Live Chase Streaming

[kenny_allen]

SevereStudios Information

Since many of you are discussing SevereStudios here, I thought I would provide a quick response.

At SevereStudios, we have worked hard to improve and perfect our technology over the last three years. We want to encourage everyone to explore our new features, updates, and more at www.SevereStreaming.com - rather than discussing them at length here on Stormtrack. (Way to many things to post and discuss on here - please see our FAQs.)

All of our services have been greatly enhanced and we have added lots of new features, more FREE services, and enhanced premium services! Please take sometime to review and let us know if you have questions. Thank you to everyone that continues to stream live storm video at SevereStudios and SevereStreaming!

Good luck to everyone this season, no matter which service you decide to use! Let me know if I can assist you in any form.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I should also mention that when I spoke of my phone tether having bandwidth issues back when I used SevereStudios, I was speaking of a phone issue -- the Alltel Razr just isn't that hot at routing packets (well, at least mine wasn't).

I actually like SevereStreaming for it's low bandwidth requirements (seemed to get a decent picture out of streams in 1X areas). To me, the two drawbacks at the time that I can think of are the need to rejigger the stream every time it died (and it does die often in areas with spotty cellular coverage), and the fact that viewers needed to use Windows Media Player to view the streams. WMP is a real show-stopper, honestly. While the website for SS touts the benefits of WMP, the cold hard truth is that most of the internet is moving to Flash video streaming, which integrates into webpages much better and is accessible to most platforms. There is a reason Youtube is popular, and it's not because it requires a Microsoft video player. There may be a bit of a performance hit to using Flash, I dunno -- I want to test SS against a couple other services to see how framerate and clarity compares at similar bitrates. But ultimately the future is in Flash.

 

[Darren Addy]

Yeah, but keep in mind that YouTube, Hulu, etc. are converting content from whatever form into Flash form for playback, not streaming live events. Encoding live directly to Flash requires a very expensive Adobe Flash streaming server. There is an open source project called Red5 which shows some promise in giving Flash Server a run, but until that grows up (it isn't even to version 1 yet) and some geeks master it we are probably stuck with WMV for live chase stuff, just because it is more readily available.

See also Google Code link for Red5.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I think there are a couple of chasing streams that utilize Flash -- I know ChaserTV does. Ustream.com and Justin.tv are also Flash based; all I had to do was download Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder 3 to get pretty decent results with Ustream, and I know ChaserTV works with MLE3, too. (Dunno if they had to purchase a flash streaming server -- you know way more about this stuff than I do, all I know is that several services are already operating in Flash).

I tinkered around a bit with Ustream today. They have a pretty horrible TOS in that they give themselves license to pretty much anything you record and send through their servers, but they're free and seem to generate a pretty good feed if you have 100kb/s free of upstream bandwidth. You can get something workable with only 50 or 60kb/s, though it's all downhill from there. (This assumes that you're allocating 20kb/s for streaming audio, so a 100kb/s stream is 80kb/s video, 20kb/s audio. Without audio you need even less bandwidth.)

If you're chasing in a Rev A areas or near Wifi, you can bump the stream up to 300kb/s, which is almost like watching television, quality-wise.

 

[Steve Miller]

Ryan, ChaserTV is indeed using Flash Media Server, in fact, 12 of them! We tested Red5 and Wowza; neither of which provided proper integration with the flash media encoder at low bandwidth.
Scott and I would like offer you a $40/yr personal account for a week to see how you like it. If you want to give it a shot, PM me your e-mail addy or send it to me at [email protected], we'll get the information to you.
Anyone else interested in giving the CTV service a whirl for a "trial" week, feel free to contact me at the above e-mail address.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Does ChaserTV have any kind of archiving? That is, when someone broadcasts a stream, is that stream (or can that stream be) saved somewhere for later playback, or does it vanish into the æther?

 

[Steve Miller]

ChaserTV utilizes the Adobe Flash Encoder which allows local archival of your feed. This is beneficial because you have direct access to it on your local machine for sales and otherwise. It also dumps to your hard drive at the same rate at which you stream; therefore you can archive all day and end up with a 100mb file. Not bad... I do it all the time. It's nice to have the file right there with you rather than somewhere you will need to download it. Editing in the field is already rough, downloading a large file an then editing is worse! I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are streams ongoing at ChaserTV right now.

