Learning about streaming, with Klip as a first case study

I’m currently trying to learn more about streaming in its various forms. Streaming is all about the delivery method of media such as audio, film or TV. There are basically two forms of streaming: live streaming and archived streaming.

With live streaming, you take the content and broadcast it live over the internet. It involves having a camera to capture the content, an encoder to digitise the content, a media publisher where the streams are made available to users and a Content Delivery Network to distribute and deliver the content. This way, the user is able to view an event live. Good examples of live streaming are live coverage on YouTube of an Arcade Fire concert at Madison Square Garden or people being able to view the first match of the FA Cup live on Facebook.

Archived streaming is more about ‘on-demand’ streaming (think BBC’s iPlayer and Lovefilm’s Player) or Marks & Spencer broadcasting a vodcast on food you can order for Christmas. The technology used to deliver this is fairly similar to live content, apart from the fact that the ‘content source’ for archived streaming can be as varied as a tape or an audio file.

I don’t think one has to be a great visionary to predict a great future for streaming, with a multitude of devices to stream video content to. A good, recent example of these bright prospects is Klip, a mobile video app that lets you share video content with your friends. These are the reasons this service caught my attention:

It’s the highest ranked social video app in the App store – Klip is an iOs (as in ‘Apple only’) app that lets users view, capture, share and discover video on their iPhone. Other examples of social video apps are Rounds, Vlix and Socialcam.
High quality video streaming – A key aim for Klip is to provide the highest quality video streaming around for mobile device. You simply shoot a new ‘Klip’ or grab one from your Klip Camera Roll and share it with the Klip community, your friends on Facebook, Twitter, on your YouTube channel, or by email.
Underlying technology – Even though I’m not a techie, it will be interesting to find out more about the underlying Klip technology that enables users to swipe a video for a preview. The video will then play at the accelerated speed at which you move your finger across the video. If you shake the phone, all the videos will begin playing on the page.
Adaptive streaming – I learnt that because mobile bandwidth can be unreliable, Klip includes adaptive video streaming which means that it automatically adjusts the quality of the video streaming based on a user’s mobile network conditions.
Cloud component – The sharing on Klip is done around hashtags so that users can easily surface and find content by topic or event. Big on Klip’s product roadmap is the cloud component in its technology, enabling users to search and index hashtags in realtime.

Main learning point: Good to learn more about streaming. The term is often used very loosely and distinguishing between live and archived streaming feels like a good starting point. There will be more examples to follow, but Klip is an interesting one since its aim is to achieve the highest quality streaming as well as encouraging its users to really interact with its content.