As former eng lead at a live streaming company, I second the idea that transcoding is a big deal. Streaming bandwidth is super pricey, and the money is enough

As former eng lead at a live streaming company, I second the idea that transcoding is a big deal. Streaming bandwidth is super pricey, and the money is enough to really matter. Even a startup can easily get to five or six figure expenses. Bittorrent Live gets that right. However transcoding is critical, given that every OS and browser has its own format quirks. BT Live can't remotely do this. Check out Zencoder for the real competition. Maybe BT Live will find a niche with use cases that just produce no money at all, or where servers get shut down for political reasons. Marches, samizdat, and, uh, questionable copyright.