IDAT106 Workbook: The Territory - Video Streaming

In the last set of workshops for IDAT106 we moved onto working with live video streaming across the Internet. Not only did we stream across the room from computer to computer, but also managed to stream a live video feed onto our mobile phones using a technology called Qik.

We first started working with the Quicktime Streaming Server which allows the user to stream a video feed or pre-recorded video on the persons computer to the Internet from the original computer. The problem with this method of streaming is if the source computer is on a sloppy connection and it has 100+ users all connected requesting video stream data then the connection will choke and fail.

This is the reason why we moved onto using the Qik service. Qik is an online website capable of receiving video streams not only from computers, but if equipped with the correct phone/software its possible to stream to the website directly from your phone. After the video was streamed onto the website, users can either log onto the Qik website to watch the broadcast or they can even watch the video from another mobile device.