Findings and Discussions

In total, 138 submissions were received. Each evaluated different numbers of technologies. Our log shows that some respondents accessed the survey with a dialup connection, which did not fulfil the broadband requirement, and some entries were identical. We removed those entries to make sure the result would not be tinted. So, all the calculations are based on the 124 legitimate cases. Respondents from eight countries filled out the survey, but most of them (81%) came from the United States (See Chart 1).

Clipstream

Clipstream is a playerless Java-driven streaming technology. The company, with the same name, developed both on-demand and live streaming technologies using Java. Both on-demand and live streaming are done through a Web server. No streaming server is involved. A virtual player is sent to the user's computer while viewing is going on. After the viewing session is over, the player is gone.

Clipstream live streaming is made possible through Clipstream Live, a broadcast software program. To boost salability, Clipstream Repeater can be used on another computer or computers to handle bigger traffic flow for a live video stream. Both Clipstream Live and Repeater are Windows-based though its streaming videos can be easily viewed on almost all Macs and on most PCs so long as Java Runtime Environment is installed. Clipstream allows live video streaming recording. The interface is straightforward and easy to use. Considering the fact that no streaming server is involved, its Live price, $199, makes the technology very affordable though one license of Repeater costs $999.

Clipstream Pros

Most testers (71%) did not experience rebuffering in Clipstream. Because its streaming is based on popular Java technology, viewing across operating system is easy. overwhelming majority of the testers (89.4%) claimed that they did not have to download anything to view the live stream. Its latency performance was not bad either (2.85 seconds). Setup is fast (2.56 seconds).

Clipstream Cons

The biggest problem with this technology is that there is an almost constant 1/4-second audio/video mismatch though audio/video matching was not part of the testing. Its image looks soft. Actually, its image quality was rated the poorest by the testers. There is no full-screen viewing button built into the broadcast interface.

Clipstream earned a total ranking score of 4 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 5. In short, Clipstream still has much room for improvement before it is ready for prime time.

DVTS

Usually unknown to the non-professional world and sometimes even the professional world, DVTS (Digital Video Transport System) is a high-quality live video streaming method developed by the Internet 2 people. It is largely being used in universities where an Internet 2 connection is available. The minimum Internet connection speed must be 30 Mbps for the DVTS signal to be sent. Likewise, the same minimum Internet connection speed must be available for the signal to be received smoothly though in our test, we found that a 10Mbps connection still allowed a user to receive a live feed but with much rebuffering.

DVTS comes with both Windows version and OSX version; however, the OSX version requires command line operation, and is much less convenient than its Windows counterpart.

DVTS Pros

Since DVTS uses 30Mbps uncompressed video for streaming, it provides very high-quality images with extremely low latency in a 720x480 px frame. Actually, its latency was the shortest among all the technologies tested (0.21 second), and it won the biggest crowd (44%) among the testers to cheer for its image quality as "Excellent." DVTS is the second easiest to set up a streaming (2.38 min). This open-source technology is free.

DVTS Cons

DVTS is too advanced a technology to be popular now. Apart from the fact that it needs a minimum 30 Mbps connection speed, which is hardly available for home use, it is engaged only in multicast streaming. Multicast is a more efficient and cost-effective technology than unicast technology for streaming. Unfortunately, almost no public ISP supports multicast. As a result, home Internet users cannot access a DVTS stream.

Since not many people know about this technology, viewing DVTS streaming, chances are, involves downloading and installing the software. Digital recording of a DVTS live streaming session is impossible though the recording can be done via a video tape in the broadcasting camera. Because of DVTS's bandwidth thirst, a user may encounter frequent rebuffering if a connections drops lower than 30 Mbps. There is no deinterlacing filter for this technology.

DVTS earned a total ranking score of 2 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 3. It is a very promising technology for live streaming waiting for the infrastructure to catch up.

Flash

When Macromedia (now part of Adobe) introduced Flash streaming video in 2004, its live streaming capability was built in, but hardly did anyone venture to do live Flash video streaming on the commercial level because there was little technical support available at the time. Doing Flash live video streaming kept being a hobby among hardcore Flash video fans until February 2007, when Adobe quietly introduced Flash Media Encoder (still not many media produces know its existence today). This timely addition, in fact, drastically pushed Flash live video streaming ranking to the front seat in our study because it is much easier to set up a Flash live stream now, and many other factors got a boost.

