Stilgherrian » skype

Whither “Stilgherrian Live”?

Stilgherrian — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:31:20 +0000

With Thursday’s night’s episode the Alpha series of Stilgherrian Live came to an end. What next?

Across eight “proper” episodes, plus a couple of impromptu programs from a local pub and a hotel room in Canberra, I achieved my main aim. I proved that it’s possible to do a live video program on the Internet using equipment I can carry in a backpack.

I got a feel for how much pre-production is needed. I got inbound talkback calls working via Skype. And I was very pleased to sustain a regular live audience of 30-odd people. Thank you.

Recently, thanks to Qik, I was able to broadcast live video feeds from my Nokia N80 phone. They’re still viewable at qik.com/stilgherrian. However the “standard” 3G available in Australia meant the technical quality was pretty average. It really does need HSDPA, i.e. a new phone.

So, given that “we have the technology”, what sort of programs should I create?

The 8-plus-2 episodes of Stilgherrian Live Alpha, all linked off the program page, were a mixed bag. They were meant to be based on a half-hour chat show format, but some weeks I simply didn’t have time to prepare and they were little more than me ranting at the camera. Should I continue aiming at that sort of format, or something different?

Here are the random thoughts I’ve been having, numbered so you can refer to them in the comments:

Am I worrying too much about making things look like traditional network TV graphics? Where should I be on that scale of “polished” to “rough”?
Can there be different kinds of Stilgherrian Live, including more serious interviews, quick random broadcasts using Qik, the more “produced-up” weekly chat show etc?
What sort of topics should I cover?
How does this fit with my writing here on the web (both the essays, the link compilations and the random bits), what I do on Twitter and what I do for Crikey?
And, given that I only have a finite amount of time, how much of each do I do?

I’ll leave it there for now, because the Snarky Platypus and I will be meeting at the gym shortly. I do have more thoughts, but I’d like to hear from you, my adoring public, first. And then I’ll respond. Comments please!

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2 Web Crew at CeBIT with Jason Calacanis

Stilgherrian — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:41:24 +0000

Did people really think I’d end up brawling with Jason Calacanis at CeBIT last week? Sure, I called him a prick and wrote about the evil cult of the Internet start-up. But he does actually have good points.

I met Mr Calacanis when I found myself recording the 2 Web Crew podcast on my borrowed video camera. Since I was concentrating on getting good audio, the vision’s a bit shaky, but at least you’ll see what it was like during those hectic 16 minutes.

I may disagree with Calacanis’ priorities in life, but that’s hardly unique to him. He does do business transparently, however. He makes sense and calls a spade a spade. And he’s certainly been a successful entrepreneur.

He’s also a tireless promoter — of himself. Now that’s not a bad thing when you’re trying to build hype around a new business. But it’s a character trait that Australians reckon is bad — which is perhaps why we so often fail to market our own innovations.

I was also amused to see the swarm of Calacanis fan-boys and girls buzzing around him “like flies to a dead sheep”, as I said on Twitter. Guys, a little less cult of personality and a little more independent thought will work wonders in your lives. Success is not achieved through frottage with the successful. Unless you’re a hooker.

So, Jason, here is the promised blog post saying that you’re not as much of a prick as I thought you were.

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Links for 15 May 2008

del.icio.us — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:26 +0000

Here are the web links I’ve found for 15 May 2008, posted automatically.

Zero Latency Studio Setup | Hugo Schotman: More information on the studio setup, this time to remove the annoying delay in headphone monitoring.
Advanced Podcast studio setup with Skype and Audio Hijack Pro | Hugo Schotman: Even though it dates from 2005, this article gave me the information I needed to sort out my broadcast setup.
Cory Doctorow: How to stop your inbox exploding | guardian.co.uk: Five simple but effective email management tips.
Why you should be using social tools in your organisation | acidlabs: Smart suggestions from Stephen Collins.
The new rules for buying a Mac | Macworld: Sensible article about choosing which Mac to buy.

