Live streaming video of storm chases

Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
84
Location
Near Wilmington, NC
The idea is simple: stream live video of your storm chasing work for a fee to subscribers on an Internet site. Will it work? It has so far for my team and I on our hurricanetrack.com subscriber site. We started this in 2005 with TS Arlene and it grew from there. By the time we got to Wilma almost two years ago now we had over 1100 paid subscribers. I was hoping for 500 to call it successful. The 2005 season certainly helped that but we retained enough interest in 2006 and now this crappy season to make me believe that there is an audience for this. Your true hard core weather fans.

Jesse Bass and I talked about streaming tornado chases live ever since the 2005 success but never put much thought in to it. After the slow 2006 hurricane season, I thought I would give it a try in 2007 on my own. So, in late April of this year, I flew to OKC and rented an SUV. I quietly went about my business of chasing the 4/23 and 4/24 storms in OK,TX and KS. I had no trouble streaming all of my chasing on both days live. Several colleagues back East were watching along with one in Nevada. Not a web cam JPEG but actual live streaming video with audio. I simply packed the right gear to do this and did it. Nothing magical about it. I have done it many times over during hurricanes and this was just about the same thing except I did not have to worry about all of the things one does in a hurricane. While I did not see any tornadoes, I saw plenty of action to keep me happy and prove that I could stream live if needed.

As an example, I love a good storm just like anyone on this board. I do not see supercells much in North Carolina and have only chased one other time: May 29, 2004 (story for another day). During my April recon trip to the Plains, I was on the LP cell near Pampa. I was by myself for the trip but had my closest colleagues watching live while I sat on the side of the road and streamed the damn thing live! LIVE! It was awesome. I just held the camcorder out the driver window with the firewire attached to a laptop and streamed! They could hear my excitement as the storm grew and moved slowly (I mean SLOWLY) northward. It looked good on the stream but my audio, the audio of ME being so excited to see something so unique was what made it cool. Jesse was right there with me by virtue of his PC. Another colleague in Nevada was watching from a laptop in his CAR! We were all "in the storm" together yet I was the only one actually there. How cool is that? I knew I had to share this with other people and thus the idea of doing more with tornado chases, and other severe weather too, began to really take shape.

I ended the chase trip in Nickerson the next day, just after all the excitement but I have to tell you, the people who were watching me drive from Wichita to Nickerson had a great time as they got to hear my excitement, my frustration with the traffic once I got off the Interstate and the fact that the sun was going down and the tornado was likely over. All of that was broadcast live from my SUV and a small handful of people were watching. It was then that I knew this could work. I flew home the next day and waited for hurricanes that have yet to show up- at least not in the U.S. unless I was in High Island, TX...doh!

So, our plan is to provide our existing subscribers of hurricanetrack.com's live service with extra coverage of tornado and other severe weather outbreaks- LIVE. We won't be able to sit out there for weeks on end waiting for severe weather. We will have to be selective and choose days that offer the best overall chance of success and fly out. This includes not only the chance of severe weather and tornadoes but WHERE said chances might take place. Our best success will come on days like May 29, 2004 and April 23/24, 2007 when the heart of the Alley is primed for tornadic supercells. Our biggest limitation is the Sprint network coverage area. We use Sprint to stream the video and if we do not have a signal, we cannot stream live. They do have roaming agreements with other carriers and that might work but we'll have to get lucky and be in the right place at the right time in order for this to work as we see it. But don't think it can't happen. Take a look at the Sprint coverage maps and see where their coverage extends. A lot of E-W highways in most of KS are covered as are most N-S routes as well. Their network is getting bigger and faster each year too and that will only help the effort.

Also, even if we don't get a tornado, there is other action to consider: hail, awesome lightning, the chase itself, the stops for food, the other chasers (guess I will have to carry 100 legal documents with me for people to sign unless I call this "news"...) and all sorts of unknowns that people like to see. That is what we call "life" and to be more precise, "chaser life". I think people got the wrong idea on the other thread about bad drivers, we are not looking to stream chasers and their chases but our chases and what WE encounter- which might be YOU. If so, come on over and say hello. We're not asses with an ego to promote. We just think this is a cool idea. It's the entire package that I firmly believe enough people will be interested in to give this a shot and grow the idea. I would rather do this than have to worry about a van full of people and what could go wrong there. I have the deepest respect for you tour operators in that regard! The legal issues alone would drive me crazy...

