I'm Live! The Ustream is running, just a webcam view of my bench for now. I patched off-air audio from my GE AM/FM/SW radio so room noise is not heard. A bit of distortion, I'll tweak the levels later today.
When I started the stream from the web app they prompted me to "try out" the Pro package for 30 days but limit concurrent views to 5. I didn't see an option to avoid the "try out" so the limit applies for 30 days I guess after which it reverts to the basic FREE package with more or less unlimitted viewers.
The plan is to use this for ALPB Live Seminars as needed.
Another nice live feed thing to do that ties in is coverage of local city council meetings. It is amazing that nobody ever goes to them, but hundreds will sit home and watch/listen. Ya, I know the pro package costs more than anybody wants to spend, they sucker you into it because it just does so many cool things. this last football season I even made football cards for all the kids so while doing the game I would cut to the player card and talk over it when they made a play. We will never be tv quality, but that said....it ain't bad.
Glad you are having fun with it, post a link to something when you get it figured out, love to see it. Tom
I haven't used it yet, but the same company that makes the software, Telestream, also makes a program called Screencast. In this way, say you are live on the Ustream feeding into your LPAM, and say I was live also doing my thing, you can switch between the two live station streams both audio/video. Times that times ten on a breaking event or a remote location and it is "back to you Bob" type of coverage. just haven't played with it. In theory, it is a way for a lpam station to do seemless remotes. Tom
I very much agree with what was said about using all these mediums that are now possible, including video to accompany radio.
Some radio shows provide video feeds showing on air talent at the microphone, and the experiments by MRAM 1500 for employing video as part of a seminar are very exciting to think about.
For me, I find video technology very fascinating, and continually try to imagine ways of opening a video channel for my radio services.
Already I have a web page titled KDX-TV, but so far what I have are links to various cams and video feeds, nothing home-grown.
For about 20-years we operated a video production service and I became very handy with NTSC technology, i.e., time-base correctors, vector-scopes, wave-form monitors and what not. But about the time digital video got its start we closed our video business and I moved into part 15 radio.
Someday now, with some yet to be imagined new idea, I will be opening a video channel.
Everyday I watch trains roll by on a cam in Chesterton,Indiana. In the spring there is a kestrel cam which looks inside a large birdhouse where sparrow hawks raise their young.
Too bad radio towers don't move or change colors, but I guess a tower cam might not keep the audience for long.
Carl, I think what has changed is the high speed the internet now has...and it is everywhere now. Even 4G cell coverage for phones and tablets are enough to power live video along with audio. It wasn't this way ever a couple of years ago it is happening so fast. Two things caught my attention recently , a new car and a new boombox radio/cd player for my office. Neither of which came with an am band. It is time to adapt or die? Certainly the Am and LPAM will always be a force, but is the future a combination that includes net delivery as well? Net is video. Everyone and every location is different. Nobody has the formula yet, but lots are experimenting. It is the live remote area, unteathered by electricity and still able to broadcast that has my interest. Everything then fed back to a base station. Remarkable times we are living in. A typical say one mile strong radius with a LPAM combined with worldwide reaching ability via the net is indeed a force to be reckoned with. Tie in dozens of similar setups around the country and you have a network, each feeding on the other. At the core, is that any different than what NBC, CBS, OR ABC is?
Quality, range, or equipment will never be their equal, however, what a network as I envision would be is quick and local. I don't think it needs to be as polished as the big boys, in a way, it's ad-hoc look and feel is it's draw.
Look at that guy I have been talking to on this thread. One day in and he is doing things I never thought of....... It is only going to get more interesting in the very very near future.
Tom