Flash Pros

As of July 2007, Flash Media Encoder (FME) was only Windows-based, but it enjoyed the highest pre-installation rate (91.2%) in our study. Flash Media Encoder's interface is very easy to use. FME allows digital recording of a live video stream. Flash live video streaming has one of the shortest latency (0.96 second). Soon after a user connects to a live feed, the image is on without any blur.

Flash Cons

FME is a good start in the Flash live video streaming effort. Pushing a live feed to a Web page, however, still involves time-consuming player building in Flash. That is why setting up a Flash streaming takes the second longest time (7.22min). It's image quality still needs improvement. Our internal testing shows that, when its default frame size, 720x480px, is used, there is almost always a mismatch between audio and video, and the audio is hardly recognizable even with a 100Mbps connection speed. As a result, we were forced to use a smaller frame size. Even with the small frame size, rebuffering can still be an annoying factor form time to time. FME is free, but it won't work without the expensive Flash Media Server 2, the backbone of Flash live video streaming.

Flash live video earned a total ranking score of 7 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 2. Flash live streaming is a very promising technology. If developed well in the next several months, by taking advantage of the wide popularity of Flash Player, Flash video has the potential to win another battle in live streaming as its on-demand counterpart did, but it is still a work in progress. Much needs to be done before it can be widely accepted by the live streaming community for commercial use. Right now, its good user experience comes with a high price for any company that wants to deliver content via Flash live video.

QuickTime

QuickTime live video streaming is still a comparatively new phenomenon. It was not possible until Apple introduced QuickTime Broadcaster, a desktop application, in late 2005. Together with QuickTime Streaming Server or the free open-source Darwin Streaming Server, QuickTime Broadcaster captures and encodes audio/video into QuickTime compatible formats including H.264, the latest standards-based codec in the industry. To view a live stream, QuickTime is needed.

To combat the low pre-installation rate of QuickTime on Windows systems, Apple has bundled free QuickTime with its popular iTune both on Windows systems and on Macs. In addition, Darwin Streaming Server can be installed on both operating systems. However, QuickTime Broadcaster is OSX-based only. This is the only solely OSX-based broadcasting software. This fact could hinder the acceptance of QuickTime live video streaming in the PC-dominant world.

QuickTime Pros

The biggest advantage of QuickTime live video streaming technology is that both QuickTime Broadcaster and Darwin Streaming Server are free. With a Mac computer, QuickTime live video streaming is very easy to set up (3.91min). Digital recording of a live stream is possible. In our study, QuickTime enjoyed a very high pre-installation rate (87.9%), but we have to take into consideration the fact that the test was conducted among media professionals among which Mac ownership was high. In the real world, the QuickTime pre-installation rate is 67.6%.

QuickTime Cons

The biggest problem with QuickTime live streaming is its long latency (10.41 seconds). That fact is translated into a long wait before the videos comes up for a viewer. In addition, the video almost always looks fuzzy and dissected at the beginning. Only around half of the testers (52.8%) said that they did not experience any rebuffering. Its image quality is mediocre among the competitors.

QuickTime live video streaming earned a total ranking score of 3 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 7. QuickTime live video streaming technology has more battles to fight before it can become mainstream. Right now, streaming media producers have to pay a big price for QuickTime's live streaming quality and image quality though the technology can be used for free.

Real

Real Networks Real live streaming is made possible by RealProducer and Real Helix Server, both of which are Windows-based only. To view a Real live stream, RealPlayer is needed, which is available both on PC and Mac.

Real Pros

RealProducer allows live streaming recording. It's interface is very easy to use.

Real Cons

Considering it was one of the earliest live streaming technologies available, Real misses the mark against its modern competitors.

During the test, obvious mismatches in audio and video were observed. Clients experienced constant and frequent rebuffering issues. Additionally, audio speed was perceptively doubled in parts of the stream. The video quality appeared "soft" in most cases as well. Despite troubleshooting with Real Networks engineers, we were not able to resolve these issues.

Real's reputation for bundling software also hurt their profile in this study. Some testers intentionally did not have RealPlayer installed because they were afraid of spyware and unsolicited ads, nor were many testers willing to install Real for the purposes of conducting the test. Because of this, some results may be skewed.