We do not at all think we can come out and make thousands of dollars chasing live on the Internet but we can give it our best shot and hopefully pick the right day(s) and nail it. We will alert our subscribers via email as to our plans and they can watch as much as they want as we do our thing. The beauty of it is that they can "talk" back to us via email and share in our excitement or success or failure. We noticed this phenomenon immediately after starting hurricanetrack.com live with people communicating to us through their computers as we did our missions. It's incredible to know that even a few hundred people are glued to their PCs watching YOUR work in action. There is a lot more to it than I care to get in to here but it really does work and given the right conditions, Jesse and I plan to do it in 2008 as much as possible.

While I can appreciate the challenges of doing something like this, it will be more than worth it if we can pull it off just once. Anyone who is watching will feel as if they are there with us. How do I know this? They tell me that during our hurricane missions. Again, it is amazing to know that people are there with you in a virtual sense. The porn industry has made billions doing live sex shows, why can't chasers cash in on the weather fans' interest in severe weather and give THEM the show of their lives? Now we can. We have done it and will do our best to continue to do it and at the very least, we will enjoy the chase. Now we can have people from anywhere on the planet riding along with us via their PC. That is enough of a reason to do it above any other. As I said in a private message to one of the posts, if it was easy, I would not do it as everyone else would already be doing it.

Lastly, I know that chasers have been doing work live for TV for many years. This is not what I am talking about. I am wanting to broadcast the chase day- the whole thing. People can tune in and out as they wish and check on our progress. And when things look good and we are on a possible tornado, then we can send out another email alert to people and let them know to tune in. It is live chasing over the Internet that we are working on. We have the experience with hurricanes to know it does draw a crowd and pays the bills. If we can get lucky and nail it on the Plains once or twice, then we will be happy. That's it. Now it's a matter of waiting....waiting for that right day when it all comes together...but that's what helps to make this so fascinating and I can't wait to share my fascination with severe weather to my audience online, no matter the size.
 
My point about stopping for food- it gives us a chance to stop and talk to our audience. We do this all the time when on hurricane missions. People email us and they know when we stop, where we are, what we ordered, and we can talk to them. Seeing who is watching, even a lot of them by first name basis, we can communicate like no other medium. I makes our work more than just a mission, it is like having our own "Truman Show" going on.

So, do you stream live to this SWT site? I think the more, the better. The technology is not new just how to use it, in my opinion. I think if people are paying you to deliver unique content to them, you'll do your best to do just that. I am sure there will be many reasons why this does not sound like a good idea to people- there are also plenty that motivate me to do it even more. One never knows unless they try.
 
There's a website for every reality show out there that fans can log onto and watch continous coverage. If people weren't using it they wouldn't be there, so the voyuer draw is real. If people will tune in to watch a bunch of producer-selected beautiful people sitting around a house pretending to hate each other for money, why wouldn't they watch chasers do it with the added incentive of possibly seeing tornadoes live? I think it's a great idea, great because it encompasses the entire chase, not just the MTV-style slice-n-dice editing that most do nowadays.
 
I think it's a good idea, but paying for it? Maybe you could just get sponsors, or some google ads next to it, or donations?

I would definitely watch it if it were for free. Severe Studios runs a live webcam and it is pretty neat, they've had some cool stuff on there in the past, and the video is pretty good. Just in the past few years, you can now watch people on spotternetwork, watch their live video, and see where they are in relation to the storm/radar in realtime. I hope more chasers do this, so when I can't chase, I can watch as if I were there. Hopefully that wimax stuff comes out, so higher quality can be put out, assuming bandwidth gets cheaper. Free sounds better lol, but if it were cheap, I'd consider it.
 
Well, let me tell you all this, I charge $24.95 per YEAR for our hurricanetrack.com live streaming services and we had over 1100 of them (subscribers) in 2005. I do not mind sharing this info since it was a successful venture. Believe me, I thought it would either work as well as it did or hardly anyone would sign up at all.

