Video/Broadcast gurus help

primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
edited November 2003 in Internet & Media
I have a customer who owns several nightclubs in my area and he wants to create a private "TV" network of sorts between the clubs.

So, patrons at club "A" have a full-motion, real-time, decent quality sound, teleconference (most likely at a kiosk with possible output to a projector on a bigscreen) with patrons from club "B"

He says he can get dual T1s (3mb/s) at each location. He also wants the ability to interject "ads" or interstitials from some central location.

With realtime compression, is this even possible yet?

I gotta know soon! I'm meeting with him tomorrow. Thoughts?

Comments

  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Lotus makes a great tool called "Sametime" for this type of things and i friend of mine is l337 on that stuff. Do you want me to hook you up?
  • maxanonmaxanon Montreal
    edited November 2003
    I think you would need to provide budgets for the equipment.

    Is he going to only have one screen at a time or multiple? How does he want to switch between sites (remote control, computer, etc). It could get very expensive depending on his needs.

    I know its sounds crazy, but how about winamp streaming media? I haven't played with it, but it may be worth taking a look. It says that it can stream live feeds.
  • celchocelcho Tallahassee, FL Member
    edited November 2003
    there's cool hardware that can do stuff like that i bet. just a video encoder that spits hooks up to ethernet that could be sent across that 3 meg pipe

    i'm sure 3 meg is plenty for decent quality. (television wise) amazing quality compared to normal internet streaming.

    the ads could be just played over the video by some kind of television hardware. i used to work at a tv station that essentially did this, but we had at least a ds3 (45mb to all the places we broadcast to). this allowed for data and multiple streams of video to go back and forth, though.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Mackanz had this to say
    Lotus makes a great tool called "Sametime" for this type of things and i friend of mine is l337 on that stuff. Do you want me to hook you up?

    Can you get him to post his thoughts here? That would be great!
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    primesuspect had this to say
    Mackanz had this to say
    Lotus makes a great tool called "Sametime" for this type of things and i friend of mine is l337 on that stuff. Do you want me to hook you up?

    Can you get him to post his thoughts here? That would be great!

    Not sure about that. But i'll hook you/him up via email if you want.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Yeah, please do! :D
  • seversphereseversphere
    edited November 2003
    as long as it's full duplex daul T1 it'll make it easy. I stream from one T1 no problem.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&prid=566

    Tell me what you think about this... 320x240 isn't too bad..... obviously not broadcast quality, but sounds like he's SOL for that anyways...
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Also:

    http://www.envivio.com/products/4caster.html
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited November 2003
    The only problem with a setup like that is the reliability of the network. Sure, he can get T1 at each location, but what is the hop-count like between locations? If it goes through too many hops, or if the server traffic is high and the ISP backbone is thin, then you will see some slowdowns, making it not "realtime"..although, it may be good enough for the client's needs. If all the locations are in the same city, and go through the same ISP, then you will minimize the hop count, and it may be good enough.

    The only way to have true, high-quality realtime streaming is to have dedicated 2-way lines...or fibre optical cable.

    If he just wants a private ad network, without the teleconference stuff, then he should look at MPEG store-and-forward playback systems from the manufacturer that my company distributes for: Visual Circuits. VC has big name retail clients liek WalMart and Best Buy. If you want to know anything more about their products or how they can be used in your client's setup, drop me a PM.

    Dexter...
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    I just got off the phone with Envivio and they do have a really nice point-to-point realtime mpeg4 setup. They also have a software encoder, but their hardware seems pretty nice. Each encoder is around $25K, so this seems within the realm of possibility/affordability.

    Thanks for the link, Dexter. I'm gonna check it right now.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Looks like Visual Circuits has some nice solutions, but it seems like they are all MPEG2.... The customer seeks MPEG4 because of the format's ability to embed objects...

    Does VC offer any MPEG4 hardware codecs or turnkey boxes?
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited November 2003
    primesuspect had this to say
    Looks like Visual Circuits has some nice solutions, but it seems like they are all MPEG2.... The customer seeks MPEG4 because of the format's ability to embed objects...

    Does VC offer any MPEG4 hardware codecs or turnkey boxes?

    MPEG4 has been expensive up till recently, so it has not been in great demand for the retail, museum, and OEM markets, which are VC's biggest areas. However, now that the "buzz" on MPEG-4 has been picking up, there is interest on that end, and the engineering team is working hard to meet that demand at a price point that is still affordable to our customer base. So there will be MPEG-4 products soon, but I am not at liberty to say what or when, or how much. :)

    Sounds like your client wants to do "desktop" stuff anyways, since you mentioned embedding, which indicates linking, which indicates a browser of some sort. VC does not make any browser compatible products, they are strictly display only. Interactivity can be implemented through otehr hardware, and tied into VC's products for output, but the output is designed for NTSC/PAL or HD video monitors, projectors, plasmas, etc.

    Dexter...

    Dexter...
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    I met with him last night and his concept is exciting -- it's nothing NEW new, but it still sounds cool. He wants to create a private broadcast network to connect clubs and bars. Now the trick is to make it affordable while maintaining quality.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Well, try this: Use TVs for display, not monitors. Put a TIVO or video to TV frame and res adapter (availabnle as a module, though you could use an S-Video capable card and VCR pair to do this also). Yes, video is data, so possible. Trick is to do two things-- sync sound and video, and also get enough flow rates tyhrough computer. Large amts of RAM, decent HD, TIVO capable or S-Video capable video card like a Radeon All-In-One or a (essentially a VCR-compatible output from each box).

    You have a dual ended digital to analog video output problem, essentially. Oh, for network a merged send both ways is better, do not use one T1 for audio and one for Video or you will have sync rate issues big time-- sound needs to go as a streamed sideband as to frequency but not as to actual data channel. Ideally, this is dedicated link WAN as far as networking goes, you do not want this provided for as to an ISP thing through anything but a DEDICATED route. It is closed circuit throughout, ideally.

    John.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Yes, a VPN from a major backbone carrier would be required. Minimize hop count and all that. :)
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