Real's performance was mediocre on ease of streaming setup, and on latency. Finally, Real is one of the most expensive streaming technologies tested.

Real live video streaming earned a total ranking score of 8 – the lowest among all technologies tested – and an audience-oriented ranking score of 8 (also lowest).

VLC

Like DVTS, VLC is for live streaming only and cannot do on-demand streaming. VLC is an encoder, server, and media player all in one. Apart from streaming live a camera shot, it can also stream live a DVD movie or a media file.

VLC Pros

As an open-source program, it is for free downloading. Its Windows version and OSX version are equally convenient to use. There are also various versions of VLC for Linux. It supports the widest array of media formats. It even plays FLV files when no major media players can play them.

VLC won four out of six No. 1s in our test. Since the software is freeware and there is no specially high requirement for hardware, VLC is the least expensive for live streaming. Its image quality was rated by the testers as the best and as good as that of DVTS. Even though VLC's high default bit rates (1024kbps for video and 192Kbps for audio) were used, users experienced least rebuffering. Finally, VLC live video streaming is the easiest to set up (1.54 minutes).

VLC Cons

VLC is not Web-friendly because embedding a VLC movie in a Web browser is not as easy as embedding Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media, or Real movies, and letting viewers view a VLC in a Web browser is more difficult. Users usually have to view a VLC live streaming video directly inside VLC. Since VLC is not as well known as the big players, users usually have to download it to view content. Its latency can also be improved.

VLC live video streaming technology is the biggest winner in our test. It earned a total ranking score of 1, the highest of all, and an audience-oriented ranking score of also 1, still the best. As a cross-platform technology, VLC has the potential to become an ideal live video streaming technology if it can solve its browser embedding hassle and boost its latency performance.

VX30

VX30 is a playerless Java-driven streaming technology. The company, with the same name, developed both on-demand and live streaming technologies using Java. Both on-demand and live streaming are done through a Web server. No streaming server is involved. A virtual player is sent to the user's computer while viewing is going on. After the viewing session is over, the player is gone.

VX30 live streaming is made possible through VX30 Live Video Encoder. To boost salability, VX30 Video Broadcast Server can be used on another computer or computers to handle bigger traffic flow for a live video stream. The VX30 Live Video Encoder is Windows-based, but its Video Broadcast Server is platform independent. VX30 streaming videos can be easily viewed on almost all Macs and on most PCs so long as Java Runtime Environment is installed. VX30 allows no live video streaming recording though recording can be done through a tape on the broadcasting camera. The Encoder interface is straightforward and easy to use.

VX30 charges annual fee for using the VX30 live video streaming technology. Pricing is done at $2 per employee or student rounded up to the nearest thousand. For instance, there are 100 people in a department. That will be 2 * 100 = 200 rounded up to $1,000 as the annual charge. The only difference in academic pricing vs corporate pricing is the cap. There is an annual cap of $25K for academia and $50K for corporate. This charging system is different from that of any other companies in comparison. Based on the fact that most universities and companies update their technologies once every three years, we decided that the comparable charges from VX30 for its live video streaming software amounted to $1000 (typical situation) x 3 years = $3000.

VX30 Pros

VX30 is one of the top technologies that provide clear video images in the 320x240px frame size category in our test. Most testers (75%) did not experience rebuffering in VX30. Because its streaming is based on popular Java technology, viewing across operating system is easy. overwhelming majority of the testers (89.4%) claimed that they did not have to download anything to view the live stream. A full-screen viewing button is built into the virtual player.

VX30 Cons

The biggest problem with this technology is its latency. Actually, its latency (20.17 seconds) is the longest among all the compared technologies. That means, a user has to practice big patience before s/he can see the video image. In the streaming industry, it is widely believed that eight seconds of initial buffering is the maximum time a user is normally willing to wait for. The server setup system is archaic and unnecessarily convoluted. Since annual fee is charged, in the long run, using VX30 live streaming technology is not cheap.

VX30 earned a total ranking score of 5 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 3. VX30 live streaming technology is a work in progress.

Windows Media

As one of the legacy streaming technologies, Windows Media is probably the most often used technology among the industry for live streaming.

Windows Media Pros

The Windows Media Server comes along with Windows 2003. No extra money needs to be paid for using the Windows Media live streaming technology. Windows Media a very stable system. More than three-quarter of testers (77.1%) reported that they experienced no rebuffering.