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Links for 10 May 2008 through 12 May 2008

del.icio.us — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:43:02 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 10 May 2008 through 12 May 2008, generated almost-automatically:

How To Stream A Conference In 2 Minutes- Easy! | Ustream: Tutorial on how to live stream a conference. Focuses on conferences where there are already professional videographers providing a switched feed.
Streaming Video: Creating a Professional uStream Show | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing: More tutorial material on using Cam Twist and Ustream.
Chris Pirillo Live - 06/06/2007 04:44 | Ustream: Chris explains how he uses Cam Twist and other software to create the variations on his live video feed.
Using Skype With Audio Hijack Pro: It's actually a tutorial for Mac owners on how to get our Skype calls into your Ustream live programs using Audio Hijack Pro.
Unibrain Fire-i digital camera: Apple's old Firewire-based iSight cameras were so good that they don't hit the second-hand market often and when they do they're not cheap. Here's an alternative.
Platypus venom linked to pain relief | University of Sydney: New research released today in the scientific research journal Nature reveals links between platypus venom and its potential benefits for advancing pain relief and antibiotic medication.
How to Record a Podcast | MacDevCenter.com: This O'Reilly article by Glenn Fleishmann explains how to use Soundflower and Audio Hijack Pro to remove unwanted audio monitoring delays when recoding from Skype. Somewhere in here is the solution for my similar problem with Cam Twist / Ustream.

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Stilgherrian Live Alpha: a program brief

Stilgherrian — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:28:02 +0000

Decided! The first episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha will be “recorded live” on the Internet this Thursday 8 May at 9.30pm Sydney time. Oh shit! That’s tomorrow!

I won’t repeat what I’ve already written about my plans [1, 2]. This post presents a Program Brief — so I can clarify my thinking as much as anything else — and gathers a few recent thoughts. I’m intending to make the entire process transparent in the immodest hope that someone might find it useful.

Aims

Continue my process of moving from doing hands-on technical work to media production, executive production and consulting.
Build upon the “Stilgherrian as a blogger” brand to establish the core personal media global microbrand of “Stilgherrian as a presenter”, around which I can gather other projects.
Establish a regular audience who can become the core of my 1000 True Fans.
Develop and document production workflows so that we can produce similar programs quickly and cheaply.
Experiment with and settle upon a suite of hardware, software and services which works for me in this context.

See, there is method to my madness!

Program Brief

Title: Stilgherrian Live Alpha. Stilgherrian Live is the primary name, and will continue to be used for my personal live programs. The Alpha emphasises that this is pilot material. It will be dropped as soon as we’re happy that we’re moving to a beta product, i.e. all of the components have been individually tested. This may or may not take more than the initial 8 episodes.

In a nutshell: The world from the perspective of a Sydney-based geek. The program will naturally reflect my worldview and interests. However talking to people who have different worldviews will help clarify my own and, with luck, create interesting dialog.

Target Audience: Anyone who’s curious about the world they live in, with a geeky slant. Eventually I’d like to present a general talk show. However I currently work on geek stuff, and the potential audience is primarily geeks. Since I want to build a strong audience initially I need to take that into account.

Format: 8 x 30-minute video programs. The exact format is still to be decided, but I’ve identified some possible elements which I’ll talk about later.

Schedule: Thursdays 9.30pm from 8 May 2008. Live streaming will begin before the program start time for technical tests, and to give the “true fans” a behind-the-scenes view. Recording will start at 9.30pm sharp. Streaming will continue after the live program recording ends so that we can discuss technical issues.

This schedule may change. Tuesday nights probably offer a better audience, and I may need to work around other commitments. Plus there’s our Eurovision thing on Sunday 25 May.

Technical Plan

Live Broadcast & Recording: This is the set-up I’ll be using for the first episode — pretty much what I have lying around. I may upgrade various elements as I go along.

Camera: Logitech Webcam Pro 4000 USB. It’s pretty crappy, sure, but my aim in the first episode is to assemble a broadcast chain, now win an award for cinematography. It will be replaced by the built-in iSight when I get my new Macbook Pro.
Microphone: Logitech ClearChat Pro headset.
Video Mix: CamTwist.
Audio Mix: Audio Hijack Pro?
Video Monitoring: On-screen.
Audio Monitoring: Logitech ClearChat Pro headset.
AV streaming: Ustream.tv.
Primary Recording: Ustream.tv.
Backup Recording: Snapz Pro X?

Podcasting: The program will be podcast as soon as possible after broadcast.

Ustream: Automatic after recording.
YouTube: Automatic cross-post from Ustream.
Stilgherrian.com: Download after broadcast, do a top & tail edit, and post using podPress.
iTunes: Automatic cross-post from podPress.

Talkback

Yes, I will be taking calls. Initially this will be via Ustream’s system, so you’ll need a Ustream account. However I plan to take voice calls via Skype — which in turn will allow be to use SkypeIn to take calls from any phone line.

So, how does all that sound?

