Streaming Part 1 Nicholas Alt, Mitchell Arthur, Sean Burke, Jason Flanders, Junfei Huang

Part 1 Part 1 Intro Advantages and Disadvantages History of online streaming media Current Technology Part 2 How are Developers using streaming The Future of Live Streaming

Overview Client to host connection Host requests media; Client sends information for the host to receive. User buffers media to begin playback before the entire transmission has completed.

Streaming Media Streaming Media is not a new phenomenon. Audio and video streaming have been explored since the earliest days of computing, though have not become relevant until recent with the drastic improvements to computer hardware. The same can be said for video games.

Streaming in Video games Live Streaming has been recently popularized. As video games have progressed; they have been increasingly exciting to watch, as well as becoming more complex and in depth. This had led to the huge increase in streaming for both players and viewers.

Advantages Allows viewers an inside look at new video games without having to buy the game; more in depth than trailers for the games. Can provide viewers with useful tips and hints. Benefits companies through advertising and general exposure to precise target audience.

Advantages Before streaming, players would use strategy guides for help with game play. http://blog.pricecharting.com/2012/08/stevesesy-collecting-video-game.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/bochalla/4369890334/

Disadvantages The experience may ‘ruin’ a video game for a viewer. Expose content that the viewer didn’t want to see (ending to the game, plot twists etc.) Streaming can cause lag by taking up processing power. If the streamer doesn’t have a good enough CPU, gameplay will suffer. streaming will also take up excess bandwidth on the user’s network, also causing latency. Using capture cards can ease the load of a processor while streaming video games.

Brief History of Media Streaming George Owen Squier - Streaming continuous music in 1920s Severe Tire Damage - First band to play live over the internet RealNetworks - Broadcasted sports games

History of early streaming Hardware The “Last Mile” - refers to making telecommunication networks to the customers TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML Capture Cards

Capture Cards Video capture device that can be used along side streaming software. Mostly used for streaming from a console. Can range from 5 to 500 dollars. Still in use today for console streaming http://gaming-headsets.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Best-capture-card-Elgato-vs-HD-PVR-2-vs-Roxio.jpg

History of YouTube Started live video in 2008 Steve Chen(co-founder of YouTube) - “Live video is something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year.” Went from being a channel to a YouTube section http://www.youtube.com/live/

History Justin.tv(Twitch.tv) Started in 2007 with streaming of general media Made a branch in 2011 called Twitch.tv for gaming specific streaming

Twitch tv Launched since 2011 The user could choose to be viewer or broadcaster. Realtime coverage of e- sports, including esports tournament, personal streams, and game-related talk shows http://www.twitch.tv

Twitch Tv Before Justin.Tv and Twitch.Tv there were few options to monitize game recordings Has been a key component in the growth of competitive gaming. Live streaming no longer has huge hosting cost.

Twitch broadcasting Self expression Share the passion & technique Earn money Number of people broadcasting tripled during the last year As of Feb 2013, Twitch had 600000 unique broadcasters per month

Twitch broadcasting

Twitch audience Most aged between 18 and 34 8 million unique monthly viewers in 2011 35 million unique viewers per month in 2013 Over tripled in three years An average of 245 minutes per unique user per month

Twitch audience

Twitch Partners Low threshold Minimum concurrent viewership of 500+ Generate revenues from broadcasting Many people make a living off live streaming

Twitch: The trends

Twitch: The trends

XSplit Started in 2009. Public beta released in 2010. Commercial grade streaming software. Relatively cheap with good technical support.

Open Broadcaster Software Used by many gamers to stream their gameplay. Free and open source Xsplit competitor http://obsproject.com/index Only works for Windows Vista and newer Windows OS.

End of Part 1 In Part 2 Ways game devs are taking advantage of streaming In game clients Support built into next gen consoles Connecting with players The Future Nvidia Shield PS Vita Windows Glass More

Sources http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/SevereTireDamage.gif http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Unicast_streaming.svg http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/ http://www.xsplit.com/ http://www.stats.twitch.tv http://obsproject.com/index http://njwofg.tumblr.com/post/15336511271/twitch-tv-about-advertising