanels for low power consumption and low heat producing lighting.

Litepanels LP Micro Pro

Litepanels are the original and the the lights that the pros use, but they come at a price.

Sima SL-20LX Ultra Bright Video Light

These Sima lights are one of the most affordable options and what I personally recomend. I’ve seen several people use them and for under 30 bucks it worth a shot.

Switronix TL-50 30w Dimmerable DC Powered LED Light Fixture 5600k

The Switronix is a competetor to the Litepanels and is priced and aimed to pros. It’s a little pricey like the Litepanels, but has really good battery life and puts out a lot of light.

Flashpoint Shoe Mountable LED 70 Video Light with 4 Leaf Barndoor.

This is a larger LED light with adjustable barn doors for focusing the beam of light. Seems like a good bargin at 70 bucks, but I haven’t heard much from people that have used the light.

Dear Cisco,

When you purchased Pure Digital, the company that makes the line of Flip Video cameras, I like many people, scratched my head, wondering why Cisco would buy them and what they were going to do. I feel the new sliding Flip Camera is a dud; it’s not a revolutionary product like the original Flips were it’s an also rand. We already have a touchscreen video camera and its called the iPhone 3GS and costs about the same as the new almost 300 dollar camera. I had so many high hopes, we heard rumors of a camera with integrated Wi-Fi for features that you would get from something like a Eye-Fi card where video can be instantly uploaded without hooking up to a computer. Allow me to help with a list of things that I would like to see in future devices.

• External Audio Input: Please, Please, Please add an audio input jack, the Kodak Zi8 has it and I think that fact that its really hard to find one in stock shows that consumers and creatives want that feature. Please also add a menu feature to turn off auto gain control too.
• 1080P: It’s the next evolution of the product line, just be sure that you maintain good performance in low light.
• 720P 60fps: Not high on my list, but would like to have it as an option when I need it.
• Live Video Output: Would be nice to be able to hook up the flip to a larger monitor by the HDMI and component connections to help with framing shots.

Thanks,

Zach Scott

The second episode of the excellent video podcast “Put This On” came out this week. This episode the focus is on shoes, be sure to go back and watch the first episode on jeans too. I wanted to highlight Put This On because of the level of quality and caring that the creators Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor put into the show. The production value in the show is well above what most people expect from content that is made for the web. For me it stands as a bar for myself to reach for in my own productions, yet I find myself thinking that bar is out of reach.

(Putthison.com)

Photo: Collen Kelly (TWiT’s Vice President of Engineering)
Last night at their dealer meeting and officially today, NewTek unveiled their newest addition to the Tricaster line, the TCXD850. The TCXD850 addresses some of the main complaints of users when they debuted the TCXD300 back in December. The TCXD850 sports 8 HD-SDI inputs where the TCXD300 only 3. Eight HD camera inputs should be more than enough inputs for most producers, especially anybody who is considering the Tricaster.

Photo: Collen Kelly (TWiT’s Vice President of Engineering)

The new Tricaster also adds more pro level features like redundant power supplies that make the Tricaster more attractive to broadcast engineers that have to keep their equipment up and running. I have never heard of power supply failures being a problem with Tricasters, but since there is a windows PC at the heart of the Tricaster, it’s one of the more likely parts to fail, and I’ve had more than my fair share of power supplies die. The new Tricaster also adds a boat load of more audio inputs over the two balanced inputs the TCXD300 has.

The TCXD850 will be available on July 15th and will sell in a NTSC only version for $24,995 and an international version for $27,995.

Some photos of suspected new Flip cam have leaked and showed up on Engadget last night.The photos came from someone at Best Buy.

I can’t completely read the sticker on the box, but I’m guessing it says something like it goes on sale on the 14th or on sale in 14 days.

Photos: via Engadget.com

This new picture shows some of the specs of the new camera. Looks like it will have 16Gb of storage, giving is up to 4 hours of record time, double what the latest Flip Mino HD have, and it still is recording at 720p. The photo doesn’t give any idea as to what type of connections the camera will have, I’m guessing it will have at least mini HDMI out. I like many people are hoping that they will be adding external audio input, and maybe this will be the Flip that does it. There also have been some rumors that they are going to have a camera with built in Wi-fi for automatic uploading, but there is now way to tell from the pictures here. So far, if all this new camera does is have a sliding screen, then it will be a pass for me.