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Creating podcasts on a Mac, Part 1

Stilgherrian — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:27:24 +0000

Podcasting is now far, far easier and cheaper even than I’d imagined — even for complex productions. I’ve been experimenting. Here’s a very quick summary of what I’ve learned so far about doing this on a Mac, my platform of choice.

Now if your podcast is just you talking then you can take a much simpler approach. Read no further.

However this investigation was inspired by the “live recording” of the 2 Web Crew. Having an audience contributing comments and questions via text chat created an interesting dynamic — similar to talkback radio but less formal. I wanted to explore further.

The technical challenge is combining all of the audio elements before the audio or video stream is piped up to Ustream or wherever. There’s probably quite a few ways to do this, but my starting-point was The UStream Tool Kit — which also covers Windows.

For an audio podcast, you can use either Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio or Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro to prepare the original sound. You can use a microphone for one voice or something like Skype or (yes, I am paying attention, Simon Rumble) Google Talk to record online conversations with others. Both tools can mix in audio from any running application — sound effects and music from iTunes, for example — and both can stream the audio to uStream or Justin.tv or wherever.

Once your program is recorded, you can use any number of audio editing tools to clean it up and remix it before uploading it as a “permanent” podcast. Audacity is a free open source multi-channel audio editor for Windows, OS X and Linux.

For a video podcast, you can of course record vision on any digital video camera or webcam and edit it in any video editing application. However an amazing free tool called Cam Twist turns your Mac into a complete live video mixing desk.

Cam Twist has camera switching and fades, text overlays, special effects, drop in pre-recorded movies and more. There’s even things which are possible only on a computer, like automatically turning a Flickr photo set into a slideshow, or running a text crawler across the bottom of the screen which is pulled in from an RSS feed. Again, you can use Ustream or Justin.tv to involve a live audience, and even route it through Skype to involve remote participants.

Cam Twist doesn’t do audio mixing, but you could run one of the audio tools in parallel, or have a second Mac doing the audio mix, or route the signal to an external audio mixer and then bring it back in. which approach you take depends on the complexity of your mixing needs.

The video in Cam Twist is standard “video chat” 320 x 240 pixels. However as computers become more powerful and bandwidth increases, Cam Twist or its successors will surely handle broadcast-quality material.

The final step is publishing the podcast and its associated RSS feeds. The simplest method is probably to use WordPress as your blogging platform, and add the podPress plug-in to deal with everything else.

podPress uploads and inserts your media file (audio or video) into the blog post with a player for formats including MP3, RM, OGG, MP4, MOV, QT, FLV, ASF, WMV and AVI. It automatically generates feeds for RSS2, iTunes and ATOM and BitTorrent RSS, and automatically submits the new episode to podcast directories including iTunes, Yahoo! Podcasts, Podcast Alley, Podcast Ready and Blubrry.

OK, that quick overview skipped a lot of important details. However each tool has comprehensive tutorials, and my main aim is to record my thinking as I develop my own podcast toolkit.

Tonight I’ll produce a test video podcast as a proof-of-concept exercise. Stay tuned. Details posted later today.

I’m not expecting too many problems. When I was with ABC Radio and elsewhere, I produced some fairly complex outside broadcasts. One involved tying together a program from Port Adelaide where one presenter was up in a lighthouse and the other was 300m away on a wharf without line of sight, and we had to incorporate live crosses to a cricket match at Adelaide Oval, a rowing race in Launceston, Tasmania, and of course the news on the hour. Oh, and did I mention we took talkback calls and had a live band? This is a doddle.

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Setting up Skype

Stilgherrian — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:59:16 +0000

I’ve finally gotten around to setting up Skype properly. My ID is “stilgherrian”, oddly enough. If I should have your own Skype details, please let me know.

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2 Web Crew podcast finally online

Stilgherrian — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:22:15 +0000

The episode of the 2 Web Crew podcast we recorded last Wednesday is finally online. The Podcast Network’s Cameron Reilly, Laurel Papworth, TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley and I chat about Underbelly, P2P networks, BitTorrent and distribution, telcos and innovation, Crikey and media impartiality. The audio quality’s a bit dodgy, but hey. I’ll also be on the episode being “recorded live” tomorrow at 1300 Sydney time on Ustream.

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Appearing on 2 Web Crew

Stilgherrian — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:47:01 +0000

Duncan Riley asked me to appear on the 2 Web Crew podcast this week, which will be recorded at 1300 this afternoon Sydney time. You’ll be able to listen to it live as it’s being recorded (and chat back to us) and then the edited version will appear in a few days. Meanwhile I’m trying to find my best options for setting up Skype — I’ve never really bothered with it until now.