Thoughts on the new layout

[jacobo3d]

The new layout shows this error message when loading the player:

Error #2044: Unhandled securityError:. text=Error #2048: Security sandbox violation:
http://cdn.livestream.com/chromeless...pleWrapper.swf cannot load data from http://thumbnail.api.livestream.com/...0-3A766CD38D5C.

[paul167]

We'll take a look at that thanks.
Are you getting this error consistently ? Which flash player version are you using ?

Thanks

[kickgen]

Originally Posted by dman9

Hey guys, just noticed the new layout when I was configuring my channel. I'm usually good for an honest opinion or two, so here it is.

The new player is in 16x9 format. Does this mean all tickers/graphics/titles are just going to be stretched, or are we going to get reworked versions for this new horizontal space?

I like the new look for the VoD. However, I still have a few huge problems with it. The biggest problem is that I can't find any way for it to display more than the 9 newest clips. Second, we have our VoD organized in many different folders. All of that seems to be scrapped.

I think having an entirely new page just to get embed information is kind of cumbersome. Perhaps you could just have it pop up and dim the rest of the page or something. However, the new embed player looks MUCH nicer.

The one thing that I REALLY want to know about that's VERY important is the chat. Firstly, the chat is very important to our viewers. The space allotted for it in the new layout appears to be very small. The chat isn't horizontally aligned with the video. The chat is really easy to read right now because it's right next to the video. There are a few options I see in the new chat preview. Maybe a popout chat window (yes please!) and/or even a re-sizable chat would be really awesome.

I would really like having the banner go across the entire width of the screen instead of just that little section.

Also, please give the option to use the new layout or not. Honestly, the new layout seems a lot better for personal channels and small things such as that, but for more professional uses the old page still appears to be better. I'd probably stick with the old layout unless the new layout addresses the thing's I've stated.

I Agree with most of what is said here... I like the new options, I do like advanced change, but feel the old player design was better suited for pro events with chat. To me, what makes LIVE Stream unique besides the studio technology is the marriage with LIVE Chat... please don't lose site of that. VOD option is moving in the right direction but shouldn't be the default tab over the "about channel" information, etc... Thanks for the upgrades and keep them coming!

[kickgen]

Agreed! Keep it simple and professional. I can use many other video cam social networking sites to broadcast my live events. I like LIVE stream because it is currently presented as a professional channel. I like having new options, widgets is if you will, to select from and build my own channel based on my needs. Keep them coming. You can't assume globally what every producer needs or wants on their channel. Most of us present our Live Stream channels directly on our websites... if it looks like a facebook or myspace page... I'll have to reconsider how I use it... Thanks!

[kentor]

looks like justin tv

[MStepelton]

Originally Posted by HRNET

Way over done! looks like a Myspace layout keep the clean professional look

I agree totally. Had a clean and functional look and layout, now it's just over the top like so many other sites. The new player is the only thing I am impressed with.

[Hwasin]

Looking forward to the new livestream chat. Twitter and facebook chat is definitely not needed. We just need one moderated chat room, not 3.

[tallasseetimes]

Kill the twitter and facebook and make chat work.

I use twitter to report scores for other regional football games duinjg the game we are broadcasting. Only a few people have access to the twitter, not everyone. We only want theses scores scrolling across the bottom of the screen not the thousands of comments from chatters.

How do I get the chat to line up to the right of the video.

How do I embed the player to fill a 720 wide column on my blogspot page like the old one, Three of the choices are to narrow, the fourth is to wide, I need a 710 wide player

How do I get the embedded player to come up with the volume on and set to 50%? The only choices are 0% or 100%

How do I get the URL for my player to show up in the top left of the video. It shows the livestream.com/tallasseetimes URL instead of the correct one, which is tallasseetimes.blogspot.com

Now do I turn off chat on the livestream viewer while enabling the chat on the embedded viewers? All our legitimate viewers find us from radio and print advertising. Only spammers intent on destroying other peoples channels find us at livestream.

