Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

A whitepaper on Web Broadcasting

Management Information Systems

BM60014

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Submitted by-
Devdut Saha (09BM8083)
Amit Sarangal (09BM8082)
Ashutosh Sinha (09BM8067)
Abhirup Das (09BM8002)
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

WEB BROADCASTING

Internet has become an important source of information sharing and gathering

medium. Information technology is most probably one sector that is changing rapidly
with time. Everyday new technologies are coming into the scenario which are making our
work simpler and eventually making us dependable on them. Initially we used to gather
information through the internet in the form of texts and now with the advancement of
technology, the information is supported with photos and videos. Now in the era of
web2.0 users can contribute to the content of the websites that are on web2.0.
Web2.0 has revolutionized the way the people communicate, share and express
their feelings. The platforms such as Orkut, Facebook , Flickr and Yahoo have given a
new dimension to the way the people do their prime task. The user content that has been
generated in these websites serves as a way of reaching out to the people. People want to
add a new dimension to the way that they want to portray themselves in front of their
friends and the closed ones. Now our topic of discussion here is concerned about the web
broadcasting. When people wants to share something such as their videos with their loved
ones the common method that people nowadays employ is to simply upload it on
Youtube and share it with them.

History:
The attempt to display media on computers were made from the mid 20th century
but the progress was limited because of the high costs and limited capability of the
hardwares. The technical difficulties in streaming were CPU power and bus bandwidth
which were not capable enough to support required data rates. At that point of time media
used to be delivered through the non-streaming channels by downloading the files from
web server and storing on the local machines or storing it as digital file and playing it by
CD-ROMs. It was during the 1990s and early 2000 when internet saw greater network
bandwidth, increased access to network and use of standard protocols and formats such as
TCP/IP, HTTP and HTML.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

These advancements in internet supported with powerful home computers and

modern operating system made the streaming possible and affordable for ordinary users.
Later on the technologies like Wireless HD or ITU-T G.hn developed for optimizing high
definition (HD) content without forcing the user to install new networking cables.
A media stream can be streamed either by live or on demand. Live streams are
true streaming that sends the information straight to the computer or device without
saving the file to a hard disk. On Demand streaming is progressive streaming that saves
the file to a hard disk and then it is played from that location. On Demand streams are
often saved to hard disks and servers for extended amounts of time; while the live
streams are only available at one time only (e.g. during the Football game).

Web broadcasting:
The concept of web broadcasting is derived from the advancements in the streaming
and is becoming popular day by day and who knows it can substitute the television in our
home if the technology becomes more advanced and cheaper.
The web broadcasting can be classified primarily into two categories:
• Live broadcasting
• On-demand broadcasting

The live broadcastings are the videos, audios or any multimedia items that are
uploaded into the website and received at the same time. Examples of such can be a live
telecast/broadcasting of the cricket match, football match or IPTV. Such an effort was
made by Youtube in broadcasting IPL 2010 live on its website. The content of the live
broadcasting is lost after the broadcasting period is over.
On-demand broadcastings are the videos, audios or any multimedia items that are
uploaded into the website and can be accessed at any later point of time. Examples of
such can be YouTube. This service provide the user with a large subset of functionality
including pause, fast forward, fast rewind, slow forward, jump to previous/future frame
etc.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

The broadcasting service is based on offerings of different tools and services to the
customers. The tools and services used in broadcasting can be classified as follows:

o Live broadcasting: Refers to various types of media broadcast without a

significant delay.
o Scheduled broadcasting: Planned & timed broadcasting.
o On-demand broadcasting: Get at your preferred time.
o Embed live video/recorded video: Video as a part of a webpage.
o Integrated text/video chat: Text & video chats occur in parallel.
o Webcam/mobile capture: Live stream of video data.
o Images
o Music
o Add titles
o Multiple participants: Conferencing option.
o Import video: Get the video for use on your web page or local disk.

Let us look at different players in the market in terms of the services that they
offer.