Cisco really needs to make some leaps with the Flip product line to a cert it’s dominance in the small HD camera market against makers like Kodak that are biting at their heels.

(Engadget.com)

Since I was a kid, I can remember flipping through the pages of video production magazines like Videography and drooling over all the new cameras and gear that I wished I had.  One ad that would always stop me in my tracks was the ads for something called a video toaster. At first glance, it brought thoughts of the flying toaster screen-saver that was so very much the thing to have on your computer at work, but the Video Toaster was something far more cooler and powerful. The Video Toaster ran on the Amiga computer and consisted of a fairly cheap hardware and software combination to bring a powerful live switching / linear editing solution that was affordable. Later generations of the video toaster added more and more features and has become the Newtek Tricaster that we know today.

1994 Promo Video for the Video Toaster 4000

Live streaming video has come along way from the postage stamp sized video of NASA TV that I remember watching using real player on my 56K modem more than ten years ago. Watching high quality video is common place now and made possible by the increase in the availability in broadband and fast, cheap, computers. Streaming services like, Ustream, Justin.tv and Bit Gravity have made getting your video content out even easier. I remember days spent trying to get several servers to work together to feed a rtsp stream to a couple of computers across a LAN, and now anyone with a webcam can be easily streaming to an audience of thousands without the hassle of working out the back-end technnology.

The Tricaster isn’t a brand new product, but has seen huge growth in sales with the rise of people creating live video content for the web. The Tricaster has a lot of bang for the buck, replacing hugely expensive satellite trucks with a small box that can be easily shipped and it price ranges from just under $5,000 for the basic tricaster to $15,000 for the new drool worthy HD Tricaster TCXD300. The new HD Tricaster is an extremely attractive alternative to other HD switchers in the market that generally start in the $100,000 range and the Tricaster has more features. The Tricaster has made online TV networks possible and affordable like TWIT.tv and ThisWeekIn.com.  When a normal TV studio would normally need a crew of a dozen or more, the TWIT live stream is controlled solely by Leo Laporte that switches cameras while hosting and all of the rest of the duties of head TWIT all while on air.

Photo: © Newtek Inc.

Newtek had a big presence this year at SXSW with the Tricaster equipped Mini Cooper showing up all across Austin as Newtek made it possible for companies such as SiliconAngle.com, TWIT.tv, and This Week in Startups, and Revision 3 to bring the SXSW experience into people’s homes.

And its not just online video producers that are increasing using the Tricaster, more and more “old media” producers are integrating Tricaster into their productions for web content or video played in sports venues. I think this trend will only continue to increase as more people start creating live web video and old media looks for more ways to reduce costs and attract a larger audience.

With the iPad just days away from arriving at the doorsteps of nerds across America, the rumble of torch and pitchfork wielding nerds storming the Adobe castle is rising again.  There are two main camps in the whole Apple vs. Adobe battle. There are those who complain to Apple for not including Flash in the iPhone and in the forthcoming iPad and than there is the camp of people who at the wheel of the backhoe digging the hole to burry Flash in.  The Moses attempting to part the chopping waters of flash and html developers is HTML 5. HTML 5 is praised as the new upcoming web development standard that will bring unity and conformity to the web.

Youtube and Vimeo have both started to dip their toes in the murky water, following HTML 5s lead, and have HTML5 video players in beta. If you are using a compatible player like Safari and Chrome, give the players a try for yourself by going to youtube.com/testtube and clicking on the try it out link for HTML 5 and there are links on compatible videos on Vimeo below the player to switch to the HTML 5 player.

First of all, let’s start with the good, to me the quality of the video seems pretty good and jumping around videos in a little better too. You don’t have to worry about flash always crashing on you as it is built in as part of the HTML 5 standard.

But, that’s about all that is good, at least yet. The main drawlback for seems to be the lack of the buffering bar at the bottom of the players that I have seen. This is especially frustrating when you have a slow connection or just youtube is slow for some reason.  Also not all the functionality of their regualr flash players haven’t been integrated into the HTML 5 versions, like with vimeo you can’t embed the HTML 5 version and you can’t watch the videos full screen; when you click the full screen button, the video blows up to take up the entire browser window. With youtube, videos that have ads, which is many of the videos from youtube parteners and youtube stars don’t work with the HTML 5 player, is reverets back to the flash player.