What happened to the nice red "LIVE" button? I incorporated it into my channel logo, print, and video instructions and promotions and probably shows up in at least 100 graphics I built. It is an important part of our channel's literature, documentation and video promotions. Our viewers have come to depend on the red "LIVE" icon to tell them when our shows have started.
How do I get the "number of viewers on line" indicator to show up. Our viewers seem to watch that count go up, they call their friends and are quite excited to see us break last weeks record.
While you are putting things back, how about the cool power button icon? Again, I hate to go back and have to edit our instructions and re-print our paper handouts where I used that icon.

How do I get the rounded corners and the shadow on the viewer? Take a look at my viewer page at tallasseetimes.blogspot.com I went to a lot of trouble to incorporate the rounded corners and shadows into all elements of our graphics and layout.

How do I select the player color? There is a "player color" selection tool on the embedding page, but the lower third of it comes up BEHIND the video window and is useless.

How do I handle video on demand? It has all sort of problems.
We do 35 (and counting) different shows a week. Each show has one to five breaks resulting in an average of 25 recorded segments PER DAY,
Some shows are daily, some weekly. My shows are arraigned in folders to make it easy to find. A viewer can select "Westside Church" and find last Sunday's service, or "Tigers Football" and find last Fridays game. This new scheme looks like a viewer on Tuesday would never see the last church service or game, just the last few show segments from that morning. Many of those would be archived and erased.

Recorded segments show up in the guide, even after they are erased. UGGH!

Segments we just aired end up displaying in the guide. We do NOT want promos for upcoming shows, ( or show segments ) in the guide. For example, A teaser " Coming up after the break, The current weather..." does not need to be "on demand" ever, particularly after the weather segment is played.

OK, how the big one, and I'm sorry to say I just haven't investigated this all that much.

The Triangle "PLAY" and double bar "PAUSE" icons.

What the heck are they for? They have their use on YouTube or places that simply provide a bunch of pre-recorded clips. But what the heck are they doing on a live TV channel?

If someone takes a break and pauses the live show, then, when they return 5 minutes later they will be 5 minutes behind all the other viewers. All their chat messages will be about things that happened 5 minutes ago for the rest of the viewers and will be totally confusing to the other viewers. We have several Trivia quizzes where viewers can win tee shirts and such. Will all our viewers be watching the same thing? Or, will they all be watching dozens of 'TIVO'ed shows time shifted 5 to 30 minutes? Viewers tell us that a large part of our appeal is the live chat that is part of the show. Getting to ask coaches about the game, or the Mayor about a new ordnance is a major attraction. Having a viewer, who paused a show, ask the Mayor about a play in the last quarter of the football game is going to be just plain stupid.

How do we force viewers to fast forward to the Mayors show once the Coach leaves the studio?

I seems that Livestream was well thought out. It was sometimes hard to figure out why things were the way the were but once I was doing live shows every day, the design of the software made a lot of sense. For those of us wanting to do LIVE programming, not just a bunch of repetitive pre-recorded stuff, or streaming of some mindless game, the Livestream software is not only theo only real solution, but is the way of the future.


Now, this new beta. It appears to be an attempt to copy UStream, or some other user interface with no thought given to how a live TV or radio station works. I wanted a backup plan should Livestream go down. Believe me. I spent weeks trying to implement my Livestream channels on those other services. It can't be done for a channel that is totally focused on Live programming, Particularly one where a single show originates from multiple cameras in multiple locations.

Anyway, That is my first impression.

The one thing that I desperatly need is a way to turn off chat on the livestream site while keeping it on the embedded players. This new chat looks like a poorly tgought out "bolt-on" application that is not even intigrated into the livestream channel.

I know it is still early in the beta cycle. I judt hope the direction it is takeing is not what it seems.

Bob, www.tallasseetimes.com

[VROWNERS]

a) the new player doesn't tell you who is streaming when you log in
b) there is no decent way to idle effectively because you can't actually turn off the stream, it continues to update the image and is draining my bandwidth for it
c) no on demand

[LaPiscean]

There are both pros and cons to any new layout. In this new layout I find that considerable amount of space allocated to the things i rely on most, are gone or made less visible. I want my full banner. I want my chat back where it was and I would like html added back to descriptions. For the Pros, I love the new share feature with facebook and twitter. I like the new profile screen. I realize that for security purposes, we may have to seperate the embed from player, but it did look good and was easy to find & use. Thanks for letting me add my $0.02