Ustream Broadcaster iPhone ap streams live video to the Internet, just not well

Ustream: "You're On." Maybe. But not in good quality.

On my trip to San Diego and Kamiah, Id. last week, I tried out Ustream, a “live interactive broadcast platform that enables anyone with an Internet connection and a camera to engage their audience in a meaningful, immediate way.” Immediate, yes. Assuming it works And if by meaningful, Ustream means via video that gets hung up, truncated, or chopped up into installments–if makes it to the Internet at all–then it lives up to its billing.

I was hoping to use Ustream to share my travel experience immediately (the technical term is in real time) by broadcasting video live from my iPhone 3GS via the Ustream Live Broadcaster ap (free) to my Ustream channel at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/zach-everson. I configured my Ustream account to send out a Tweet with a link to my show as soon as I started broadcasting. And when I finished broadcasting, the video would save to my Ustream account, a link to it would go out on Twitter, and a copy of the video would be posted to my YouTube channel and Facebook profile. Nifty, huh?

The results? Mostly poor. The executive summary: don’t use Ustream unless it’s essential for you to post live video. And it’s probably never essential for you. The suggestion: keeping using your iPhone camera to record video and posting it to YouTube, where viewers can watch it (gasp) a minute or so after you took it. Check below the jump for the details.

Ustream on Wi-Fi

Sometimes Ustream worked fine on Wi-Fi, as with this video of JSIX’s executive chef, Christian Graves, mapping out a lunch he was preparing for my wife and I.

But other times, the quality was poor..

Ustream on AT&T’s 3G network

Using Ustream on AT&T’s 3G network, however, had mixed results. Here it is at it’s best (along with a useful travel tip).

Sometimes the audio was too fast (I’m a Northeasterner, but I’m not that fast a talker).

The video also came across as choppy.

And sometimes Ustream posted one broadcast in several installments, as was the case with this video (the first parts of the mini-series appear here, here, and here).

At its worst, Ustream cost me video of a cool family moment.

A few times, my iPhone’s Ustream Broadcaster ap would show that it was broadcasting, but the video wouldn’t make it to the Internet–or only a truncated version would. That’s what happened with the video I took of my infant daughter dipping her toe in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Ustream sent out a Tweet that I was broadcasting, as well as one saying that I was done. The first one led to a link of the video (since deleted, as only the first four seconds were posted) while the second Tweet just linked to “null.”

And the new iPhone 4 with its HD video recording will make Ustream’s streaming problems worse, not better, as the improved quality should hog more bandwidth.

Ustream does not save copies of your video that you can save to your hard drive and edit later

Anyway, I’m furious that Ustream lost that moment for my family, which leads to another of Ustream’s big drawbacks: if you’re broadcasting live–or trying to–the Ustream Broadcaster ap doesn’t save a local copy on your iPhone. So if there’s a problem with the streaming process, your entire video is gone. Forever. Buh bye. To get around that problem, record your video to your phone and then post it later to Ustream via the Ustream Broadcaster ap. But if that’s your approach, you might as well just post directly to YouTube. After all, the sole reason to use Ustream is to, um, stream. And, even if you do record to Ustream Broadcaster ap first and post second, no local copy of the video is saved on your iPhone, so you won’t have a copy to edit or save on your hard drive. Your video will exist solely on Ustream. That’s a lot of trust to put into a startup.

Record a video using iPhone’s camera and want to post it on Ustream? You’ll need a second ap, Ustream Recorder. Sure, it’s free too, but at this point, why bother?

More Ustream problems

Here are some other issues with Ustream.

• I kept trying to add Travel as a tag for my show (in Ustream > Your Shows > Info) , but Ustream won’t save that term. I was able to save and delete other tags though. Bizarre.
• There’s no way to customize the message that goes out to Twitter announcing a live broadcast is beginning. The default, “I’m broadcasting, from my iPhone, live on Ustream. Come watch!,” looks like spam and is likely to attract no viewers. A more specific message would draw more traffic.
• Want to watch a Ustream video on your iPhone? You’ll need yet another ap, Ustream Viewer (free). But that ap only shows Ustream’s most popular shows, of which yours probably isn’t one.
• I can’t edit my show’s status update. Sure, that problem might be my fault. But then again, I don’t seem to have problems updating my status on any other social networking site.

Solution: until Ustream gets better, post live only when you really need to. YouTube provides better quality and reliability. And it has a bigger audience.

Photo: Courtesy Ustream

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