Hydra Live! =)

I'm posting to try and get some feedback on whether people would be interested in watching Hydra <font color="yellow"> LIVE! </font> from a webcam. We play on a daily basis and would play from 10pm-1130pm at the latest everyday. I am thinking of buying a webcam for around $40 bucks. Feedback would be nice /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

PS- The IMF and Blondie Show!! /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

If you can get a decent feed for us to watch, I say go for it.

 

I doubt a webcam would give good enough quality to bother. You might want to look into sending the video directly from the PS2, knocking down the resolution, and webcasting that.

Might be more hassle than it's worth.

 

Sounds neat. We'd check it out.

 

This is a neat idea and would be a nice addition to the VF community if you can get it up and running sucessfully. I suggest you go ahead and try it anyways just too see how it works in the first place.

BTW, what internet connection do you have? Streaming video from 56k suxxors......

 

Sounds cool. You're talking Eastern time, correct?

Bonus would be Jedi as occasional MC.

 

[ QUOTE ]
GaijinPunch said:

I doubt a webcam would give good enough quality to bother. You might want to look into sending the video directly from the PS2, knocking down the resolution, and webcasting that.

Might be more hassle than it's worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Doing so is very difficult, because you also would need the PS2 hooked up to a TV in order to see the matches, unless you want to play on a monitor.

Most live stream video recorders, that would accept VGA input signals from a PS2, upload at 640x480 max resolution, and most of them run at 30fps max.

Some webcams offer decent streaming quality, as long as the resolution is not incredibly large, but for $40, you would be hardpressed to get half the quality of your recorded matches.

Watching live video, if anyone has done it, is done with horrendous quality, and I don't know if your connection would be able to hold all of the people here actively viewing at once.

But still, a test would be nice just to get some firsthand results.

 

What we're actually working on is this, our upload speed would only be able to accurately send the feed to 3-4 users before it turns to shit. We'd have to share the space, for 30 minutes there would be one group with the PASSWORD for the NETMEETING. And then for the second half hour there would be a password change. Gaijin pointed out that it might be more work than its worth. But i say since its something we do everyday, routine can be streamlined. Maybe even make it one day a week for certain areas to give guys a chance to get together and watch. Just random thoughts. =) peace.

PS- I'm just thinking this can only do good for the NA scene if every area had a webcam and streamed to other teams/crews/groups. I like this idea alot and would love some more input.

 

A HA! NEW SIG!

[ QUOTE ]
Cat Sandwich said:

Watching live video, if anyone has done it, is done with horrendous quality...

[/ QUOTE ]



I realize this might be more than you'd want to do for free, but you could just produce a daily/weekly Blondie and IMF Not Quite Live show with game footage capture and a regular video camera for live commentary and post it (less bandwidth issues).

 

I like this idea alot, especially the not quite live part /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif (time for editing). A weekly/bi-weekly show could be hosted regularly with matches and commentary, maybe even get some of the tetsujins from overseas to share some info with everyone. I have connections! /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

Tetsujin guest spots would be wild.

Have you seen Creed's instructional vid? It's been a while since I watched it, but I remember the format was well received.

 

I know that imf's upload is 32 Kb/s on perfect conditions. I can tell you from experience that streaming VF videos at 15 Kb/s (my old connection) was completely impossible, even shitty quality ones like 5 meg rizm.net clips.

If you don't trust my experience, do some quick math. What's the smallest file you've ever seen a 2 minute VF match crushed into? Maybe 5 megs? Divide 5 megs by 120 seconds, and you'll see that you need to squirt 41.5 Kb/s through to get footage with that level of quality (and the level of quality for a 5 meg VF match is pretty nassy)

I think one 32 Kb/s stream will create almost watchable video for exactly one person, and the instant you split it among 2,3,5 people... it'll just be a slideshow /versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Nice idea though guys. I'd save that 40 bucks and maybe put it towards a nice digital camera or something.

 

A daily vids of Blondie getting a beating in VF and my man Stomp showing his pad skillz. Shit, I'll sacrafice a VF virgin for the prize of admission, hehehehe. /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

Its been done before....

By NYC in 1998 till about 2001 in vf3tb days.

The correct formula is:

Download Windows Media Encoder and Windows Media Server.

(I remember the latest Windows Media Encoder 9 having the Media Server built into the encoder)

Get a DV Card or some type of Analog input card.

Get a DV Camcorder or regular Camcorder.

Set the Camcorder to Record mode (Dont hit record button)

You should see the video coming up in Win Media Encoder. The Capture Device you select is either your DV card or Analog Capture Card.

Select Live broadcast to an MMS address.

Now here is the important part

There are two ways to do this,

get your computers IP address and when you hito encode all people have to do is enter mms://your_ip and it will open Win media Player. This means individual people will be connecting to your machine.

The correct way to support lots of people would be to create a Unicast to a server and then that server sends out a Multicast.

The link on the server appears as an ASX file which is an embedded link with an ASF or WMV file. Your computer is sending out one file and someone elses server is multicasting it out.

This is how I have done it the past few years while I had a slow DSL connection with 128k uploads.

The method is still currently similar though like I said Win Media Encoder 9 might have made the steps quicker. I know it has a broadcast live option and I think the Unicast/Mulitcast option built in now, so you dont have to manually create the ASX file with a link to your computer and the ASF/WMV file.

Have fun doing this. HEH HEH HEH

 

Hey, can I be in this if it's after 10pm? We can do arcade mode and take turns beating up on me. lol.

 

Thanx for the advice andy, and stomp whenever your ready =).

 

I can start thursday since wednesday night I am going out.

 

Yaeh, I totally forgot about multicast -- ASF/WMV are the only two formats that support though (unless there have been more added). That's definitely the way to go. However, you'll need to sort out an IP to unicast to with your IP.

I guess my 100MB/10MB Fiber connection would come in handy now. /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

Good idea, blondie.

My buddies and I are looking forward to it. /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

How much does something like this cost as far as being connected to a server that will multicast our footage?