HTML 5 is coming, but I’m not ready to bury flash just yet. Certainly web designers need to be thinking about their audience and what devices they are using. The days of the flash splash page are hopefully all behind us and the end of sites made entirely in flash is not soon enough. I think it will take the push of several large sites such as CBS has announced that they are moving to HTML 5 and for them to blaze the trail and fix the bugs for the rest of the internet to begin to make the shift over to HTML 5.

Ask anyone who was at SXSW Interactive or just watched the online coverage from warmth and security of a Shiner Bock and a snuggy, one the of highlights was seeing king of the internet and pope of SXSW Leo Laporte crowd surf at Saturday’s Diggnation party. Leo was using a backpack device loaned from Ustream that uses 6 bonded 3G modems to give enough bandwidth to send high quality video back to Ustream. What was amazing is the whole thing worked while Leo was crowd surfing; watching it live from home, I was holding my breath just waiting for the stream to fail or a cord to get pulled out from the broadcaster unit. Watch the video and see it for yourself.

Each year nerds from all the world flock to Austin for five days and nights of panels, parties and puking also known a South by Southwest Interactive.  It seems each year there is at least one application or technology thing that everyone is using at SXSW. Last year the big thing was geolocation apps mainly Foursquare that had a big swell in users at SXSW last year as all the cool people were trying to find out where all the rest of the cool people are at and which party is the one to be at for the night.  In previous years twitter really started to take off and gained size-able adoption and proof of that is in the almost constant chatter about SXSW which is especially annoying to people like me who aren’t lucky enough to be going this year.

So what will be the “it” things at this year’s SXSW? I have two things that come to mind, QR Codes and Live streaming. I think we are going to see QR codes all over the place as people are trying to network and QR codes are a great way to exchange the information that would normally be on your business cards.  If you don’t know anything about QR Codes click here for the wikipedia article.  I think the band, movie posters and leaflets that are plastered all over the convention center will have the new addition of a QR Code that sends the user to a site with more information about their show or movie. Be prepared to see a throng of nerds in shirts with huge QR Codes silk-screened on them, hawking their blog or whatever.

In the year since the last SXSW, Apple released the iPhone 3GS, the version of the iPhone yet that best suited for live streaming video, and apps like Ustream broadcaster and Qik that allowing people to do live streaming video over Wi-Fi or 3G has become possible. I think live streaming services like Ustream are going to see a lot of use from people at SXSW streaming events going on in Austin.  One man who will be doing this for sure is Leo Laporte. Ustream has lent Leo one of their streaming backpacks from LiveU a company that builds this portable computer designed for streaming.  The backpack has enough juice for about 6 hours of use. The secret sauce that makes this all work is 8 separate 3G modems, 2 each from the 4 major players, that work in concert to provide a solid connection and sufficient upload bandwidth that produces some pretty good looking video. I think we’re going to see a lot of live streams coming from Austin next week as many of the big podcasts like TWIT, TWiST, Buzz out Loud, NSFW, Diggnation all converge in Austin. At&t epically failed last year, greatly underestimating the strain that the more than 13,000 attendees would put on their network and they say they have been working since then to make sure that this year isn’t a repeat. They beefed up the cell towers downtown with more fiber, installed hardware in the Austin convention center and are bringing a convoy’s worth of cell tower trucks to cover Austin in a rich and creamy layer of 3G. We’ll see if this will be enough to handle the demands of bandwidth heavy apps and thousands of people constantly refreshing twitter every minute.

Chatroulette.com sprouted up a couple of weeks ago and has taken the Internet by storm.  If you don’t know about Chatroulette already than it is easily explained that it’s Skype video chat except you don’t know who is gonna show up on the other end. Most of the time it’s guys like the Jonas brothers that keep hitting next until they find a pretty lady to chat up, but there is a sizable portion of the users that are guys that to put delicately are very visibly excited to be on chatroulette.

On Sunday’s episode of TWIT number 237, Leo Laporte, regretfully for people like me who were watching the live stream, tried his luck at chatroulette. The short excerpt is below.

Here’s the longer version, about 7 minutes.

I also came across this great short documentary about Chatroulette

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Came across this great video showing a bunch of stats on the current state of the internet.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Jim Kosek, a meteorologist that works for AccuWeather.com, an online weather website, reached YouTube fame with his recent report about the impending Snowpocalypse that hit the Baltimore and D.C. area last week. While doing some research on Kosek I came across the second video about Jim Kosek, and apparently it is a common occurence for Kosek it get psyched about the weather. There even is a Jim Kosek fan club on Facebook.com (link) with more than 1,000 fans. There was even a piece on Kosek in the Washington Post this weekend about Kosek and his antics. (link)

Enjoy some of these other classic Kosek weather casts.

