Ustream, a leader in live social video streaming, today unveiled its next-generation streaming technology, marking a new standard for live video streaming capabilities according to the company. The core of the Ustream Cloud Platform centers around the company's proprietary Ustream Content Delivery Network (UCDN), Ustream Media Server (UMS) and Ustream TCP Congestion Control Algorithm (UTCP). Together, this advanced technology is designed to provide users with unmatched redundancy, resiliency, and reliability to broadcast-quality live video streams.
With the official release of the Ustream Cloud Platform, the company says it is pushing the limits of what's physically possible on today's internet architecture.
Compared to most single-sourced CDN solutions, Ustream says its unique UCDN architecture aggregates the capacity of all major content delivery networks across the globe into one optimized network always guaranteeing the best viewer experience, from any location in the world. UMS controls the full lifecycle of live video streams and assures the ability to seamlessly scale to millions of concurrent viewers from any device; further, UTCP is built to ensure smooth, non-buffered play-through in adverse network conditions.
Ustream says its first live video stream in 2007 engaged a small community in the hundreds; today, the most popular live video streams captivate millions concurrently. Earlier this year, Ustream says it powered two massively scaled events within one week -- NASA's Russian meteor fly-by and Sony's PlayStation 4 announcement -- each reaching eight million global viewers, with a peak of one million concurrent viewers. The Ustream Cloud Platform is the only global, live video streaming platform that can scale to this level and beyond, according to the company.
Ustream says broadcasters utilizing its platform span across all industries, empowering amateurs and professionals alike to easily broaden their online audiences. Viewers are instantly connected to live video streams and can also participate in social conversations, creating an ultimate opportunity for individuals and companies to reach an engaged audience.
"With the official release of the Ustream Cloud Platform, we are pushing the limits of what's physically possible on today's internet architecture," says Gyula Feher, CTO of Ustream. "Since the founding of the company, our ambition has been to build the world's most scalable and easiest to use live online video platform. With our APIs, we are inviting web and app developers to take Ustream Cloud to every mobile and web user."
“We've designed and built a platform that will provide our user community with the highest quality streams, and we're doing everything in our power to deliver this to viewers without buffering. The Ustream Cloud Platform automatically finds the best route to the end-user, avoiding congested paths, and uses an optimized TCP congestion control algorithm to serve content, even on lousy wireless networks, without buffering,” says Arpad Kun, Ustream's director of network operations. “We hate the ‘spinning wheel' as well, so we optimized the underlying protocol of RTMP and HTTP to deliver streams on-time, on-time, so users don't have to wait for the player to fill up it's buffer again. Our technology is unmatched and wherever we can, we are taking the single point of failure out of the equation.”
