Finally, broadcast over broadband that works

Broadcast Engineering magazine

01 June 2008

My name is Tony Gargano and I am a junkie. Yes, I confess, I am hopelessly addicted. It all started many years ago when I read my first issue of Newsweek. Then things got worse, I found myself hanging around the newsstand late on Sunday nights waiting for the latest issues of Time and US News and World Report. I fought the valiant fight. And, just when I thought I had my news dependency under control I was introduced to the hard stuff, you guessed it: The National Review, The Nation and The Economist. I have been hooked ever since. Yes, I admit it, I am an unabashed, inveterate news junkie.

For the past several months, I have been participating in the technical trials and now the open beta test of a service being provided by Livestation (www.livestation.com). London based Livestation is a part of Skinkers, a privately held company with its roots as a Cambridge (UK) technology start-up. Livestation delivers live TV and radio news to your PC via a free applet that resides on your desktop. Mac users don’t despair, a Mac version of the applet should be available for beta test about the time you are reading this. Currently offered TV and radio channels are: Al Jazeera (English), BBC World News, Bloomberg Television, EuroNews (English, French and Italian channels), France 24 (English and French channels), i>Télé (French), Russia Today (English) and BBC World Service (Radio). The available channel compliment depends on the country you are in when you connect. For the current beta test, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, the two France 24 channels and the BBC World Service are the ones made available to US participants.

Traditionally, video has been streamed over the internet using a unicast model where each viewer requires a separate server connection, consequently making scalability a very expensive proposition. The other problem with unicast is that it does a really poor job in meeting the isochronous needs of live video. To overcome these difficulties Livestation utilizes a hybrid peer-to-peer model where servers only have to provide the source signal to some of the audience who in turn share it with others. Here’s a screen shot of the small window I have open, watching Al Jazeera, as I am typing this month’s article.

Livestation’s video quality is excellent. The screen shot above is of a 4 inch window that I keep open on a 24 inch wide screen monitor. Opting for full screen, the very watchable video quality drops to something a bit better than VHS. Livestation encodes its streams utilizing SMPTE 421M (VC-1) based encoders and this codec seems to produce an excellent balance of quality vs hardware demands on the viewing platform. Installed on both my laptop and my desktop, when running Livestation, which I do virtually any time I am on the computer, the total CPU cycles it chews up average less than 20 per cent. Obviously, this will vary as a function of window size. Other internet delivered television services have various fatal flaws, such as, poor video quality, complicated interfaces, excessive CPU or graphics card demands or content inappropriate for the viewing medium.

Livestation is the first internet delivered television service that I have found that has come up with a unique recipe for success. If offers a simple but effective interface, excellent video quality, minimal infrastructure demands and the critical ingredient – content that is most appropriate to the viewing medium. As I have said in the past, the PC is not conducive to a long form entertainment experience. I have often described a PC session as “lean in, doing something” while television is “sit back, entertain me.” With its focus on news, Livestation has matched that perfectly appropriate short form of television content, news, with the “lean-in” style of the typical PC sitting.

In a recent conversation with Livestation CEO, Matteo Berlucchi, he indicated that the current timetable is to transition from beta test to full roll out during the fourth quarter of this year. Berlucchi, who loves to talk expansively about his new service and the technology behind it, likens the company’s application of peer-to-peer technology as the “yeast” in its recipe for success. Helping him bake that bread is Microsoft, who now has a small equity stake in the company.

For a news junkie, it is manna from heaven.
www.broadcastengineering.com