Players Live Scheduled On-demand Embedded Mobile

broadcasting broadcasting broadcasting live video phone
capture
Operator11 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Stickam Yes Yes Yes Yes Recorded
U Stream Yes Yes Yes Yes
Kyte Yes Yes Yes Live-
images
Youcams Yes Yes
Splashcast Yes Yes Yes Recorded
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

Players Import Pre- Still Music Multiple Add titles

online recorded images Participants
video video
Operator11 Yes Yes
Stickam Yes Yes Yes Yes
U Stream
Kyte Yes Yes Yes Yes
YouCams Yes Yes
Splashcast Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Individuals can upload video on Internet sites using video hosting service. These
types of sites generally categorized as video sharing site. These sites solve two problems:
firstly it saves on bandwidth costs and secondly it eliminates the requirement of
sophisticated programming knowledge by facilitating the service through a web browser.
The next stage of broadcasting saw the entrance of the live streaming on web. A
mobile live streaming software called Qik allows the users to upload videos from their
cell phones to the internet. The videos will then be stored online and can be shared to
various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Videos will be
stored on the servers and can be watched from both the mobile devices and the website.
Later on Bambuser has made strides into the live streaming and outperformed Qik . It
streams live video from mobile/webcam using 3G /WiFi network. It also interact and
communicate through web to mobile chat and provide feature of Geo-tagging via cell-ID
or GPS.
The advantage of Bambuser over Qik is that it has lower latency in transmitting
the video to the web due to superior technical approaches adopted by Bambuser. With
Bambuser streaming can be done from both mobile and computer and to Facebook wall.
The challenge with live streaming to web from mobile was the poor mobile network but
Bambuser has overcome the challenge by transmitting as much as data possible and
simply skipping the data that can’t get through the networks and saving it for later. Data
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

dropped during broadcast is uploaded afterwards and the video is completed and is
provided on demand.
The application ( Bambuser/Qik) has to be installed on your mobile and has to be
used in place of the normal video capturing tool. The application uses the networks
(EDGE, GPRS, 3G or WiFi) to transmit the video data from bambuser servers to the web
and needs operating systems like windows, Symbian S60, Mac OSx.

Business Model:
On-demand broadcasting:
The user accounts are created for free in the on-demand broadcasting sites like
YouTube, Metacafe etc. Like most social networking sites, video sharing sites also
depends on advertisements as source of revenue. Video on demand sites have
advertisements flashing on the homepage along with the video. For e.g. let us take the
case of YouTube which is the 2nd most visited site in the world has different
subscriptions rates depending upon the number of ads as well as the duration of the
advertisements on YouTube.

Live streaming:
The user has the option to choose between two kinds of accounts provided by the
live streaming sites: free account and premium paid account. The free account users
offered the basic streaming services and the revenue is mainly through the advertisements
in the websites. The premium account holders gets some extra services including the ad-
administration system for the account holder, supporting services, editing functions on
the videos uploaded, a dedicated higher bandwidth for the upload and viewing of the
videos and extensive management tools for various activities.
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

Source: http://bambuser.com : Bambuser: Live from your mobile presentation

The above diagram is a pictorial representation of the business model of the live
streaming service providers.

Threats:
The threats to the on-demand broadcasting service industry come from the lack of
control to prohibit the uploading of the copyright and pirated videos or contents.
Uploading of socially unacceptable and inapt contents also poses a major challenge. Now
many sites are coming up for on demand videos and it has increased the bargaining
power of the advertisers. The websites has to show the number of hits to get the ads.
Another challenge to the On-demand broadcasting is that they have to support as many
audio and video formats as possible to attract users providing the maximum flexibility.
On the other hand the live streaming websites has constraints related to the spread and
quality of network coverage of the telecom service provider. There are also substitutes
available for different services like Television for IPTV, which indicates that if a person s
in home then he/she will prefer to watch TV than IPTV. Live streaming service providers
has to incessantly update the technology they are using to survive in a business
environment where the technology is changing fast due to continuous innovation. They
also have a huge dependency on the mobile devices on which their software can run. A
sustainable collaborative relationship with mobile device producer is necessary. They
 Vinod Gupta School of Management , IIT Kharagpur

also have to continuously focus on technological front to compete on latency with the
other players in the market.

Future:
The future of Web broadcasting seems promising as technology is getting better
and cheaper day by day. The mobile live streaming industry is growing at a rate of 99%
year on year basis in 2009 according to Gigaom. More and more people are using internet
and high-end mobile sets which has enhanced the chances of web broadcasting industry
to attract these people as user. On the other hand, mobile service providers can expect
better ARPU (average revenue per user) if their customers can be engaged in value added
services like mobile streaming. Collaborative approach among broadcasting service
provider, mobile service provider and device maker can create a win-win situation, which
will result in better revenues and customer experience. The imperative thing to observe in
the future is the competition on the basis of technology. The one who has the better
technology will outclass others.

References:
1. http://www.wikipedia.com
2. Bambuser: Live from your mobile presentation
3. http://gigaom.com/
4. http://www.go2web20.net/