Not to be outdone by competitor Flixwagon, Qik has just released its own demonstration of live video streaming from the iPhone (see below).
The demo comes just hours after Flixwagon made a similar announcement. However, Qik is one-upping Flixwagon by promising to release its software next week, not further off in July. It will presumably work only with jailbroken iPhones as well, at least until the app store rolls around.
nice, it should really shine when its on 3g
The only thing, is it working over EDGE or wifi? If its going over EDGE, I’m rather impressed given the low framerate. If that’s over wifi, I can’t say I would find that particularly useful.
The real telling point is how well Qik and Flixwagon will work over 3G on the iPhone.
This quality is broadcast network ready, but needs to support wide format.
The world just changed. Network news will never be the same.
Hendrickson. HENDRICKSON! That Qik post better be up!
Good. The more companies that force iphone jailbreaks for video the better. Video must come to the iphone as a standard application. There is not one mention of video recording in their SDK. Audio recording, video playback, but nothing on recording. I hope they have something up their sleeve and things like this speed up the process or at least force the issue.
So will they also be making this available on the app store?
Anyone used both Qik and Flixwagon? Prefer one over the other? Pros and cons? Has tech crunch done a comparison?
When can we start getting invites for the iphone release for qik?
6 minute abs…
I am releasing my version of this tomorrow, so there
This leaves no doubt in my mind now that I will buy the iphone. No doubt. Steve Jobs should pay Qik a commission for this.
I agree Jim, Qik on the iPhone would definitely get me to buy it too
The only drawback at this time (until 3g) is you need a wifi connection, edge is too damn slow
Now if I could only run QUI on my 3G enabled Lenovo laptop. I could broadcast meself everywhere 24 hours a day.
And that’s the way it is…
Damn. I’ll have to get a new iPhone.
@Clintus
I’ve used both, and I prefer Qik. It pushes the video to more places. I believe FW limits you to 10min broadcasts, which normally wouldn’t be a problem. Normally. I also like to record with the phone sideways, Qik allows for this, FW does not.
But in a nutshell, they both do mostly the same thing, they are both free. Try them both out when you can, and pick your preference. Or, use them both
This is from my N95 btw, not an iPhone.
I - need - IPhone - now.
Did anybody notice they changed their logo?
FYI, there’s no limit on the length of the broadcasts on Flixwagon, also, if you start the Flixwagon app on landscape orientation it will work that way. Quality seems better on Flixwagon under similiar conditions, and it seems that flix are never lost. Let’s see how new versions compete….
Jeremy - fyi - there is no limit with flixwagon on how much time you can actually broadcast.
cheers,
sarig.
Great, another reason to gt an iPhone when it comes out in Canada… I guess no more eating out till then
Competition is good, frankly I am shocked it took Qik this long to support iPhone.
FYI… Qik is just fine over EDGE in my experience - I use a lot of Euro Nokia phones and it works great.
OH SNAP!!! THIS IS BEAUTIFUL! I’m quite excited.
Why are the iPhone homescreen icons different at the start and end of the video?
Perhaps Qik aren’t as ready as they claim… releasing for iPhone 2G isn’t one-upping Flixwagon at all.
Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but the only way for an iPhone application to get live video from the camera hardware is using a private framework.
And, Apple will not allow an application that uses a private framework into the Apple Store.
Ergo, neither Flixwagon nor Qik will be available in the Apple Store. They will be jailbroke only.
And that’s a shame. Apple, paleeze, give is a legitimate video API.
Spanks.
Is it just me, or is there something “fishy” about this video..
They aren’t really showing anything? It almost looks faked to me…
my 2 cents
Market will determine the winner.
Are you KIDDING ME??? how on earth is the first frame of the video already qued up on the screen before he picks up the phone? And conspiracy theory asude, why does their software switches to the iPhone start screen when a few seconds through shooting the video? Flixwagon is WAY better. Not just the video quality and the shorter delay. and oh yes, their demonstration actually shows the video starts live and not before the guy picks up the phone and press what looks like nothing. Would wait another week for it (will take me that long to hack that damn iPhone anyway) check out the Flixwagon demo on Techcrunch and see for yourself:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....om-iphone/
Excellent, nice work Qik folks!
Now I *will* be able to get videoconferencing on my 3G iPhone - I’ll just stand in front of a mirror!
Finally!
The video seems legitimate. The question is will Apple embrace it or not?
Nice work Michael and the team at Qik! This is an excellent announcement. And if people want to bring their live Qik videos to a full screen TV channel format, don’t forget you can do all this and more at WorldTV.com.
If Qik would like to quell the conspiracy theorists, how about they provide us a link to the actual video shot BY the iPhone? I’d like to see the framerate and quality. I searched for “iPhone” on Qik but didn’t find that so-called demo video. Huh.
Clintus: it’s a toss-up on Qik v. Flixwagon for me. FW has a nice safety feature built in so you don’t lose video — it caches the video locally and even if you walk into an elevator or something with no signal, you won’t lose the footage. It will buffer it out later when you are back in network coverage, even if you stop shooting (and even stop the application and restart later, I believe). If you build up a lag time in Qik, you can’t shut the app down or start filming again until it clears the buffer or you lose it for good. I don’t know what flyguy is talking about, though; I’ve found the lag time in FW to be a bit higher than Qik. The bigger downside of their caching scheme to me though is that there’s a hiccup in the footage every 15 seconds when it starts a new cache file, so if someone is speaking to you, losing a half second every 15 seconds is kind of irritating. They promise it’ll be fixed on the next release. The upside of the FW web interface to me is that if someone follows the Twittered link to your current stream, the chat interface is right there ready for typing; if someone follows the Twittered link to your Qik stream, they have to click another link to get to your chat room and thus miss a few seconds of the action as the page reloads.
nice, it should really shine when its on 3g
@Shelbinator:
Thanks for noticing about the latency; it’s something we take very seriously. We also save all files until they’re verified to have been sent safely across the network. Currently it’s a bit annoying to get them off the phone if you have to quit the app before it could finish (you just send us the raw file — it’s all there, every second, with no segmentation), but this too will be automated soon.
Regarding the twitter links: you now have full control of the message *and* the destination link when you tweet your qiks. You can send people to your Qik page with the chat open, or send them to your blog or anywhere else you have the player embedded — it’s totally up to you.
Finally, with Qik you have complete access to your video stream. You can download the flv and even the original-format 3gp file right from your RSS feed. If you’re shooting in 640*480 and/or want to edit the video, this is a great way to go.
Cool. Where do I download?