The MsBehaviour Files: Be a Webstream Superstar
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A few years ago I was caught up in a reality TV travel show. It was fascinating to see how much behind the scenes work went in to make it appear spontaneous. We filmed meeting the cast 'for the first time' repeatedly until they got the right shot, and climbed up and down the same set of stairs until my legs felt like rubber.
Now every day real people are making their own reality TV online with raw, unedited, web streams. You can have your very own Truman Show without the cast of thousands and huge crew, with the new easy to use webstreaming tools.A few years ago I was caught up in a reality TV travel show. It was fascinating to see how much behind the scenes work went in to make it appear spontaneous. We filmed meeting the cast 'for the first time' repeatedly until they got the right shot, and climbed up and down the same set of stairs until my legs felt like rubber.
Now every day real people are making their own reality TV online with raw, unedited, web streams. You can have your very own Truman Show without the cast of thousands and huge crew, with the new easy to use webstreaming tools.The first webstream I heard of was Steve Mann's wearable wireless webcam, which was broadcasting his life online in the mid 1990s. Most of the modern streaming services launched in early 2007 and the most famous of all is probably Justin TV. It launched with a single stream from Justin Kan who wore a web cam on a cap 24/7. I once joined a live link by accident, and suddenly felt like I was in first person player mode in a game of Real Life. You can now watch a huge number of streams and chat to other viewers watching with you.
Ustream TV started around the same time and also allows you to set up a channel and broadcast a live webstream. One of the most popular streams right now is the Shibu Inu Puppycam with six adorable puppies to waste time at work watching.
Qik.com is easy to use if you want to stream live from the camera on your mobile device. You download and install a copy of the Qik software to your internet enabled phone, and are given a number you can call from anywhere in the world. Best of all Qik works seamlessly with Mogulus which is probably my tool of the year, and will also save the stream on both platforms for viewing later.
Mogulus gives you your own web version of a TV station. Content can be generated from playlists made from imported or uploaded videos. When these are imported directly from You Tube it's incredibly fast as there is no need for the video to come through your local connection. You can also broadcast live from any attached video source, add multiple computers with multiple web/video cameras and you have an international live multicast. Check out the Kiwi TV channel currently being trialled by the Radio Wammo breakfast show on Kiwi FM, to watch New Zealand music clips, chat and read news stories. At the moment, this is all free with opt out advertising.
We're pushing Mogulus to the extreme at Mohawk Media drawing from our many years experience mixing visuals in clubs as live VJs. First we bypassed the Mogulus web-based interface to stream our video directly, using Adobe's free Live Media Encoder tool. This gives better quality and reliability with a smaller processing overhead. One of the limitations in Mogulus is only having access to one device, which is usually a DV camera or webcam. We use the free utilities VHMultiCam and VHScrCap from Vladimir Hmelyoff, to capture and broadcast areas of our desktops. This also gives the ability to add multiple cameras, with some image controls and even basic chromakeying for green-screen effects.
The last tool we have been using to bring broadcast quality to the web is the new live video software from Arkaos called Grand VJ. We input our cameras and screengrabs into Grand VJ, and from there we can apply real-time fades, and special effects that would have cost millions of dollars a few years ago. By utilizing all that power in a modern PC graphics card, Grand VJ can process multiple layers of HD Video on a reasonably priced home PC. A demo is available from Arkaos.net and it's a whole heap of fun to play with.
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As well as being TBI's strategist & columnist, MsBehaviour is Producer & Presenter of the g33k show. She is also Managing Directrix of Mohawk Media, which produces internet TV, 3D Animation & Machinima.
13/11/08
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