Techy Tuesday: FlipOn.tv

This weekend, I had an excellent introduction to a web service that I had no idea even existed: FlipOn.tv.

Essentially what FlipOn.tv is is a streaming video service for events.  Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo offered all of the panel events as live streamed feeds on the site and, for a reasonable (to me) subscription fee of $15, I suddenly had access to every panel event that I would miss.

I was only attending the one day and three of the panels I wanted to see were playing simultaneously!
 Watching archived footage later was the perfect solution for me and Hubby!  It also meant that we could watch the panels that interested us individually instead of making us both sit through everything.  Knowing we had this service waiting for us at home meant that we spent more time at the actual expo exploring instead of sitting in concurrent sessions.   In future years, we might attend more in person events, but having this service made a nice backup for us to enjoy on our own time.

I found the video feeds to be beautifully done and effortlessly streamed.  The video size is quite a bit bigger than I expected and there was no problem seeing everything.

When watching a live feed on Friday or Sunday - I found there to be very few hiccups with the feed.  It was like having a better seat for the action than I ever could have had in person without a VIP pass.    Even better - you don't actually need the paid subscription to view some of the content.  It is free to create an account. It is only for the higher-capacity venues that the premium subscription is necessary.

Archiving happened about as fast as I figured it would - taking a few hours to get the panel online for viewing later, but by the time we got home from the expo - the earlier sessions were already archived and ready.  You could tell which ones were archived by the play symbol appearing on the session.

Perhaps the most epic thing to me about this service is that Calgary isn't the only Comic-con that uses it!  Suddenly cons that I may never be able to attend (like San Diego) are accessible to me with this service.

Because the service archives the events - you can go back and watch them again anytime.  You can even go watch previous years - this is a shot from the 2013 expo.  The ones marked premium aren't available for free - but there is still plenty to see.

I have bookmarked this awesome site and I really am looking forward to "attending" many more in the future!