Windows Media Cons

However, Windows Media lags behind other technologies on quite several counts. It takes the longest time (10.20 minutes) to set up a stream. Its latency is unreasonably long (10.30 seconds). Without the help of third-party software Flip4Mac, watching Windows Media live video on a Mac is impossible. Its image quality is mediocre.

Windows Media earned a total ranking score of 6 and an audience-oriented ranking score of 5. In spite of its traditional popularity and continued popularity, Windows Media live streaming technology is facing competitions from newcomers, such as VX30, Flash, etc. Without drastic improvement, Windows Media can be easily replaced by the newcomers for live streaming.

 

Table 1: Performances and Rankings of Eight Live Streaming Technologies

	Clipstream	DVTS	Flash	QuickTime	Real	VLC	VX30	Windows Media
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Server can be installed on	Windows	N/A	Windows	Windows/ OS X	Windows	ganged with broadcaster	Windows	Windows
Broadcaster can be installed on	Windows	Windows/ OS X (The OS X version is primitive.)	Windows	OS X	Windows	Windows/ OS X	Windows	Windows
Can be viewed on	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X (The OS X version is difficult to use.)	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X	Windows/ OS X (only with the help of Flip4Mac)
Live streaming recording capability	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
PERFORMANCES AND RANKINGS
Easiness of setting up streaming	2.56 min	2.38 min	7.22 min	3.91 min	5.20 min	1.54 min	6.30 min	10.20 min
Ranking	3	2	7	4	5	1	6	8
Latency (seconds)	2.85	0.21	0.96	10.41	7.17	3.82	20.17	10.30
Ranking	3	1	2	7	5	4	8	6
Easiness of watching (% of no download needed)	89.4	26.1	91.2	87.9	73.8	42.1	89.4	85.5
Ranking	2	8	1	4	6	7	2	5
Rebuffering frequency (% of no rebuffering)	71.4	54.2	64.1	52.8	12.5	89.8	75	77.1
Ranking	4	6	5	7	8	1	3	2
Image quality (% of excellent quality)	3.2	44	17.8	25.1	16.3	44	32.7	29.6
Ranking	8	1	6	5	7	1	3	4
Cost for setting up streaming	5 Clipstream Live: $199 Clipstream Repeater: $999 Streaming through a Web server, no streaming server is needed. Server: PowerEdge 1950 (Base): $2700 Total: $3898	1 DVTS Player/ Encoder/ Server all in one (Open source): $0 PowerEdge 1950 Server: $2700 Total: $2700	7 Flash Video Encoder: Part of Flash CS3 Professional Suite: $699. Flash Media Server 2: $4500 Red5 (Open source): $0 Dell PowerEdge 1950 (Base) as a streaming server machine: $2700 Total: $7899	3 QuickTime Broadcaster: $0 Darwin Streaming Server (Open source): $0 QuickTime Streaming Server: Included in OS X Server (Included w/hardware) Apple XServer Dual 2Ghz (Base): $2900 Total: $2900	6 Real Producer Plus: $199.95 Helix Streaming Server: $4000 Windows 2003 Server: $615 Dell PowerEdge 1950 (Base) as a streaming server machine: $2700 Total: $7514.95	1 VLC Player/ Encoder/ Server all in one (Open source): $0 PowerEdge 1950 Server: 2700 Total: $2700	8 VX30 Live and VX30 B-Cast: $1000 (annual fee). Streaming through a Web server, no streaming server is needed. Dell PowerEdge 1950: $2700 Total: $5700 (Based on the fact that many companies/ schools upgrade technology every three years)	4 Windows Media Encoder: $0 Windows Streaming Server: Included in Windows 2003: $615 Dell PowerEdge 1950 (Base) as a streaming server machine: $2700 Total: $3315
Ranking	5	1	8	3	7	1	6	4
Average Ranking Score (with all factors included)	4.17	3.33	5.67	5.00	6.33	2.00	4.33	5.17
Ranking	3	2	7	5	8	1	4	6
Average Ranking Score (With only the audience factors [image quality, latency, rebuffering, and easiness of watching] included)	4.25	4	3.5	5.75	6.5	3.25	4	4.25
Ranking	5	3	2	7	8	1	3	5