Since Neokast’s main goal is to allow anyone in the world to live stream for little or no cost, there are many other facets of live streaming beyond simply “getting it to work” and simply “getting quicKast out there.” We have been looking into 3 key facets of live streaming for everyone and will be communicating what we learn to you.
QuicKasting the entire Pitchfork Music Festival taught us that we’re capable of working with several other brand new technologies and companies out there.
First of all, if you’re out in the middle of a park, how are you going to get Internet? We found a highly capable group of engineers at Hot Point Wireless that gave us a cutting edge wireless setup bouncing a signal off of Chicago’s Hancock Tower.
If you’re live streaming to a large audience with a high bitrate, you’re going to need more upload bandwidth to support a higher quality stream. How are you going to get that in the middle of a park? Hot Point provided wireless connectivity to the park, but we preferred a wired connection to send the precious stream through the Neokast Media Network. MyAtmosphere was particularly helpful in connecting their extremely powerful backend to the Hot Point Wireless to give us a great wired connection with great upload bandwidth.
So now you have the Internet ready and you’re ready to stream. How do you get the signal at a music festival? Optimus Video Production was responsible for the filming of the concert.
Last but not least, where is the regular video signal going? GoVision took the Optimus signal and routed it to their giant TV screens. Neokast got in between that routed signal and gave the entire world the chance to see what the rest of the Pitchfork Music Festival saw through the TV screens.
So there you have it. Three nascent technologies combined with two excellent companies involved in regular video production joined forces to deliver an uncanny live stream to the entire world on the Pitchfork Music Festival website.
We’re now ready to take on new and better challenges and of course empower you to stream yourself with Neokast QuicKast.
The bands at Pitchfork are loving the live streaming being done by Neokast. In addition to live streaming nearly all of the great bands at Pitchfork on Saturday, we had the privilege of streaming Yoko Ono’s rare Y.O. ONOCHORD CHICAGO 2007 Performance. Yoko purchased 17,000 mini-flashlights for the fans to use in a special way during the concert - Fans sent an “I Love You” message with the lights to one another at the concert and with the help of Neokast, this message was then sent to the entire world. 
Here’s a screenshot from earlier in the day. If you happen to have a Yoko Ono stream screenshot, send it our way. We were too busy hanging out with the band backstage! As you know, with our software, streaming is incredibly fast and easy to use, so once we had the QuicKast setup, we had plenty of time to enjoy the Pitchfork experience ourselves.
If you installed the Neokast Player on the Pitchfork website last night, please go to Add/Remove Programs, uninstall the software, then go back on the site and reinstall the software. We have optimized the software to make your streaming experience even better, and we’d love for you to see the concerts perfectly!
Live streaming an entire music festival with technology five years ahead of its time is a massive undertaking. It has required
Neokast strives to stream where no one has streamed before. Saturday should be a great experience - Friday was a bit of a trial run, but as of right now (Saturday 1pm), we are streaming amazingly well. Try it out and let us know what you think.
Neokast is live streaming the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA!
The festival is completely sold out. Over 50,000 people will attend this festival over Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15.
The rest of the people who couldn’t make it to the fest around the world can watch the bands’ concerts streamed live on the Pitchfork website! You can go on the Pitchfork Music Festival website, check out the 2007 guide, and watch the LIVE STREAMS of the concerts directly on their website with the same quality, ease of use, and unlimited amount of users you’re normally accustomed to on our website.
We now have firefox capability. If you’re already a registered user and would like to take advantage of the new release, please uninstall the Neokast software from Add/Remove Programs and go to the site mentioned above to install the goods. If you’re new to Neokast, just go on the site and click on the link - no signup required.
Let us know what you think of the show, and remember that yes, this is one of the many future big-time Neokast Productions, but you yourself can live stream to the world with QuicKast. Send comments to questions@neokast.com - the comments section on the website go to Pitchfork Media.
We will be posting screenshots of our streams and share notes of our experiences on the blog here for the three days of the festival.
Happy 4th of July Neokasters! Be sure to live stream some of your July 4 festivities on Neokast. If it’s fun, exciting, and interesting, you never know…we might post a screenshot on our blog and give you a little pub!
Here’s another excellent way to give your streams some pub on your own initiative…
We will be releasing a new website version later tonight. Most of the improvements that you’ll be able to see involve QuicKast (stability & visual features). The new version also allows users to share a link of their QuicKast with people who do not currently have a Neokast Beta User account. This means that you can broadcast events to any number of users, and they will not have to have a Neokast Beta User account to view the stream. All they will have to do is click on the link!
For those of you who have high download bandwidth, we’ve posted some 720p HD quality videos. Let us know how they work out for you!