Yesterday marked the five year anniversary for YouTube.  It was on February 14 2005 when the youtube.com domain was registered. It wasn’t until April 23rd 2005 when the first video was uploaded to YouTube and the landscape of online video would be forever changed.

The First video Uploaded to YouTube

Blog post from one of YouTube’s founders, Chad Hurley, commemorating the 5 year anniversary.

When we registered the YouTube domain on February 14, 2005, we set out to create a place where anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection could share a story with the world. Five years into it, we’re as committed as ever to the core beliefs and principles that guided YouTube’s creation:

Video gives people a voice – From classrooms to war-torn countries, the Queen of England to the King of Pop, the Pope to the President of the United States, and the hillsides of Port au Prince to the streets of Tehran, video has the power to give rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history.

We succeed when our partners succeed – Our content partners run the gamut, from major Hollywood studios to aspiring filmmakers and vloggers who can turn the ordinary into something extraordinary on the turn of a dime. Content creation isn’t our business; it’s theirs. But breaking open access to media and distribution means delivering the world’s largest global audience and the revenue models they need to succeed, as well as the tools they need to control their content.

Video evolves fast, YouTube must evolve faster – The Internet evolves at break-neck speed. We launch products quickly and constantly iterate to stay one step ahead of it. Our goal? To set the standard in online video delivery. Fast loading, high quality videos need to be able to play on any device, anywhere, anytime. And whether we’re supporting 1080p, 3D, or deploying auto-speech recognition technology, we innovate with an eye toward providing the best possible experience for all of you.

Chad Hurley, Co-Founder & CEO, YouTube

Ustream has released two new desktop applications for broadcasting to Ustream. There is a free version and a pay version for $199 that allows multiple cameras and add a couple other features. The apps are available for either Mac or Windows.  When you download the free version, there is an option to out the pro version with a really annoying watermark, but I suggest trying it before you shell out the two hundred bucks for the pro version.  The producer app gives broadcasters the same controls as using the web based broadcaster but adds some functionality of a video switcher and access to Ustream’s social networking functions.

The free version supports one live camera and allows you to capture video from your desktop as well, great if you’re doing a show with you on one camera and the other host in on Skype or if you are doing a PowerPoint presentation. The app allows you to switch between the live video, screen-cast, recorded video, and images and music. The switcher has 3 transitions, which to me seems like just one because I don’t call a cut a transition and I can’t tell the difference between “Smooth” and “Cross-dissolve”.

The pro version adds support for unlimited cameras, transitions, adds HD support and allows title and overlay functionality.  The pro version is pretty much a branded version of Wirecast and has most of the functinality of Wirecast but only works with Ustream and is cheaper at $199 versus the $449 for Wirecast. Trying to add titles is harder than it should be, but is doable and you can save the presets so you don’t have to change the settings for each show.

Final Verdict:

If you use Ustream, then definatly try the free version of the App and check out the pro features too. If you are leaning to the pro version and you’re on a Mac, then the Pro version is a good option for the money. If you want the pro features and are on Windows than I would suggest trying out Vidblaster before you buy. Vidblaster’s home version is $195 and I think is easier and more powerful than the Ustream App. A downfall for Vidblaster though is that you need a pretty recent and powerful computer to take full use of all it’s features.

Links:

Ustream Producer App

Vidblaster

If you’re looking for a good starter HD camera and want something with a little more features than something like a Flip Mino HD or Kodak Zi8 than the Canon HF200 might be a good choice for you. It records on SDHC memory cards and records in the MPEG-IV AVC H.264 codec that makes is easy to take the footage into your non-linear editor of choice.  Click here to check out the specs. Amazon has it on sale for $200 off until the end of the month.

Last week was CES, Marc Ostrick and Michael Sean Wright embarked on their journey to help Robert Scoble build a Live Streaming HD production studio in his home. The mold for most of us aspiring media moguls is to create a studio like the TWIT cottage and in the video embedded below by Ostrick and Wright shows Scoble visiting the head TWIT Leo Laporte. This is the first in their series documenting to studio building process. For the whole blog post and writeup check out SiliconAngle.com

Here’s the video: LINK