Israel Webcast

[David55]

The Israel regional is not planned to have a webcast (NASA is a US agency...)

What I would like to know is what exactly do you need for producing a webcast to a big number of spectators (in terms of software, hardware, servers, bandwidth etc.)
We would like the webcast do be medium-good quality...
I would appreciate any assistance with this matter

Thanks
David

[evulish]

There are a few ways to do it. I believe NASA uses Real Media Server, of which there's a free version that can handle 25 clients (the unlimited server is $2k or so), and they probably send it the feed via Real Producer (basic is free, gold is $200). It can be run on probably Windows, OS X, and Linux.

I'm sure there are hosted servers where you can pay a fee to use their broadcasting server for x amount of viewers at x quality, because it needs a pretty good chunk of bandwidth for a lot of people. What you'd need is a broadband connection with decent upstream bandwidth at the competition to get the video to the broadcaster at high quality.

I'd imagine you'd need a few computers at the competition, especially if you want to use multiple cameras and have graphics on the screens, etc.. like the NASA broadcasts. They should probably be pretty powerful and have quite a bit of RAM.

[savage]

iam sorry i cant help u wit the web casting but what you can do record all of the matches and then convert them to an avi or megpeg format and them put the on a team web site so people can download them over the internet and plus it will be a higher quality version
i will be at te regional so if you need help you can find me my number is 052-04-2555 iam a mentor with 1944

Ben White

[David55]

Yeah we know...but the whole point is watching it live.
If we see it is too complicated or needs a big money investment we will just leave it.

Ben by the way, your number is incorrect...

David

[David55]

would we be able to run it off the servers of one of our sponsors or does it have to be a special broadcast server?
And what about Windows media?? (2K is a too much...we can broadcast it live on national TV for 1K an hour)

[Andrew Rudolph]

Windows media encoder is free.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...r/default.mspx

Im not really sure on how you would set up a remote server where you send the video to some server and that handles the bandwidth of people connecting and stuff, but im sure you could play with it or do reasearch as to how that works. But i have used it where the computer encoding the video does the serving as well.

[Katy]

Perhaps however you could use a free version and then set up several "mirrors" so to speak. For example...I'm in the USA on Eastern Standard Time. Lending you my computer for three days from 2AM to 10AM is no big deal at all. (Those times in Israel look like from about 9AM to 5PM). You get a free version of something or other and I get the same free version. Then I log on to one of your streams. Somebody does some sort of magic that allows my computer to rebroadcast the webcast that is being fed in. Let's say we use that 25 one. Now you have 25-1+25 feeds = 49 feeds. My computer has 2 gigs of RAM and I am very sure my internet connection can handle some uploads as long as the number remains relatively small. I'm sure you could find more volunteers to do this if you asked and pretty soon you'd have all the feeds you need. I don't think the transfers would effect quality much although you might have to suffer a few seconds delay as the secondary host computer you were using downloaded and uploaded. Users would have to be told on a website "click down the list of links until you find one that is not busy" but still? It would work...and it would be free.

[Mike AA]

Previously discussed here


The biggest problem isn't the computer nor the software. That like evulish said, is relatively simple, run a few programs and config. The BIGGEST problem you will have is getting bandwidth. Not at the encoding computer but at the server which will host the feeds others will see. NASA is running probably something like an DS3 (45Mbps) (http://www.cybercon.com/oc.html) (http://www.broadband.com/Business/ba...ml?R=googleoc3)and costs THOUSANDS to connect. Many users get a high download speed, big deal, you need a big UPLOAD speed. With the DS3 you could get a good connection at 300Kbps could get you about 150 connected with little lag, and a good quality video. At which point you would THEN need to worry about the server.

Now, one possibility would be to get ahold of someone with NASA and see about uploading to their servers and have them host your webcast. Just a thought.

-Mike

[David55]

And on the same subject...

What would be the best way to connect to the video system for recording the regional, for later upload to SOAP etc. ? (from last year's experience, no one ever knows where the tapes end up). Would it be best to hook up a computer through firewire/dv and capture it with premiere? or connect it to a vhs recorder...or mini dv recorder...or through an audio/video player called RCA Lyra that can connect to anything with an RCA output and can automatically encode it to mpeg format (this seems ideal...all you have to do is connect to a pc and you have the movies...but the only disadvantage is not best quality).

Thanks for your help
David

[savage]

what i sugest is that you hook it up with a camera to a pc and record with premiere this way you can edit out what you dont whant then you can make make avi fideos or megpeg its just the matter of hard drive space
ive been video production for 5 years now and i know that it will take a lot of space if you want to record all three days but the video and audio will be better and you can do text but this will take mor time but i think it is worth it then you can even make a promo from it if you want to i gussing at least 1 tb hd space

ben

[Katy]

I read the specs from the other page.

Can you give an estimate at the peak number of viewers and what bit rate you want to broadcast at? Is that 200 users about correct?

[David55]

Ben- 1tb is too much
I have about 350gb free on my pc...and there is no way I can find 2 more big hard drives...
If I would capture it with a lower quality program, lets say movie maker....although it is not a professional program, it can definitaly produce good quality video for about 30 hours into 300GB

Katy...I would assume something in the high hundreds...maybe even in the thousands (does anyone have numbers of viewers of the last two weeks?

[Nuttyman54]

The viewers of the live webcast will most likely be less than the others because (due to the time difference) you won't have as many American viewers. I don't know how many Israeli viewers you will have to compensate that, but I would anticipate less overall viewers. I'd love to watch, but i'll be at my own competition during those hours

[savage]

you are right 1 tb is way to much i was just saying that because if you export to avi it takes up more space but i do think that 350 gig should be fine
if you do record with dv- cpu are you going to record streight to the end or are you planning on stopping betweek matches
also if at the competition they have there own tv cameras you might whant to consinder tapping in to there system so that way you get difrent camera angles
aslo just for refrence i talked to teams back home and they we wourdring if irael was webcasting about 5 teams asked me
ben

[Mike Hendricks]

Direct DV capturing seems like overkill for something thats going to be compressed and uploaded to the net anyways. My camcorders capture about 3 megabytes a second of video ..

Using a normal VCR hooked into the video system (which you can do .. just talk to the video person at the event) and a long tape will work fine. Just hit the record button before they start, and get the tape at the end of the day. Then use an analog capture card and some editing software (even a computer with Windows Media Center would work fine) and edit and compress the videos.

If you're REALLY determined to webcast it, contact your sponsers. You'd be suprised what some of your sponsers have access to/are capable of doing.