broadcaster

do you like the moments when you see impossible happening?

i'm preparing for quicktime streaming of a concert. while part of the audience is from the third world, i was looking for a cheap way how to stream more streams in different qualities. i have one dv camera with analog input, and a powerbook to run quicktime broadcaster and darwin streaming server while using automatic unicast (very easy installation and setup, btw).

1. i made a copy of the broadcaster in applications folder and run both. to my surprise, i was able to broadcast two streams from one computer! only one could be from the dv camera, but i can hook up audio to the line in and stream only music as a slow connection (mono in 48 kbps) alternative to the hi-fi stream in h.264 (about 250 kbps). just make sure you give the streams different names.
2. inspired, i got courage to hook up my ol' ibook g3. how? using firewire hub in apple cinema display. i have to say this setup looks weird: two computers and one camera on one hub... but when i launched broadcaster on the ibook, i found out i can broadcast two streams from one camera!! so now i have three streams: hi-fi one, sound only and the third one, sound with hi-res pictures as a "slide show", all announced on the same streaming server.
3. for the third stream, i wanted very low frame rate, let's say one picture every ten seconds. the broadcaster doesn't let me enter lower value than 1 in "frames per second:" field. so i saved the broadcast settings (in file menu) and open the file (it's in xml format) in textedit or property list editor. it was just too easy to locate and change the desired real number value root: video: compression: framerate: 0.1 so, after launching broadcaster by opening this saved file, i am streaming at .1 fps! enough for the audience to see what's going on on stage in 640x480 while still maintaining isdn speed.

i know i could probably do all this and even more with wirecast, but it costs $500 and no clue if new version has still texas size bugs.

maps

as an excersise for a reader: would you try to find your hometown on google maps?

tricky and quite entertaining especially in (eastern) europe - here in boston i just type in the address and it shows the house's roof. but to find my hometown, i have to start from finding the closest big river and a dam...

365

so it's the end of the year and i came close to an anniversary - it's been one year i started to write this blog. the reason to start was simple - to keep in touch with online friends (i also wanted to share some wisdom but it hasn't happened so often or even far).

so what's up? i'm just importing some movies from this year and some leftovers from 2004 (right now a theatre play Speak Truth to Power by Ariel Dorfman performed by volunteers, in between them my dear anne). if you never did it... it's time-eater and it's a tricky job in kicking myself to do it (i'm not the only one with the problem... see third and half episode of four eyed monsters, it's all great stuff). i decided to take tapes with me hoping that i find some time between holidays to go through, import, edit and export about seven hours of material. mostly shots of family, friends and travels. actually, the strongest impulse was christmas phone call with my mum, who got herself a new dvd player.



how i finally found a time? i'm sick with flu. it came so fast. i was visiting friends at christmas eve and stayed a few days at iicd in williamstown, ma. i had a great time, and the dog i am... dogsitting right now had one too, i hope. it's a place on a hill, a few miles from civilization, very peaceful. i made a bunch of nice new friends and had another deja-vu - installing tiger on an old powerbook of a man with beard in mountains (hi caliph). but just the last morning woke up with sore throat.

i managed to drive back to the work three hours on mass pike but left earlier in the afternoon to get to bed. but it was already too late. i was all ill with flu the next morning. but i had to get the next day to an apple store, about thirty miles far. of course i underestimate traffic, got there late, had to wait, and then left somewhere (that cafe i bought green tea which i all spilled when opening car doors? i called them. or was it the car's roof?) the cool neoprene pocket with repair receipt inside (which i hopefully won't need as the powerbook is already on the way back by dhl to my work place).

yeah it's best to be in bed, with tea and some great stuff to listen or watch like the channel frederator - cartoons, on my ipod, for free. the guys have great sense for humor and for background colors, too.

it's time to post this words. i had visit from the new friends. we had nice dinner together and now they took (free, today) train downtown boston. it's just fresh snow falling.

this holidays i won't send any common neither personalized letters to the whole address book as last year. on contrary, i will only reply on letters to people who send me greetings already. this end of the year i realized i should stop reminding myself to people who don't care about me, and focus on those who do. so, dear voky, verena, elisa, monika, alena, valli, shane, vanessa, kaci, meda, krvinkaxxx, ewance, maja, chlanovi, laala, michal, adelka, michaela, anne lene, and of course anne, thanks very much and same to you! kouckovi and chlanovi, thanks for lovely letters (i forgot to check mailbox so i found out later)!

while most of the people in czechia goes already sleep, in africa soon sun is going to rise. people in china are going to eat their lunch, but... their have their own year and lunchtime. and on aotearoa it's already afternoon.



it's about last 80 minutes left of this year here on east coast. i'm going to have a think about you my friends.

take care,
josef

ps: as i watch some rumors about intel apples, i came across the register quoting a guy from sony:

"Ultimately, Kutaragi suggested, we'll see 16 teraflop supercomputer 'cabinets' and one petaflop (a million billion flops, in other words) server rooms - the latter delivering enough raw power for true AI systems, he said."

wait a minute. the same company who made my car stereo, handycam and phone (well that one together with some vikings) is going to create the real terminator and agent smith?