ustream

October 12, 2008

It’s neat to see that there are a number of sites using the broadcast and recording features of Flash video. I checked out ustream today (via vator.tv). I’m not sure if it was a bug or if they planned it this way, but I couldn’t record anything longer than 4 seconds. It’s focus is live tv, but without a live audience I thought I would check out its recording features. I took me a few seconds to set up the ultrasaurus channel. I found the interface to be a bit overwhelming and didn’t manage to record a clip longer than 4 seconds.

This is the broadcast/record interface:

I think they should hide what appears to be a debug log in the info tab on the right and make it so the panel with all the video/audio controls is hidden by default. It’s way too overwhelming for the newbie and once you are settled into the UI, you don’t need those controls anyhow.

I though it was an interesting approach to show the recorded video appears on the right after you stop recording. I think that provides a visual cue that you have actually created a file. The live cam on the left might distract some folks, but it could be useful if I had recorded a snippet and continued on with a live show (assuming that’s a feature).

For reference, here’s the recording UI Flow:
security dialog appears when the window opens
initial screen
recording
preview
saved

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