 

[kenny_allen]

I would like to provide some answers to some questions posted here. I am trying hard not to make this an advertisement, but I do want to get some facts straight.

SevereStudios has tested at length Flash Media and we have found that it is too pixelated and blocky at low bandwidth and thus we continue to use Windows Media primarly. We have tested with an Adobe Flash Server and a Red5 Server and just cannot justify switching at this point, based on our own quality tests.

There also seems to be a lot of discussing of connection issues. The fact is that unless you have an external antenna directly connected to your Cellular-Based Internet Card, you WILL drop your internet connection - especially when switching cellular towers. Sometimes, your card will not auto reconnect, will not redial, etc. No software can completely cure this problem. Anyone that tells you otherwise is giving you a sales pitch. Nothing in this world is 100%. Dropping of the internet connection can cause different issues with the various streaming software apps. Expression Encoder and Wirecast handle these issues very well and have improved some of the the minor problems with the older Windows Media Encoder. Many SevereStreamers use this new Expression Media Encoder and Wirecast and have loved the results. These software suites remove many of the reconnection problems. We have a new video tutorial on Expression Media Encoder at SevereStreaming.com if you are interested.

Wirecast and Expression Media Encoder allow for direct archiving of your streaming video. If you are using Windows Media Encoder, you can use our service to retrieve your archived video for a very small fee.

Now - the real problem is the internet disconnecting while using an Aircard/Wireless Card. SevereStudios has eliminated 85% of these types of internet drops by using 3-Watt Cellular Boosters with Direct Connect Antennas or just using Direct Connect Antennas. The question is... have you invested in the hardware to improve your streaming experience? We are experts in the software and hardware to make streaming work effectively. We would love to help each one of you achieve your goals for streaming, no matter if you are a storm spotter, chaser, media chaser, etc.

We also try to save you steps at SevereStudios by not making you update your streaming video status. Our proprietary Live ChaseCam Network automatically swithes your status as soon as you start streaming. Visitors to the CCN (Like the NWS, Media, and Greater Public) always know what cameras are live and our thumbnails even auto update every two minutes without refreshing the browser. Our new silverlight player buffers our streaming video with ease and has eliminated 95% of browser refreshes. This greatly improves the visibility of your streaming video feed and makes the end user experience more pleasant. For example, the National Weather Service can quickly scroll to see what cameras are live and what images are being streamed back. When they click on a specific live feed, they know that the video is live and it will play. There are no mysterious error codes or constantly buffering blank video players - the NWS, Media, and Public do not have time to waste clicking on multiple pages trying to find a live camera.

Yesterday, we also launched the new SevereStreaming Desktop Notifier. This program automatically alerts inviduals with a pop-up notification when new streaming video becomes available. Without even logging onto a website, you can get an instant alert when a new SevereStreamer comes online. This is another SevereStudios first and we think it will be great tool for the NWS and the Greater Public.

As for the questions about viewing compatibility, our feeds can be seen on all operating systems using the SilverLight player for Windows or Mac and the Moonlight player works on Linux. We continue to develop our technology and push the technology limits.

As for pricing, the great majority of our services are still FREE. Some of our premium services do cost a small fee. But really, with the majority of our services being free, we have to recoup some money to pay for our costs. This is the only way we can continue to offer these great products to the Chasing Community and the Greater Public. If you want to review our Free and Pay services, visit this link:
http://www.severestreaming.com/levels

SevereStudios Inc. is here for the Chasing Community. We offer our various services to the Chasing Community because we believe that we can continue to improve the warning process. Again, I hope you would visit both our main website and our technical site for more information about SevereStudios and SevereStreaming.

Please email me or call with any questions, concerns, comments, etc.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Thanks for the extended info, Ashley! I agree with you that cellular amps and external antennas will improve internet connectivity, especially in spotty areas. I personally don't run an amp or an antenna, but have yet to run into many problems, though my state is blessed with a pretty solid EVDO network. On the few occasions where I lose all data, my phone, which runs as a wireless router, eventually auto-reconnects when the phone's router software attempts to do it's every-30-second ping to Google. Thus, if I have a streaming encoder/server combo that can handle the occasional drop, I'm gold. And if I never reconnect and I can't get data at all because I'm in the middle of nowhere, then streaming video is the least of my worries. Thanks for pointing out those two encoding packages -- I see I have more research to do!

