Rock giants U2 will be broadcasting tonight's concert at the Rose Bowl in a global webcast on YouTube. You can view the concert on the official U2 channel, which will be available in 16 countries.
Tonight's concert will be an acid test for streaming live video on YouTube. In the past, Google (who owns YouTube) has said they were not interested in live streaming because of the cost. In recent months, they have begun experimenting with live streams of an Obama press conference and the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco.
The concert begins tonight at 8:30 PM PDT. That's pretty late for those of you on the east coast, and if you're in Europe, prepare to wake up in the wee hours of the morning. In reality, choosing to webcast a west coast concert was a shrewd choice, as the time alone will reduce the audience a bit. I like U2, and I'll be tuning in to see how well the stream holds up under stress. It will be interesting to see how many people are able to watch simultaneously.
Joe Ball says
I predict the Internet will melt down in about 45 minutes from now. 😉
Mark Andrews says
I'm watching it now. Quality is pretty good, considering it's streaming. But I'm starting to get a few little hesitations. Joe might be right for once. 😉
dave says
I didn’t see it, but am curious, what was the pixel size of the stream? Was it a smallish standard 480 pixels wide 4:3, or was it something closer to widescreen 16:9, say, 720 pixels wide??
Jeff Hester says
You can see the recording on the same link. It was about 480 pixels wide. I hooked it up to my TV and it was decent enough. Not HD, but considering how many people were probably watching, I was impressed. According to ComputerWorld, the audience was estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Jeff Hester says
The LA Times is reporting that Sunday's show generated 10 million live streams across 7 continents. That is simply amazing. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009…
Gaye Quartaro says
I love watching videos online specially on Youtube. There are lots of music clips, movie clips and instructional videos on Youtube. I love em all.
Connor Bell says
i use Youtube to watch Taylor Swift videos. I always watch movie clips on Youtube. What an awesome site. `