LiveCast Blog

LiveCast enables a GRAMMY first: "live video streaming from cell phones."

It's been an exciting week with the GRAMMY Live! broadcast starting on Friday and running round-the-clock through tonight's 52nd Annual GRAMMY AWARDS ceremony and after parties.

GRAMMY video bloggers are using the DROID by Motorola mobile phones loaded up with the LiveCast Mobile app, letting them stream live from behind-the-scenes, the red carpet, and those favorite up-close-and-personal interviews with the stars. The portable and lightweight cell phones make it easy to capture the spontaneous interview with hard-to-catch celebrities, and to fit into crowded spaces where the action is really heating up. 

The LiveCast team has a long history of providing live Webcast services for some of the entertainment and sporting industries' largest events. And over the past few years, we've been helping organizations provide unique coverage by putting cell phones in the hands of bloggers and fans. One of the obvious lessons we've learned from all this is that when you get hundreds or even thousands of fans in a facility with cell phones, you’re going to be 'sucking up' spectrum. But, thanks to LiveCast's partner, Wilson Electronics, we outfitted GRAMMY video bloggers with cell phone spectrum boosters, which gives them the adrenalin rush of bandwidth they need for quality streaming.

While the video bloggers have been busy on the front lines using LiveCast on their Droid by Motorola mobile phones, the production team is equally a buzz back in the control room monitoring and mixing the many live mobile feeds using the LiveCast's Lightning SDI solution. Working closely with top TV broadcasters customers, LiveCast has developed Lightning SDI, an efficient way for the individual mobile video streams to be integrated with the broadcast workflow.

First, using LiveCast Lightning SDI, the incoming live streams from the video bloggers are viewed simultaneously on the same screen with less than a one-second latency.  

Next, the producer switches between the streams to create a master outgoing feed by simply clicking on the preview window that has the most interesting live coverage at that moment. A key feature of Lightning SDI is that is supports "SDI" output, which is utilized by TV broadcasters for high-quality on-air broadcasts, and will be used by the GRAMMY live production team.

Lots more coverage to go tonight! Read up on Jennifer Blome's Blog at: http://www.grammy.com/blogs/grammy-streaming-a-mobile-grammy-live-experience. Enjoy the show at www.grammy.com/live

LiveCast Shows 2-Way Video Streaming on Nokia N900 at CES

Just in time for the show..LiveCast team delivers the beta build of an innovative 2-way video app for the N900.

LiveCast's "Duetto" is a new breakthrough application that combines video conferencing and live video streaming. (Developed for the N900 first due to awesome support from Nokia Pro Forum team.)

LiveCast Duetto lets you stream live video from your N900 device, while simultaneously viewing a friend's live stream on the same screen.  Plus, your video stream is being broadcast live to the web, so anyone else with a phone or computer can view it.

When you press stop, your live stream is automatically stored on a server. Of course, all of LiveCast's social networking auto-posting features work too -- share with Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Duetto is extremely flexible in that the incoming feed can be from another N900 device with Duetto installed, or from any LiveCast enabled device (over 700 phones, PCs, Macs, IP cameras supported).

It's easy to set up your Duetto "Buddy List" and make it available for your incoming stream options. Just log in to your LiveCast account, click on CONTACTS > DUETTO BUDDY LIST > ADD NEW, now enter any public LiveCast username, click save.

LiveCast Duetto is currently in private beta. We expect to make it available on the Ovi store shortly.

Nokia Showcases LiveCast as exclusive live video partner at CES

LiveCast was pleased to be one of only four companies (and only video provider) to demonstrate solutions in the Nokia booth at CES, the world's biggest consumer electronics tradeshow. Thanks to our co-marketing alliance with Nokia, and our Pro Forum Membership as a Premium Developer, we'll be showcasing more innovative technology with Nokia in the near future.

The LiveCast team demonstrated LiveCast Mobile, live video streaming from one N900 device to another N900 device (or any cell phone), and simultanously on the Web. With LiveCast Mobile, live video streaming works reliably over operator data network, as well as WiFi (unique compared to other providers who are limited to Wifi for consistant live streaming).

LiveCast Mobile for the N900 will be available shortly from the Ovi Store exclusively.

LiveCast Dispatch Gains New Features: Group Map & Snapshot

LiveCast team has added two new often requested features to LiveCast Dispatch...Group Map and Snapshot.

 

Group Map allows a user to see the precise location where all video streams previewed in the 4 (or 8) lower windows are being streamed from in real-time. The marker representing the live feed that is currently in the master stream window, will be displayed in a solid color in the front of the map to make it easy to see. Other markers are slightly transparent and are displayed behind the master stream marker.

 

The new Snapshot features allows you to click on the icon and create a jpeg image of the current frame, which is saved with locally saved videos. To access the images, go to My Account, then My Locally Saved Videos.

 

For anyone new to Dispatch, it is a professional low latency solution that provides real-time monitoring and switching of multiple incoming video streams from the field. A switched master stream can automatically be distributed to cell phones for live viewing and to multiple web properties. Dispatch is already being used for live expert commentary for NFL and NASCAR, by healthcare organizations, law enforcement and government agencies.