As I mentioned on Friday's livestream, I'm considering moving my streams to YouTube due to several factors (quality, less technical issues, etc). Keyword here is "considering", however I would like to make a decision before the next stream - thus this post and my request for your feedback.

The table below presents things I will take into account when deciding:

YouTubeLiveCoding
  • Resolution: 1080p
  • Bitrate: 3000kbps
  • Unlogged users don't see chat.
  • Rewind-during-live feature.
  • Adjustable quality during live for the viewer.
  • High delay between recording/streaming (20-50 sec).
  • HTML5 player by default.
  • Just works, or at least I did not receive a significant amount of negative feedback about crashes/lags/etc.
  • Has an API, chat is custom, but has REST API.
  • Around 2/3 of my viewers would prefer to move to YT***.
  • Resolution: 720p
  • Bitrate: 1500kbps (2500kbps said to be rolled out in 2-3 weeks)
  • Sound quality is lacking; might improve after 2500kbps rollout.
  • Unlogged users don't see chat.
  • Fast support, direct contact with project owner*
  • Very low delay between recording/streaming (~2-5 sec).
  • Flash player by default. Can't enable HTML5 player without disabling Flash in the browser.
  • Several reports of crashes or player not working (on last stream the player/stream crashed, even for me).
  • Strictly a coding service**. I.e. easier for people to randomly discover my stream just by going to livecoding.tv when I'm streaming.
  • Has an API, chat is XMPP.
* One might point out that given that I actually work at Google I would have direct contact with YT's engineers as well - while that is true, I prefer not to bother them with personal projects, unless it's a valid bug report or valid (in my head) feedback for a given feature of course.
** One might argue that my streams are not strictly speaking coding (well, it's security/hacking/reverse-engineering with a large dose of coding) but I would say it still fits and I did not hear otherwise.
*** Based on a Twitter poll as well as chat responses during the stream.


Another thing one might point out is that LiveCoding has a neat dark layout, which is better at nighttime. It turns out, that youtube has a similar one - just change the "www" to "gaming" in the address when you watch the stream (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaUMQp2VWgg vs https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=SaUMQp2VWgg).

There are probably more tiny details here and there, but they are either not as obvious as the things listed above, or not really important in my case.

At this point I'm leaning towards moving to YouTube, as I did with my other live streams. Is there anything I missed and should take into account? Please let me know in the comments down below - thanks!

Comments:

2016-07-26 15:12:20 = Dannyketch
{
"Strictly a coding service**. I.e. easier for people to randomly discover my stream just by going to livecoding.tv when I'm streaming."

This seems to be crucial. I love community feel there also
}
2016-07-26 21:04:51 = Gynvael Coldwind
{
@Dannyketch
Agreed, though it was not enough.
}
2016-07-27 14:10:58 = Hilary Voss
{
I think you should stick with Livecodingtv because it's the right platform for what you are about to stream. I even found your channel first time there. Youtube is good but not targetted for programmers which means you have to build your own audience. And livecoding anyone who codes will be there. So I just think it's matter of target. And even if you go to youtube only people you know might come and you might need to come back someday to livecodingtv since thats your targeted audience.
}
2016-07-27 16:45:23 = Gynvael Coldwind
{
@Hilary Voss
Will see how it goes - who knows, maybe I'll revisit LiveCoding in some time to see if all the issues have been fixed :)
}

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