Live streaming is simply telecasting an event through the internet to any place across the globe enabling real-time viewing. The world is not new to live video streaming. The technology has been in practice since the late 90s but has attained global success only in the recent smart phone era. With every individual having access to any event happening anywhere across the globe in just a touch or click, several television broadcasters have taken up streaming events live to broadcast them worldwide. News and sports channels, online educational institutions, chat rooms etc. are few popular places where live streaming has found its application.
With authorization, any user is now able to view a program, a high school play or any event from anywhere around the world. In addition to this, live video streaming also provides a list of other advantages.
When an event is streamed live, the audience can view the event with minimal or no delay. With this feature the user now doesn’t have to wait for the full video file to download. He/she can decide whether or not to view the event in the very first few minutes. And having a live audience gives the broadcaster to interact with the viewers and obtain real-time feedback on the event. Live streaming thus eliminates the need for the audience to wait.
Any event has its very own drawback of fitting a limited number of audiences. But there are no such restrictions to an event streamed over the internet. You can not only charge people to gain access to the event but also to the stream, helping you gain extra revenue without any extra expenditure.
Streaming events live through your channel or website brings in more customers to your business and helps your brand gain more recognition all around the world.
With the benefits it provides, organizations now choose live streaming over conventional meetings, educational institutions and instructors stream their classes and lectures online to benefit their students and other enthusiasts. Almost every sport channel now streams the events they broadcast in their very own websites.
Disadvantage
The only considerable disadvantage to the technology is the fee professional broadcasters charge for streaming events. Broadcasters charge about $49 to $99 for weekly subscription packages.
Castasy
Castasy is one such streaming software that will be available to any broadcaster looking at having his very own software to stream events and for any entrepreneur looking at starting a live streaming business. The software comes to the market on June 2015 and is compatible in both iOS and Android platforms. In addition to coming as mobile applications, the software also comes as a website for traditional desktop users. The software provides ultra fast streaming and supports high quality audio and video. With Castasy, no user now has to rely on other broadcasters for streaming their event and with the social integration feature the software provides, the user’s twitter followers are notified when he/she starts a live stream and the users also have the facility to share the video on facebook.
Each video gets a unique URL that is shared on twitter and posting the URL to their browsers, desktop users can view the videos. Any number of streams can be viewed from the browser and the URL can be shared on the internet gaining more viewers.
Every buyer gets his very own streaming server and Castasy provides the buyer with an NGINX-RTMP live streaming server, the best in the business. Weighing much lesser and faster than other servers the NGINX server provides multicast support and supports all three major protocols, HLS, RTMO, and MPEG-DASH. In addition to great tolerance and less memory usage, the server provides the added advantage of handling 10,000 simultaneous connections.
When a user or broadcaster starts a stream, the software notifies his twitter followers about the video. The users can then choose to view the video or not. Not every user will be allowed access to the video stream. And with the feature to choose or reject followers to the stream, the broadcaster can stream an event for all to view and private events as well. The software provides a chat feature that allows instantly chat and comment on the streamed event. The buyer as the admin panel can control and alter any feature the software provides.
For $399 the buyer gets the full package software with 100% source code, a streaming server of his own, free upgrades for life, three versions of the software (website, iOS and Android app), free support for three months and installation documents. And for an additional fee of $199, the buyer gets expert installation.