Reading a post on UltraMobileLife this morning about a Justin.TV kit that Dynamism have put together made me realize that I hadn’t actually concluded my own Justin.TV-style tests with the Everun and HSDPA. I have now though! And for the rest of the day I’m live. How bizarre! My wife thinks I’m nuts. I’m banned from the messy kitchen too. Suits me fine!
The Everun solution comes in at way under 1 kilo and can be put on your belt (I’m using a case from an MP3400 battery pack. Gallery here) Using a Philips webcam slipped into the neck of my T-shirt! The uplink is being provided by HSDPA and Wifi (depending on weather I’m in the house.) HSPDA (max 350kbps uplink) is via the Expedite HSDPA kit I got from Mobilx. Battery life on a standard battery is 3 hours. On the extended battery it will be between 5 and 6. (Still under 1KG!)
Read on for an update…..
Update: The tests went well. Everyone saw my messy kitchen, a crying baby and me lazing around on the sofa! During that time though I managed to fully test the Everun, Q1b and Q1 Ultra with stream. The Everun tops out at about 350kbps upload (Max HSDPA upload speed). The CPU just couldn’t drive any more. There was also an annoying bug somewhere which meant that after 10 minutes the frame rate would drop every 10 seconds for 5 seconds. Rebooting fixed it every time but its either a problem with other software on my Everun (possible as my Everun has had a ton of software on it!) or the video camera driver. The Q1b managed to push around 500kbps up but the CPU was locked at 100% and you couldn’t even get a TIP window up. No use for chatting in a live chat window as I was dong on the Everun. The Q1 Ultra managed to push 700kbps and obviously gave the best result. Again there were problems using other programs at the same time tho.
I tried a different camera (Logitech QC 4000) but the driver software on that is really heavy. It was as slow as an old dog. I don’t recommend that cam so I’ll be sticking with the Philips SPC900NC. It has very good low-light properties as well as more efficient drivers. The everun was the easiest to carry and gave the best battery life. It was also nice to use the keyboard and chat in the Ustream chat session at the same time as streaming. If I can iron out the intermittent frame rate problem its going to be the best of the bunch at HSDPA speeds. It did get pretty hot in my holder though
Update: Stickcam is not as quick as Ustream. Justin.TV has a very nice HQ codec that can be used but its not live! Its got quite a delay. It didn’t work too well on the Everun but works a treat on the Q1b HSDPA
