Online Video Trends 2012: The Cloud Is Big, so Is Live Streaming

Where is online video moving in 2013? To the cloud! As if we haven't heard enough about cloud computing in 2012, more and more will be done online.

Capping a successful Streaming Media West conference in Los Angeles, OnlineVideo.net contributor Jan Ozer sat down for a red carpet interview to discuss the show's highlights. The cloud was everywhere, he said, and live video streaming was a hot topic.

"The whole live market just seemed to explode this year," Ozer said. "Livestream and Ustream are both big sponsors with big booths, and the traffic interest in all their applications was very significant. Ustream showed this cool new webcam from Logitech which can talk directly to your Wi-Fi hub, bypassing the computer, so it can shoot the picture, encode the video, and send that directly to Ustream. You don't even need a computer. You just need a Wi-Fi hot spot. That's pretty cool."

While HTML5 has long been a seen as the future of online video, Ozer explained that Flash is still the most used format for desktop streaming.

"When you point out simple facts like, 'Hey, only 66 percent of the browsers out there are HTML5-compatible, and then only 80 percent of those play H.264, and Mozilla still hasn't licensed H.264,' people are like, 'What?' They just get really riled about it," Ozer said. "I don't really have a fish to fry. But I want to work on the basis of facts. And the fact is, whether it's MPEG DASH or whether it's HTML5, at this point if it's so good, why aren't CBS and CNN and FOX and ESPN using it?"

For the full video and more on 2012 video trends, scroll down.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net