I also get what you're saying about Silverlight playing WMP files; however, Silverlight market penetration is lightyears behind the penetration of Flash. Probably won't always be that way, but that's where it is right now. I can see chasers doing whatever is required to tune in to chases via WMP, but to be honest, that's not the audience I'm after.

After running some tests via Ustream I do agree that WMP in low bandwidth beats the socks off of Flash in low bandwidth.

I do like Ustream quite a bit in that it has a large audience already, can handle massive traffic influx (I tend to wonder what would happen if I FARKed a video feed on any of the chaser services and 15,000 people suddenly tried to stream a video.. does any streaming company outside of large services like Ustream have OC12 bandwidth?), archives all video as "shows" which can be made viewable to the public (or ported, via the site, to Youtube), can scale up to 300kb/s bandwidth in Rev A areas, and is free. I don't like it in that it pops annoying adverts up onto videos, gives itself a perpetual royalty-free license, and has pretty crummy support. But they gotta make their money too, I suppose.

One things for sure -- it's pretty awesome that chasers have this kind of selection to work with. There are at least two strong chaser services that have low cost (or even free) options that work quite well given the insane amount of technology involved. That's why I started this thread; I couldn't find much info about the services, the differences, and the opinions of the users out on the interwebs. I've learned quite a lot reading the comments in this thread.

 

[kenny_allen]

I also get what you're saying about Silverlight playing WMP files; however, Silverlight market penetration is lightyears behind the penetration of Flash. Probably won't always be that way, but that's where it is right now. I can see chasers doing whatever is required to tune in to chases via WMP, but to be honest, that's not the audience I'm after.

After running some tests via Ustream I do agree that WMP in low bandwidth beats the socks off of Flash in low bandwidth.

Ryan, thanks for looking at our service. I want to commend you on all of the research you have done. I am glad you agree about WMP at low bit rate. Let me know if I can assist with any other streaming questions.

Now, putting technology aside, what we have tried to do at SevereStudios over the last three years, is create a community effort for helping the NWS improve the warning system and get better, more clear, warnings to the Greater Public and Media. Our site members and visitors all seem to share in this passion. We are focused on warning the greater public, and if that fails, we are always there helping raise money, assist in disaster recovery, etc. We have partnered with many individuals and companies to help in these efforts.

For us, this is more than just the technology, it is about being involved with something bigger than ourselves. Saving lives and giving clear, accurate information always comes first at SevereStudios.

A lot of times, it is the people and the mission of a company that makes all the difference. I can tell you right now that Ustream is not dedicated to Severe Weather coverage.

Good luck with your stream, whichever provider you choose.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

I would like to recommend to Ryan and anyone else seeking a streaming service to not only look at what each service offers. Talk to others who have used the various services and see what they like / dislike about the different services.
Also, look at the provider's service record, reliability, credibility, and honesty in dealing with the people streaming with them, past and present, and the various media outlets.
Much of what is and has been done and known is not allowed to be discussed on the public forum.
Everyone should weigh all the factors involved and not just sales pitches.

 

[Joe Dorn]

Our rural spotter group, possibly the largest in the country, has been checking the different services and currently SevereStudios has won the vote.

One of our group is checking out ChaserTV at this time, but for the casual spotter, not interested in selling video, the $40.00 becomes a consideration...

We are also working with TVN but their software needs a lot of work before it is ready for prime time... I believe it is mostly home brew...

We currently have five streamers and ten or more trackers running around Central Texas during significant events. I expect both numbers to increase as the season progresses.

One of the things I would like to see changed on the SevereStreaming screens is an update to the initial GPS location without having to reload the particular chaser...

(Please note before I get challenged on the largest in the country statement, I specified RURAL. This is because of our wide area repeater that covers all or part of 20 Texas counties, about the area of South Carolina )

 

[Walt VanRheen]

I would like to second the request Joe made on the GPS locaton update. SevereStreaming video this year so far seems to be the best at being the most fluid of the services I have looked at. But something needs to be updated to make the GPS map dynamic rather than static. even if its at ongoing intervals. I think every minute or two would meet the goals of all of us. Keep up the good work.

 

[kenny_allen]

SpotterNetwork Auto Updating GPS Map

I would like to second the request Joe made on the GPS locaton update. SevereStreaming video this year so far seems to be the best at being the most fluid of the services I have looked at. But something needs to be updated to make the GPS map dynamic rather than static. even if its at ongoing intervals. I think every minute or two would meet the goals of all of us. Keep up the good work.

