Update 6/9/2011: We are moving our Live Show to the Middle-earth Network! Check this post for more details!
For a long while now, we’ve been using Livestream as our host for the live broadcast of the weekly and roundtable podcasts. It definitely worked but we had a few complaints about livestream. Most notably the main complaint we received was about the advertisements.
The streaming service was free but every 15 minutes the show was interrupted by an ad that completely cut out our audio. Listeners would appear well before the scheduled broadcast to save up time by watching ads in advance and hope they wouldn’t be disconnected and lose their stored time.
While our listeners were nice enough to put up with interruptions or willing to store up ad-free time we thought this really was just too much work to join us live. We went looking for alternatives.
We saw what other podcasters were using for their live streaming and many appeared to be using Justin.tv and so we looked into it. Last week’s show we tested it out with our brave chat audience and it appears we may have a winner.
- Accounts on Justin.tv are completely free
- Ads are only text based, no audio interruptions to our streaming
- Some reported that the audio quality was better than what they got on livestream
There was one downside and that was the chat widget simply does not allow you to login. I did send up a support ticket to Justin.tv about this issue and apparently it is by design to prevent bots and spammers.
I believe its not actually logging in users. I am sorry thats confusing but we
need the users to log in using Justin.tv directly.
I don’t know why they would have a login button on their chat widget if logging in wasn’t available but there you go. Actually I was able to login with my account today so perhaps it just cannot process new accounts. The sign in with twitter seems to do nothing at all.
I have put a note on the Live page about this but now we know that if you wish to join in chat, know you must have a justin.tv account. They are free and set up quickly and the chat widget should work easier once you have the account set up.
While the chat room did say that getting into chat was a hassle; the lack of advertising interruptions made up for the initial inconvenience and that now they know the drill shouldn’t be an issue from now on.
We will be broadcasting via Justin.tv for now unless more issues appear or a better service is discovered. We do welcome your feedback if you have thoughts or opinions to share on streaming the live show.
How to Join CSTM’s Live Chat
You can join the live broadcast and live chat right here on our blog at:
http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/live/
We record the regular weekly podcast at 9:30pm Eastern on Saturdays. Special live recordings such as roundtables will be announced in posts here on our site.
Our streaming service is Justin.tv and if you wish to join in the chat room, you must set up an account with Justin.tv (this is to try to prevent bots and spammers from invading). The account is free.
We typically are online a bit before each show and have a pre-show dance party with some choice music selected by Merric. Before each show starts there will be a post on twitter and facebook to reminded to join us if you follow us there.
Justin.tv also has a Follow service that can alert you via email when our stream goes live so you can be reminded and not miss the show!
If you get their iPhone or Android app, it can also alert you and allow you to listen to the show on the go! It includes the live chat and allows you to participate from your phone!
February 5, 2011 at 3:29 pm
I liked the change. No more ‘allo ‘allo.
February 5, 2011 at 3:51 pm
I’m sure we could find a clip somewhere … j/k. My first thought was that you’d linked the ‘going live’ to your Facebook feed and were making another run into the moors! I didn’t mind too much storing up my advertising in advance, but I definitely appreciate not getting interrupted in the middle of the feed by audio just because I’m not subscribing.