By Eric Cohen
Last week Meerkat rolled out a new feature that will allow GoPro owners to livestream their video footage. But what does that mean? More specifically, what is a “Meerkat?” Within the past year, apps enabling live video streaming through one’s mobile phone have quickly gained in popularity what with Meerkat and Periscope being the primary competitors. Of the two, Periscope seems to have benefited from its recent acquisition by Twitter hence the full integration between the app and the social networking tool (in this writer’s humble opinion Periscope also contains the more intuitive user interface). However, by offering the capability to basically broadcast live from a GoPro camera, Meerkat is presenting a potential game changer right there.
Up until now, to livestream from anything other than your smart phone, laptop or tablet would necessitate the use of some fairly pricey cameras with specific inputs/outputs not available on most consumer or prosumer camcorders.Plus there’s the conversion hardware to contend with in addition to thesizeable bandwithnot easily accessible to either the low budget filmmaker or the amateur action cam enthusiast. But it only seemed to be a matter of time for a mobile app to take advantage of the GoPro 3’s ability to wirelessly connectto one’s phone. Basically you upload the latest update from GoPro, connect the GoPro to your iOS device and then open Meerkat. Shake the Meerkat app and… voila!! GoPro and iPhone are now fatefully entwined, forever destined to display real time, first person pov recordings of ski slope wipeouts and bad ideas involving skate boards and hand rails.
As of now, the update is only available for the GoPro HERO3+ and iOS devices. However, Meerkat promises to issue releases for the HERO4 and other selected models as well. Not to mention, a version for Android users will hit the usual avenues for download in the very near future. So the question remains, just what will Periscope do to compete? Could they enter into a similar partnership with Canon, Sony or Panasonic? While some of their models can currently connect to smart phones wirelessly, most of them only allow wireless uploads of still images and not video. But you never know. Personally I find that one of the more charming aspects of shooting directly from your phone is the ability to toggle back and forth between a shot of what’s laid out in front of you with the reverse angle on your reaction while talking into your phone. Yet, I’m not sure if the Meerkat-GoPro connection will allow for multiple camera options. It would be very cool if it did because your mobile device would then become a broadcast studio in your hand.
