LIVE173

What it is

LIVE173 is a Chinese-language live video chat site from Taiwan where hosts (主持人) broadcast by webcam and viewers pick one and enter her room (包廂). The site describes itself as a platform where video beauties keep netizens company in chat, streamed live, and the home page introduces it as a well-known Taiwanese online video interaction platform. It calls itself 全台最大的視訊聊天聯盟網站 (the largest video chat alliance site in all of Taiwan), which is the site's own claim. Entering costs nothing: a newcomer can pick a host, open her room and see the live video without an account, and can type to her for free under a nickname. Video chat itself is paid, either with member points or by phone. The site says hosts work in shifts around the clock, and every page is in Chinese.

What you get and how the rooms work

The FAQ, about, help and support pages all open with the same table of 3 ways to chat, the clearest description of the product.

• 免費文字聊天, free text chat. Members and non-members can both use it: a viewer types a nickname, with no login, and enters a host's room to text with her for free.
• 會員點數視訊聊天, member points video chat. The viewer joins as a member, which the home page says is free (免費加入會員), and buys points, then logs into the chat room and picks a one-to-many (一對多) or one-on-one (一對一) video session with the host.
• 電話付費聊天, phone-paid chat. No membership is needed: the viewer dials in and video chats one-to-many or one-on-one, paid through the call.

So the rooms work in two layers. Anyone can sit in a room, watch, and text. Paying opens a video session, shared with other viewers in the one-to-many mode or private in the one-on-one mode. The help page suggests exactly that order: enter as a guest, chat for free, then start a one-to-many or one-on-one session once you like the host, which it says protects the viewer. The site also says it lets a viewer video chat with 4 hosts at once (一次跟4個正妹視訊聊天), a line repeated at the foot of those pages.

The home page describes the roster in broad terms. Hosts range from sexy and spicy to fresh and cute, funny, and talent performers, and viewers come to chat, listen to songs or watch dancing as well as for private video. The site says it has 上百位美女 (hundreds of beauties) keeping viewers company 24 hours a day. Alongside video it offers live text messages and a gift feature, and it says the platform runs high-definition video with a stable stream and has a strict review process (嚴格審核機制) that screens live content. These are the site's descriptions of itself.

Gifts are the tipping layer. A viewer picks a host, presses the send-gift button (送禮給主持人) and chooses a gift. Each gift has a point value that comes off the viewer's balance at once and goes to the host. The site says gifting is voluntary and that it does not interfere, that the points go straight to the host rather than to the platform, and that it cannot return them, so viewers should think before giving. The support page adds a warning that some unscrupulous hosts have recently been found using gifted points to deceive viewers, and asks users to be careful with gifts.

The room rules are set out plainly. A viewer may not demand that a host do something she does not want to do unless she agrees. Hosts may kick a viewer out to manage the room, and a kicked viewer must wait 24 hours before entering that room again. If a host's attitude does not suit, the site suggests switching to another host, and if a host does not respond to voice or text, it says to log out at once, or hang up on a phone-paid call, and contact customer service.

The figures

Billing is metered from the moment the picture appears. The help page says the video shows in the top left of the room, and once it appears the connection to the host is complete and points start to be deducted. If the picture has not appeared 30 seconds after connecting, or it freezes, the site tells viewers to log out immediately so the deduction stops. Closing the browser window does not log a member out and billing continues, so a session has to be ended with a proper logout.

LIVE173 does not publish its point prices, point packages or per-minute rates on these pages. What it does state about money:

• Members who buy points get a 買愈多、送愈多 bonus (the more you buy, the more you get), which the site calls the most economical way to pay. The home page adds that it runs point-purchase promotions from time to time and lists 多樣付費方式, a variety of payment methods.
• Non-members have two routes: phone-paid chat, and buying points online by card as a non-member (非會員線上刷卡購買點數). After a non-member purchase, the system creates an account and password and sends them to the buyer's mobile phone by text message. Unused points carry over to the next visit, but once they run out that account cannot be topped up, and the buyer has to make a new non-member purchase or become a full member.

The help and support pages say points pass to the host the moment they are spent and that the company cannot force a host to give a refund: if a viewer asks for one, the company has to ask the host, and a refund is possible only with her consent.

On technology, the pages describe an older setup. The FAQ says the stream uses Flash Communication Server and tells viewers to update Flash Player and their browser. It says video can lag by 3 to 60 seconds depending on the connection, that the site sends everything at 300k per second, and that a graphics card has to handle 30 frames per second. The about page lists minimum requirements including an ADSL line of 512k/64k, a recommended 2M/256k for one-on-one video, Windows 98 or later, IE 5.5 or Netscape 7, Flash Player 7 and an 800 by 600 screen. A webcam, microphone and speakers are recommended, not required.

The site states that it is rated as restricted adult content (限制級) under Taiwan's rules for computer network content rating, and points parents to the filtering system of the Taiwan Internet Content Rating Foundation (TICRF).

Who it suits and who it does not

This suits a Chinese-reading viewer, especially in Taiwan, who wants to try live video chat before paying: free viewing and free text chat as a guest, and a no-account route that works by card or by phone. The non-member points purchase suits someone who does not want to register, and the 4-hosts-at-once feature suits a viewer who likes to keep several rooms open. The one-to-many mode is the cheaper shared session, the one-on-one mode the private one.

It suits others less. A viewer who wants to see prices before buying has to buy points first. The Flash-era requirements and the stated lag of up to 60 seconds describe an older stream than most current cam sites. The gift warning is a reminder that points sent to a host are gone. And the pages do not fully agree on what a guest can do: the FAQ says free text chat is open to everyone, while the home page says a first-time visitor can watch the live video but not chat interactively.