Ustream Launches Watershed – The Killer Live Video Option for Ministry?
Wow. This could be it folks.
The interwebs are buzzing about how Ustream.tv has launched their white label product of their popular streaming service. They’ve called it Watershed.
It’ll come with much more management capabilities, the option to customize the experience and player, add your ministry or organizational logo and theme, live chat, polling, picture-in-picture options, Twitter integration [that's cool], analytics, and much much more.
It could just be the best off-the-shelf option for a ministry that wants to live-stream their services.
They’re attempting to keep the price low by doing a pay per use model, but still seems a bit pricey. I’m not sure all ministries will be able to handle the increased cost, but I can see some wisdom in using it for one-time events at this price point.
Perhaps conferences could really rock this well? Here’s a blurb about other options, if you want a little research:
Other white-label video streaming services like Level 3 (pdf) or Move Networks offer similar solutions, though they generally only target larger enterprises and media companies. While Watershed’s pricing model seems reasonable, the price itself feels rather high, though Ustream’s CEO argues that it is comparable to services from other live streaming providers.
Other streaming services like Mogulus Pro tend to charge a monthly fee for their ‘pro’ services. Mogulus, however, also charges for bandwidth and Ustream argues that its pay-as-you-go service provides more flexibility.
So, what do you think?
Please let me know if you decide to move forward with it!
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18 Responses to “Ustream Launches Watershed – The Killer Live Video Option for Ministry?”
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I thought their free version was the killer live video option. Watershed looks like it may be an even better option.
I'll definitely consider it for our service. I'm not real happy with Limelight right now.
limelight… boooooooooooooo! yeah. questionable…
Thanks for dropping a line Paul! Their free option was pretty cool. We'll see if this grows on us…!
I have a 4 month commitment still with Level3. Grr! Unfortunately I guess I'm stuck until then. I'll try it out as I've been really impressed with Ustream over the years.
Where's your website that's using l3? ministry….?
dood this looks hot. Just signed up so we'll see how it goes. Pay as you go is a way better fit for churches and it also helps to define if it is working or not.
very interesting option, can't wait to see my church do that – I wish
hehe~!
just signed up? let us knwo where you intend on using it!
Hey John! Thanks for the info. We have been considering live broadcast by internet and this really appeals to the way we do things. Get with and let me know how you are taking the analog signal to digital.
Sure thing~!
It's been a while since any comments on this post. Has anybody used the service? What are your thoughts?
I think the pricing is quite reasonable, especially for smaller events and churches. The $350 a month that mogulus charges for their pro account is out of reach for us, so watershed is a great option. I am looking at using this to stream a seminar that we are hosting to several other churches across the country. Thanks for sharing
Haven't tried it and I won't have a need until Fall, but I'll keep an ear out and post if I hear of anyone using it. I have one group that I might ask if they want to give it a try but it may not make sense for them until Summer.
i havent tried watershed; $1 per user per hour per month comes out to $40/mo for 10 people to watch your sermons every week. not bad. especially for really small churches.
i just signed our church up with uvault. $100/mo for unlimited users and 50GB of transfer per month. today was our first day streaming with them and man it was great. very speedy, i have the ability to record locally while pushing my content to the CDN, and a few video options pre-push…i.e. cropping, color/brightness/gamma/hue changes. NTS/PAL support, 16:9 and 4:3 support. i can stream to users using the vp6 or h264 codecs. how much bandwidth to use and a ridiculous amount of more options. lots and lots of audio options like different codecs to stream with, separate bitrate settings. just a ton of stuff.
its only my first week using them, my second week working with their system…so far im impressed…we'll see if i run into any snafus.
oh wait just thought of one…i have to use their custom player (which is a modified version of a popular you-tubish generic flash player). i was told this will change in may though. in addition to using their player, i'll be able to build my own using their actionscript (flash player scripting language) classes.
ricky, thanks for sharing this! i'll take a look.
Researching this for our church, but like everything, there are so many to choose from and everyone else's product is better. What does your church use??? How much "tech" experience does someone need to get this rolling once signed up for UStream or one of the others??
Not too much. there's a great number of other alternatives and walkthru's… google is your friend! mogulus… try that.