I have 8+years in Android development, mostly in the UK.
Worked at Sky (BskyB) on a streaming service (like netflix) www.nowtv.com. I was responsible for the streaming implementation supporting RTMP, HLS with LEVEL3 and AKAMAI providers. Used custom encryption.
Worked extensively in many streaming applications for a uk based company, to allow realtime streaming, optmizing latency times. These applications were similar to periscope. The hosting service was Wowza for this case.
Having great understanding of high availability streaming services like the ones used in big companies like SKY and small startups, I really understand the main problems with the android native player. I also know that RTMP is quite an old protocol, but its the best one to achive very low latency for specific applications. (Persicope uses RTMP for the first users that join the streams, and HLS for the rest)
Let me know if you would need my help, the project sounds interesting.
Cheers.