Thinking of moving from Ustream?

[oncourse]

Has anyone else been considering a move from Ustream after the drastic increase in obnoxious advertisements? If so, where are you moving?

Just curious to hear the feedback of the community.

[CTRaider]

I've had people say the same thing and for the life of me didn't know what they were talking about. I don't see the adds. Then I remembered I use Firefox and use addons called NoScript and AdBlock Plus. XD

[FuriousJodo]

The thing is, all streaming sites are incorporating similar ads or did so before uStream. It's just kind of inevitable (especially if you are getting a free service). If I could pay uStream in order to not have ads for me (Premium User?) or my viewers occasionally it would definitely be nice. But I still think uStream is the best of the streaming sites as it is right now.

(And AdBlock works wonders - though if everyoen did it uStream probably wouldn't be around that long)

[icon]

Danny,

UStream does indeed offer a paid (Ad Free) version. It's called Watershed:

https://watershed.ustream.tv/

- Brian

[Echo7]

I am investigating going to a server system for my broadcasting. The free
services by aiming toward a huge user base, is trying to be all things to all people. Thusly, we have to live with the ads.. However, if such things as the paid Ustream are affordable and still offer what we need as streaming producer, then this would be a better choice. But I found that Livestreams
paid service was not afforadable, a server would work better and cost less.
Just an opinion

[oncourse]

That definitely is an option I'd think about for the future. The reason I stick with Ustream is similar to the reasons mentioned above. Simply, it's where my audience is already hanging out.

However, the pre-roll and non-closing advertisements throughout the show have become increasingly obnoxious. Often times, the video player doesn't seem to load correctly and you have people sitting through two or three 30 second ads to get to the stream.

Just curious to see what other people are doing to deal with it, or if they are just sucking it up like I am at this point.

[FuriousJodo]

Danny,

UStream does indeed offer a paid (Ad Free) version. It's called Watershed:

https://watershed.ustream.tv/

- Brian
Yeah, I actually thought about that after I posted. I just don't have any income from most of my broadcasts so can't really drop the monthly cash or anything. :)

Still really think uStream is the way to go at the moment outside of dedicated servers and the like if you can afford it.

[Michael]

Just yesterday, our church channel on Justin.tv had an ad promoting condoms for unmarried people. This is, of course, entirely inappropriate advertising in our case.

I sent a request for the ad to be removed and, though I received no direct reply, I don't see the ad (or ANY ad) on our channel's player today.

So far, Justin.tv has not instituted any pre-roll ads such as I've seen on Ustream, only flash ads at upper right on our page and small banners at the bottom. Up until yesterday, they were pretty harmless (National Geographic, a veterinary service, etc). If they have truly responded to our request, I'd say they're doing a decent job of keeping the ads to a level where they can effectively coexist with most content.

They have, however, recently discontinued some useful features like the ability to run a playlist 24/7 and they have very little to offer as far as audience tracking (views counter only) but, if all you need is live distribution and playback of recordings and highlights, they can do that.

[accu]

I use Ustream for both live streaming and archive videos of our church services. I have a note on our site telling viewers to contact me if they see any inappropriate ads. So far I haven’t received any reports. Personally, I don't mind the ads. It's the miracle of free-market capitalism at work: Smart entrepreneurs figuring out how to provide a valuable service without charging a fee. But I digress...
When you talk about ads, do you mean ads within the player itself or on the Ustream page surrounding the player? Or both?
When I link to our Ustream show or videos (our free WordPress site won’t let me embed Ustream), I display only the player, not the entire Ustream page.
If I use the URL provided by Ustream for a recorded video, I get a Ustream page, consisting of the player surrounded by more ads and junk:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1234567
So, to get just the player, I instead copy the URL from the embed code provided by Ustream:
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/1234567
Here is a method I found on this forum several months ago to display only the player for the live stream:
http://cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/4/viewer.107.swf?cid=1/1234567&varnish=true
It worked great for a while but stopped working earlier this summer.
Now I use this:
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/1/1234567
In all these examples, “1234567” represents the number of the live show or archive video.
Although ads still pop up within the player, this eliminates the surrounding clutter. Maybe you’re all way ahead of me on this, but I thought I’d toss it in.

[Michael]

The offensive ad I mentioned in my previous post has NOT been removed.

[Tony]

Danny,

UStream does indeed offer a paid (Ad Free) version. It's called Watershed:

https://watershed.ustream.tv/

- Brian
I have issues with watershed for some reason. grrrr

[Michael]

Bambuser.com. They offer free services to "consumers and non-profits." (We, a church, qualify as the latter.) So far, there are NO ADS.

[StogTv]

Anyone interested in having their own video web channel with NO ads other than your own and/or also being able to have Pay per View if desired, can email me at stogtv@gmail.com and I'll send the information.

[30atv]

Interesting stuff. If we could offer FLV Hosting at no cost we would be glad to do it. The balance is always to do it and still provide support. If no cost then indeed the ads must support it and support is like this, forum based.
30a tv