Arcade Fire live on YouTube

Unstaged is a YouTube series of live events sponsored by American Express
Arcade Fire live from Madison Square Garden
On August 5, 2010
The show started around 22:00 Eastern and ended at 23:50
(3 minutes after the end of the live show, they streamed the whole show (playback from tape) as if it was live.)

http://youtube.com/ArcadeFireVevo
Or shortened URL:
http://pub.vitrue.com/CeS

or

http://go.vevo.com/5LU

Sponsored by: American Express
In partnership with: Vevo and YouTube

shot in HD
16:9 aspect ratio
Interesting option in player for end users to pick from another program feed (alternate view)

The piece of info I'm curious about is what encoding gear they used. Did they encode on site and if so, what type of connection did they have?

encoded at 640x385 pixels in 4 different bitrates (automatically selected)

• 200 Kbps
• 500 Kbps
• 1000 Kbps
• 1500 Kbps

live RTMP video streams delivered by Akamai

Social networking "shoutbox" from Bonnaroo (running on Google's clouds)
Twitter and Facebook
http://bonnaroo-2010.appspot.com
Weird since Bonnaroo is not a web app developing shop. It's a concert.

AkamaiPlayerAnalyticsConfig
http://csma82240.analytics.edgesuite.net/config/beacon-421.xml

Link to buy Arcade Fire's latest album
http://www.arcadefireyoutube.com

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Twitter
http://twitter.com/AmericanExpress
Join the conversation by using hashtag #AmexArcadeFire

Canadians and Streaming Radio

Statistics Canada : 22% of canadian home internet users between 45 and 64 years old listen to the radio over the Internet.
Internet activities performed at home in the last 12 months by Internet users, by age group, 2007
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2009002/t/10910/tbl001-eng.htm

How much does it cost to stream radio on your iPhone?

A friend of mine that I cannot see often enough asked me today what where my hobbies. As a geek I must have geek hobbies. One of them is to play with Google.
My friend also asked me how much it would cost to listen to streaming radio for one hour on my iPhone.

The canadian iPhone carrier does not offer unlimited data plans.
So lets calculate using the 1 GB monthly data transfer offered by Rogers' iPhone 3G Voice & Data Packages. So if I add the $6.95 System Access Fee and the 50¢ 911 Emergency Access Fee to that base $60 plan I get $67.45 per month before taxes.

Where does Google fit in all this you might ask? In addition to do web search (duh), you can use it as a cool calculator and unit converter.

For the sake of our example, lets use a stream encoded at 32 Kilo bits per second (Kbps). One hour of streaming that station on my iPhone will cost me almost one dollar.

Another way to put this: You can stream that live radio station non stop for a bit over 3 days using the basic 1 GB data plan.

Now if Rogers could only follow AT&T's example with an "unlimited" data plan.
Of course when my iPhone is connected through WiFi (which is 80% of the time) my data transfer costs go down to $0.