While Justin.TV’s live video site first broke on the scene with its fair share of scandal and gimmicks, not too many people realized they were doing anything more than programming a website to broadcast video from off the shelf web cams. However, Justin.TV has actually been developing some actual technology, too. Since the start they’ve been building their own content distribution network (CDN) to stream video to all the site’s viewers. And according to them, it just happens to be saving them a bundle of cash.
When they first launched, they considered existing using existing CDNs to run their network. Rates from one large CDN cost as much as $0.36 for every hour of video run. Justin.TV developed a system that does it for 3/4 of a penny. Their most recent iteration of the network does it for 1/4 of a penny. All those pennies add up, especially for a startup that broadcasts 24 hours a day.
But saving money by building your own network is not for everyone. Their current system has been over a year in the making and fairly elaborate. It consists of a load balancing system that can start streaming content over their own network of servers and push peak traffic to Amazon’s S3 and EC2 services. It’s taken so long because they’ve essentially had to pick apart and rebuild a flash server from the ground up to make this possible without using Adobe’s software.
And they expect all this hard work to pay off. Having control over the entire pipeline means they can add on new features, such as more easily archiving recorded videos or trans-coding them into other formats. No word on whether they’ll be lending the CND out to third parties any time soon, though.
let them get a real name then come talk to me.
a bunch of clowns and jokers trying to look credible….i ran into these kids at a party and from what i gathered = justin.tv in the deadpool in a few months….
Nick…Is this a joke?
Their technology is absolute garbage…
They needed a CDN to show that crap. Their investors should have just bought some whores.
Kevin, not joking. These guys say they’ve flipped the switch on a new system that saves them an order of magnitude on spending. That seems impressive to me.
I know they had trouble with reliability with the initial launch, but the service has been reliable for me as I’ve popped in over the past couple of months.
I think amateur video online is still finding its way, aside from YouTube. Everyone else is a very distant second.
“let them get a real name then come talk to me.”
Allen…I just love that comment. Seriously though, “lifecasting” is fairly new and Justin.tv must be given a lot of credit for bringing it more into the mainstream.
Also, I am happy that they are not just sitting back and counting on the initial buzz but actually doing something to operate more efficiently.
meaningful invention is a sloppy process. good luck to justin and the team!
Hey Nick – Thanks for the post
@Allen – We like the name
@Kevin – I think it is hardly garbage to have the lowest live streaming video costs in the industry
@Adrian – Thanks for the support!
I am a bit suspicious about this. As far as I can tell justin.tv’s “CDN” is really Amazon’s CDN and the low price is because Amazon has been trying to undercut Akamai’s pricing.
@Nick Gonzales: Are you employed by YC? You seem to be covering only them. I think TC should disclose that.
As for Justin.tv, do you guys even know what a CDN is? CDN is not a flash server written in Python. See what Network part of CDN means.
Justin.tv can barely break 1000 viewers… to me, that’s unbelievably unimpressive.
Nick,
It’s obvious you’re in bed with the Justin guys – give me a break…stop pushing an agenda and get off of your platform….
Use TC for unbiased reporting – I go to Mashable.com now because of this type of crap.
Available Open Source Flash/Media Server
http://osflash.org/red5
You go to Ustream for reliability, Mogulus for powerful features.
You go to Justin to see girls eating potato chips…
Sorry Nick, once again you show you are not a expert in anything.
Nick,
Why build adobe’s flash servers “from the ground up” when adobe slashed prices? Ouch.
Sorry, I don’t see the competitive cost advantage there.
SJ
one word: ‘Wowza’
look it up
Kosso, they’ve considered Wowza as well.
Nick,
Akamai, LimeLight, PantherCDN, etc have taken years and tons on technologist to build a CDN and then they take a couple of years more and tens of millions of dollars and then too the stuff is expensive, complicated and not so easy to use. (I know I used to work for one that build a CDN eight years ago). These web 2.0 scripters have build a full blown CDN. Is this a joke ?
SG
Aside from a few, all of you are just bitter nay-sayers. It’s so typical.
Bitter, bitter, bitter at the success of others… be bitter at your crappy gene-pool, your lack of creativity and drive or your parents.. save me the pseudo-intellectual banter regarding your opinion of a company’s name and the merit of said company’s success.
Get off of WOW and do something yourself.
They are working out all the problems for anyone who wants to do what they are doing in the future. I’m sure when they started they didn’t specifically plan to do their own CDN. But now they’ve done it and added it to their “platform”. If they keep doing things like this successfully there’s a good chance the networks (especially news networks) will have to take notice.
Does anyone here think these guys are the last ones who will ever want to distribute their own goofy tv?
UGC made some huge strides last year. Many of the premier sites have been mentioned in the comments above.
It will take cost reductions like JustinTV is accomplishing in order to sustain these sites so they can take the next step of creating better content and bring in real viewers.
soon you will be able to search through a large amount of Live UGC from over the web as well as live sports, music and news.
coming soon: http://www.NowHound.com
The only legitimate and affordable P2P HD live streaming WITHOUT BUFFERING video service available today is provided by http://neokast.com. Download their plug-in at http://neokast.com and watch the best video on the internet, period. I have partnered with them to provide streaming video of the candidates in the 2008 election. View our beta page at http://gophub.c...m/betavid1.html.
Are you guys Kidding combine Justin.tv’s backend with a Hybrid p2p CDN and you really lower the costs of content distribution .
Akamai didn’t buy RedSwoosh for almost 20 million just because they thought p2p was cool at the time .
http://www.tech...on-from-akamai/
CDN and p2p are two different worlds. P2P is a collaborative model. Pretty much at the mercy of the participants and kiss your QoS good bye. It is apples and oranges.
I knew Akamai was old school but I didn’t they are that dumb to buy RedSwoosh to replace their CDN network that they spent over seven years building and perfecting with loads of Phds from MIT working it.
SG
So whoa whoa whoa whoa wait wait wait wait. What exactly, in specific technical terms, did they build? Did they just buy a bunch of bandwidth and put servers at a few key points in the network? This is a technical post, so I want technical details — how much would it cost me to do it, and what are the gains in terms of amount of content served and quality?
This is along the lines of building your own data center. Bandwidth costs no longer become as much of an issue when you scale. Good for them, I think that the CDNs need to do more of a utility computing model for bandwidth: http://fishtrai...andwidth-costs/
JTV has nothing but underage girls and perverts
To GEE – Not true; there’s also illegal rebroadcasting of Sporting events, Pron, and Mainstream Movies, too! Yes, Justin has something for everyone!
Low-cost CDN or other innovations notwithstanding, the whole Social Networking thing leaves me completely non-plussed. I just can’t see the point, other than insecure folks trying to be ‘famous’. Worhol had it right, but couldn’t possibly have predicted this kind of nonsense.
Ultimately, it’s all the answer to the question that nobody is asking.