[WEB4LIB] webcasting an entire library conference?

[Leo Robert Klein]

On Thu, January 27, 2005 10:30 am, Erin Kinney said:

> I am the co-chair of the Wyoming Library Association/Mountain Plains
> Library Association joint conference planning committee.  The host city
> library has received a grant to webcast the entire conference.  The
> grant goes towards purchasing the equipment, and the cost of the
> consultant.  The feeds are going from a remote mountain town in Wyoming
> to Oklahoma State University which will then broadcast them and archive
> them for 30 days.  There is fiber optic lines in the state, but I am
> unsure about that part of the state.  The hotel has a 386 Mbps DSL line.
>  We are planning on having 10 simultaneous sessions.
>
> My questions to this group--has anyone tried to do this before?  If so,
> what considerations do we need to take into account?  What technical,
> economical, legal, and social (especially intellectual property) aspects
> that we need to think of?


Live web-casting needn't be so resource intensive if you use one of the
web streaming technologies as in Real, Quicktime or Windows Media.

You can literally put the thing together with a DV camera attached to a
laptop attached to an internet connection.  The kind of software available
has this capability built in.  For Real, it's Real Producer Plus and for
Quicktime, it's Broadcaster.  I'm not familiar with the Windows Media
product, but I'm sure it has the same functionality.

Note, in addition to the "live" steaming, many of these applications also
make an "archive" copy for later use.  Typically you're putting out a
128kbs steam -- see c-span.org for an example.  This should be handled by
a DSL line, no problem.

My first question then for anyone I'd be partnering with is, hi Guys, have
you ever done a live stream using Real, Quicktime or WMV?

LEO

P.S. Historical note, when we started doing this -- say, 5 years ago or
more -- we literally did it across a dial-up connection!

-- -------------
Leo Robert Klein
www.leoklein.com