Making it free by getting sponsors is tough. I am a firm believer in working smart for the people- that is, if let's say, 2,367 people signed up over two years and were loyal, I would rather "work" for them than a large company who could roll me up with the drop of a hat. 2,367 people cannot fire you all at once!

We are talking cheap here- people pay $40.00 a month for Internet access- I think $25 a year for something this unique is little to ask for.

There is more to it than just sticking a camera up and saying "let's go". I think an entire package that includes all sorts of things from Google maps and GPS tracking (SpotterNetwork comes to mind- awesome site) to really involving the audience as much as possible by responding to emails with actually talking to people THROUGH your laptop in the vehicle. Believe me, we have done this on hurricane missions and the subscribers go ape over it. You get to know each other even though one of them might be in Holland (we have three from Holland actually).

As a side note concerning our hurricane subscriber site- we offer it free of charge to the media and to law enforcement and emergency management. Allowing them free access to see where we are and what we are doing has paved a lot of roads for us- quite literally, if you catch my drift. But, our hurricane work is far more than just driving around in our SUVs with cams running. That too is a whole other thread...but in short, we place remotely operated Storm Case boxes with cams tethered to them to capture that rare live footage of surge or very high winds when we cannot possibly stand or sit there in our SUVs and run a cam. This is what started it all and I cannot emphasize enough how well it has worked and the relationships it has allowed us to forge with our subscribers. You really do get to know them- not all of them- but we are working for them when out on our missions and their support means the world to us.
 
Didn't see there was another post about live chase streaming.

I think it would be great to have a main broadcaster who will take the lead of the broadcast, showing the chaser's locations and plannings, and maybe some replays of the day, when the chasers will be snacking.
 
Well, I live in Estonia and I do not know how to make payments to foreign countries, so I couldn't watch anyway. I would propose that a there would be 15 seconds updating static image for free.
 
Are you guys just giving live stream of the dash cam basically or are you actually recording more than just that? Just curious, as there are many of us who actually have live streaming video during a chase.
 
Other live streaming

Are you guys just giving live stream of the dash cam basically or are you actually recording more than just that? Just curious, as there are many of us who actually have live streaming video during a chase.

That is awesome. Where are these live streams posted and/or hosted? As I will not be out there but only a few times at best, it would be great to see other live streams of chases going on. Are you all using Windows Media Encoder or something similar- and over an air card such as Sprint? That is how we do it but that is not the only way I am sure.

As far as your question about the dash cam only, etc. I am not sure I understand. We would actually use multiple cameras on such a chase to show more than just the dash cam view. We would shoot hand held video too for later upload but the entire chase would be live as in you're sitting there with us in the invisible seat on the dash board. If other chasers are doing this, I would love to see it- is it free? I have not heard of it before but that does not mean it is/has not happened.
 
Good day,

Back in 2004, my group and I "streamed out" video during the chase, and the set-up was very simple...

1). First and foremost, used Sprint PCS mobile service running on a laptop (although flakey at times, this provided a mobile internet connection).

2). Logitech quick cam mounted in vehicle (on dash, window, wherever needed). Camera attached via USB to laptop.

3). Delorme street atlas also running on laptop (could also be Swift WX or other package).

4). Wrote a Visual Basic program to capture a JPG from both the camera image, and GPS (Delorme) map, whichever was active (or both).

5). The VB program encoded both images as JPG with comments, target area, and time / date stamps, and "shoved" them to my www.sky-chaser.com site via FTP at a time interval (usually 15-30 seconds).

6). A page called "locator.htm" was set up on my www.sky-chaser.com/locator.htm site (it's actually still there, but no chase active).

7). Each time the "locator" page refreshed (auto refresh was set at 30 seconds and could easily be changed), the video / still image updated automatically.

Note: This was NOT frame quality video, just still pictures that updated frequently. However, our position and what we were seeing out the window could be seen anywhere in the world! Not bad using what we had in 2003 - 2004.

A similar approach was made for the weather station atop my vehicle which connected to my laptop via USB as well. An example of the page for that can also be seen below (no actual data)...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/image/locator/wxlab.htm
 
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