Walt and Joe,
Thank you for the suggestion. We already have plans for this and have been Beta testing this for about a month now and plan to move a new version into Production very soon. Our target is May 1st (before all the really good action gets underway.) It will auto update about every two-three minutes. This will be the Cherry on top of the ChaseCam Network Sundae!

Also, the SevereStreaming Desktop Notifier Beta version will have another update later this week that will help out the Windows Vista users.

Thanks again for all the support!

 

[Scott Bennett]

I definitely agree with Kenny a 3 watt amp is very helpful in the field!

I personally use a $200 ($250 after antennas adapters and shipping) Cyfire 819 amp from www.maximiumsignal.net .

One nice thing about Flash is they are still developing for it, the FREE encoder with the auto reconnect feature had it’s latest version just released a month or so ago. I think the last free Windows Media Encoder update was 2002, so the "Expression Encoder" Kenny spoke about is a nice upgrade however it’s $199 MSRP.

The Wirecast product I would also recommend, it’s a great product and has many advanced features for $449, if you need to do production work such as switch between many camreas, audio, scrolls and overlays in your chase vehicle it is the way to get that done.

I know one thing that keeps getting talked about is the $40 over “FREEâ€. ChaserTV set the $40 price after much research into what this would cost to do, the cost to OPERATE the service. Since we don’t sell your video we need to pay for the stuff that makes it all work. Rather than charging some chasers $200+ and give it free to others we decided to simply charge everyone a fair rate, $40. EVERYONE has the same features, EVERYONE can sell to the media, and EVERYONE can put the stream on their personal site even if it has Google ads. We have well over 1000 hours in to this project; there is no profit in $40. If we had not spent anything on servers, software or bandwidth I think that comes out to $0.42/hr with our current list.

ChaserTV also gives everyone a FREE license to the JW Player, a $50 license included with your membership. Another feature we negotiated a fair price to license the player in bulk, then share that with the chasers. This enables you to put the player on your site that uses a Blog or CMS system like Joomla or Drupal, or has any ads on it something forbidden with the free player.

Another great new feature on SS is this JW player this year, they are now using the same viewing software we use (although the silverlight version) so this should help with the viewer disconnects experienced in the past.

It's great to see we can share technologies so simple as a player to benifit everyone. CTV researched/beta tested 3 different players to get that right.

I am excited that there are less disconnect problems with SevereStreaming now with the added hardware/software and I think will be GREAT for those who use the service. If you already have made the $250+$650 investment in these tools or plan to do so it will be helpful just like Kenny stated. I agree that saving lives is a great thing (Who wouldn’t?) and with the addition of these solutions should help keep more attention to the storms rather than worrying about the computer.

We are also working to make our maps better, although ours has had the auto refresh feature Joe spoke about since we started we think there is much room for improvement, we have many new features in the works for our map system such as a single map with all the active cameras and a “Home Base†map. It’s not proprietary or special, just something we want to share with the community.

Our main focus was to have a system that worked out of the box and to make sure when there is a outbreak it did not go down; we are adding features now that the core of the network is done. ChaserTV was built for Chasers by Chasers, we asked everyone we could think of for what they wanted in a service. Since January I have personally chased over 7000 miles testing and tweaking the service.

As Steve mentioned in a previous thread if you would like to try the service shoot him an email at [email protected] and we will set you up for a free trial.

We realize there is a $40 charge however you won’t need to spend $250-$650 on software and hardware to keep it connected. Just like Kenny said there is no sure fire solution to solve the disconnect issue but Adobe continues to develop and make the Flash Media Encoder better for FREE.

I made a 3 minute video on how to setup ChaserTV, there is also a 1:20 in-depth webinar we hosted with a Q&A we had at the end; you can watch them both here…
http://www.vimeo.com/user1543739

Although I enjoy the public discussion it’s time to get to the weather!

I know time is short for everyone and it’s time to get to chasing, if you have any questions or concerns Steve and I both monitor email regularly. [email protected] and [email protected]

Be safe out there this season!

Don’t worry about the stream, chase the storm.
Nobody is in this to stream it, we are all in it to chase it and save lives.
Make saving lives and finding the storm your priority; you don’t need to stream anything to do that.
Both ChaserTV and SS have worked hard to make these streaming options available to you.