Qik Blog

If you're recording Qik videos that you want to have professional quality audio, it's relatively straightforward to attach an external mic to, for example, your Nokia N95. This will deliver sound that is much enhanced over what you can capture with the Nokia's existing internal mic. All it takes are two cheapo connectors from Radio Shack (or similar), an external mic, and the output cords that come with your phone.

Pat Phelan, a very early Qik user (the one who recruited me into Qik fandom in the first place, in fact), got me to do a little demo video of how this works. Camera work by Daniel Brusilovsky, aka "appleuniverse".

Many thanks to Shelby Highsmith and Mobile Jones for the tips!

This morning we released a new version of our Symbian client 0.08.70 that further raises the bar on live. Below is a test that we did here in the Qik HQ on a 3G network to show the performance improvement.

Test using the Setting "Optimize For = Min Delay"
In this test you can observe the latency by seeing the time difference when the hand appears in front of the phone camera to the time when it shows up on the website right after.

To download the latest client, start Qik on your phone and you'll be notified of the available update. Then press OK to download and start streaming.

Ever wondered how to easily share your Qiks with a select group of people - like your family, friends, colleagues? Well now you can. Introducing the ability to Create, Manage and associate your Qiks to specific groups.

Group Types:
There are 3 types of groups that can be created:
- Public: These groups are open to any Qikker to join. The Qiks associated with this group can be viewed by anyone.
- Restricted: These groups require approval to join. The Qiks associated with this group can be viewed by anyone.
- Private: These groups requier approval to join. The Qiks associated with this group can be viewed only by the members of this group.

Creating Groups:

To get started go to People > Create New Group and filling out the form. Here you can even add / edit new members or approve membership requests.

Groups You Belong To:
To view the groups that you belong to or groups that you have been invited to go to People > Groups > My Groups.

Assigning Qiks to a Group:
By default, all your Qiks are assigned to the groups you belong to. To change the default assignment select the video and then click Group Settings and then change the Privacy setting as well as the Groups that you'd like to associate this Qik to.

So, go ahead start forming your groups and streaming Qiks to your groups. As usual we are always ears and welcome any feedback you have. Send your feedback to support@qik.com.

Conducting or going to an event where you or your fellow Qikkers will be Qikking? Well now you can create and manage your own events through the Events tab.

Creating Events:
To create an event go to the Events tab and selecting Create Event. Once the web form is filled out, the event is created and a permalink is assigned to that event. This link can then by sent out to others or posted on your blog for anyone to view the Qiks, chat at these events, and for other Qikkers going to "attend the event and have their Qiks also be associated with this event.

Qikking at Events:
Any Qikker going to an event can "Attend Event" and their Qiks will automatically get categorized into the events page apart from their own profile page

Finding, Viewing, Interacting with Qikkers at the Event:
Anyone can go to Events tab to search, view and participate in the events they are interested in. From here you can view (a) events happenning right now; (b) past events and its associated Qiks; and (c) upcoming events.

So, next time you are out at an event and plan to Qik, go ahead and give the Events capability a spin. We will soon be adding capabilities like RSS feed for Events as well so that you can subscribe to the event of your choice and view it from your favorite RSS reader and iTunes.

Announcing an improved flash player that has better performance with the ability to:

- View thumbnails of the user's previous videos and select/play then with just 1-click.
- Get the embed code directly from the player to embed in blogs, websites, social networks.
- Share the video by clicking Share.
- Get the permalink of the video.

The above controls are exposed when you either mouseover the player or the playback of the video has completed.