Sony Bloggie Live Streaming at 480 x 270

I just got the Sony Bloggie Live (MHS-TS55) as a gift from Sony.


Image: Sony Bloggie Live(MHS-TS55) Video Camera with 4x Digital Zoom, 3.0-Inch Touchscreen LCD and WiFi Connectivity (New Model) (amazon affiliate link)

Last week I saw it in a Best Buy and noticed that it featured Live Streaming to Qik!


Image: Sony Bloggie Live at Best Buy

Whoa!

My friend Sukhjit at Sony saw my post and sent a Sony Bloggie Live over for me to try out.

I'm excited about this because years ago, I was at Harvard doing a presentation about video. I remember the moment very clearly. I held up my Canon SD100 camera and said, "One day we'll be able to broadcast from the sidewalk with something like this!"

A little while later, Qik came out and allowed live streaming with a Nokia smartphone. I went up to New Hampshire and used the Nokia to live stream reports on the presidential primaries.

I even scooped CNN on a story. I ended up working closely with Qik and investing in the company.


Video: Steve Garfield, Mobile Video Journalist

I love to see the technology progress and am excited to live stream from a pocket hd video camera.

Here's the announcement of this camera on the Qik blog:

Sony Announces New Wi-Fi® enabled Bloggie Live™ HD Camera, featuring Qik™ Video from Skype™:

Stream Live
Using the great new Wi-Fi connection on the Sony Bloggie Live camera, you can broadcast and stream to the web in real-time. View the video on Qik.com, on your favorite social networks like Facebook® and Twitter™, on any website or blog where the live channel has been embedded, and on nearly any device that supports video including: smart phones, tablets and connected through 4G or 3G.*

Here are the specs from the Sony site:

Bloggie Live HD Camera:

Highlights: 8GB, Full HD 1080p video, 12.8-megapixel stills, 3.0" (diag.) touch screen, MP4 video format, Wi-Fi® enabled for easy uploads, live streaming capabilities, flip-out USB arm for uploading/charging

When you open up the Sony Bloggie Live you are directed to the web for easy set up:

sony.net.start/bloggie


After clicking Start Setup, you can click over to Overview of WiFi features.

In there I read this:

Description
* Live broadcasts are recorded at the size set on your Bloggie and stored on the internal memory.
* Notifications of live broadcasts are made according to the Qik web site system.
This is subject to change without notice so please read the Qik web site for details.
* You cannot necessarily use all devices provided with Qik.

* Uploaded images are smaller (movies: 480ｘ270) than the set recording size.

So even though the camera is an HD camera, and Qik does support live streaming in HD with Qik Premium on Android, it looks like the Sony Bloggie Live only supports 480x270 resolution.

That's disappointing, but I'll send a note into Sony to see if HD support is planned.

Until then, some live streaming testing.

Stay tuned.

Update from Sony:

In terms of live streaming, the Bloggie Live concurrently saves an HD copy of the video in real-time, so you’re able to share the HD copy. Plus, streaming in HD can be sometimes be unreliable because of the amount of bandwidth used. We wanted to make sure that the Bloggie Live was as quick and easy to use as possible!

This makes sense.

In fact, Standard Definition (SD) live video streaming looks really good, and I usually stream in SD to save resources on both the computer and network.

I'd be interested in testing out HD streaming on the Bloggie Live if they ever implement it in conjunction with Qik.


Disclosure:
This was a gift from Sony
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