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BrandonN is one of the regular visitors to the chat room at live.pirillo.com. He sent me his top five tips for having a successful live video stream. Thanks, Brandon… I’ll keep these in mind.

I’ve seen good and bad streams. Many times people like to just buy a web camera and think it’s great even though they spent 20$ on it! Even sometimes the Microphone is cheap.

• Tip #1 – Make sure when you buy a web camera make sure you see that it does 30FPS (They all should by now). The logitech quickcam 9000 is a great camera. Yes it does cost a bit but the quality is great. If you own the latest gen of the iMac or Mac Books it may already have a web camera! They are great to use for streaming on the go and just in your home.
• Tip #2 – Put a decent length between you and your camera! Putting it right up in your face isn’t good. It’s called Cam Whoring and it gets boring when you can’t see anything but your face. If anything try to use the entire cable to show your entire desk and if you can’t buy a extender, may seem a waste of money for the extra extender cable but it’s all worth it in the end.
• Tip #3 – The site you use to stream! There is of course Ustream, StickAM, Justin.Tv and other small ones. Ustream is great for 24/7 streams as they have great servers to handle the load and they pump out great quality. StickAM is mostly for group chats. Yes people do stream 24/7 but the quality on StickAM lacks a bit. Justin.Tv has a wide community and is fully based off it. It produces great quality like Ustream.
• Tip #4 – Talk to your users! When someone is watching you they expect for you to talk back. If you ignore them you get them bored and they leave. You don’t need to talk them while your on but answering questions from them or just a plain chat can boost your viewer count when it comes to people recommending.
• Tip #5 – Good internet, If you have anything under a good broadband/cable connection forget it. Streaming live does take up bandwidth. Chris streams 24/7 and it sucks so much bandwidth he needed a second internet connection just for the stream!

~ BrandonN in your chat

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http://live.pirillo.com/ -Justin Kan of JustinTV live at Gnomedex, 2007.

Justin Kan, better known as Justin Tv, founded a network of channels providing a platform for live video streaming online. The original Justin.tv channel was a pilot project that evolved into the Justin.tv network. Wearing a webcam attached to a cap, Kan’s camera began streaming continuous live video and audio at midnight March 19, 2007. Kan claimed he would wear the camera “24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

On April 18, 2007, Kan took a one-day vacation, and the capcam was worn by iJustine as she explored San Francisco. On May 29, 2007, Justin.tv expanded to the East Coast with a second 24/7 feed hosted by iJustine in Pittsburgh.

In the summer of 2007, Justin.tv became a springboard for more than 50 different channels. Beginning July 21, 2007, channels were listed by popularity, starting with the most popular on the left.

After describing how he got his start, Justin answered a few questions from the audience:

Q: Can you show what’s in the bag?

A: A lightweight Sony VAIO which lasts for 7 hours with extended battery using EVDO Rev. A.

Q: Will you be policing your content?

A: That is a concern, policing content on the site. If someone streamed HBO that would be horrible, as would adult-oriented content. They want to make it easy for the community to bring those issues to the attention of moderators for the site.

Q: When do more beta keys come out?

A: Arbitrarily as they decide to.

Q: What’s it like becoming an instant celebrity?

A: It was weird. He is an F-List celebrity in San Francisco. For a couple of weeks he was stopped on the street and asked for autographs. He didn’t want to be super famous, and after two months it got routine answering all the same questions from different people.

Justin then auctioned off the white space on his hat, and it sold for $750.

Q: How do you deal with copyright info?

A: He is an employee of Justin.tv and he has to make sure not to watch TV into the camera, or not to have background music come through. It isn’t protected under the DMCA, so you do need to be careful about that.

Q: What is the funniest thing that happened on camera?

A: It’s mostly funny for other people, like when people saw him doing the Naked Cowboy act.

Q: How do you get around the limits of people like Sprint with their limitations on video?

A: Sprint doesn’t enforce it, but they know that it is an issue. The hope is that these limits get removed by the mobile carriers, since the belief is that they want customers to be able to use their connectivity in place of what they have now.

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Justin Kan Live at Gnomedex