Alive Alive-O
If you were following last Sunday’s live streaming show, or if you’ve watched the replay, you’ll likely be aware that we were suffering from streaming problems.
Despite our best efforts, both the primary live server (hosted by Justin.tv) and the secondary live server (hosted by Ustream.tv) failed us. It’s not the first week we’ve suffered problems either, and it appears that as those two services gain in popularity so their reliability similarly suffers.
A solution would be to run our own streaming server, which is what we’ve spent the best part of the week figuring out.
Because we’re new to all this, it seems like a good plan to give it a road test before Sunday. We were planning to record the green screen for last episode of Inside Track today, and as that was the show that started the live ball rolling, it seems only appropriate that it’s the first show to run on the new equipment.
If you’re around this evening, say about 8pm and you fancy helping us test this stuff, or if you wouldn’t mind catching an early preview of the video, then please feel free to join us.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:20me said:
first disappointment of the day, the new player doesn’t say “not broadcasting”
October 25th, 2008 at 18:28Christine said:
It looks wicked though. I appreciate this whole “we” business but I can’t take any of the credit.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:29me said:
having problems with default image that loads too.
sometimes it appears, sometimes not.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:30R.G (Crush him like an ant) said:
Ha ha ha.
Oh well, enjoy buffering, I mean broadcasting, I’ll be at a party tonight.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:33R.G (Crush him like an ant) said:
I know this sounds ridiculously early, but what time are you plannin on doing the Debrief tomorrow?
October 25th, 2008 at 18:33me said:
i think about 7pm.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:35R.G (Crush him like an ant, no not Davidson) said:
wicked
October 25th, 2008 at 18:52Ollie said:
Unlike R.G, I have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. I’ll be around if you need someone to bounce stuff off.
October 25th, 2008 at 18:55Dom said:
Your own live streaming server? I like it…
Good luck! I shall try to be there
October 25th, 2008 at 18:56Christine said:
Thanks both.
@Ollie, if you’re anything like us, your social life disappeared the minute you started a blog
October 25th, 2008 at 19:26Ollie said:
Yep, straight outta the window.
But it’s still fun.
Re. Video Image. It showed upon post-load, but disappeared after I commented.
October 25th, 2008 at 19:29Ollie said:
Test comment to see if what I just said happens again.
Edit: Yep, happened again. It likes refreshes though. That’s a strange one.
October 25th, 2008 at 19:39me said:
huh?
October 25th, 2008 at 19:42me said:
ahh, right. cheers, v.interesting.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:11Dom said:
Ooh, what’s that I can hear?
It works!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:11Ollie said:
Video/audio is a little out of synch. Might try restarting browser in a moment.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:11Ollie said:
How’s the synching for you, Dom?
October 25th, 2008 at 20:13Dom said:
I don’t think anyone expected you to be starting quite as soon as you said you would…
October 25th, 2008 at 20:13Ollie said:
Hi guys. I’m auditioning for CBBC!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:13Ollie said:
Can’t you pause one for a second?
October 25th, 2008 at 20:13Dom said:
The video is pretty far behind, yes.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:14Ollie said:
No buffering so far - perfect! Synching is liveable. True on the pause thing.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:15Ollie said:
Is Christine gonna do some tremayning later?
October 25th, 2008 at 20:16Dom said:
It’s official - Sidepodcast is better than Justin.tv.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:17Ollie said:
Definitely.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:18Ollie said:
I’ll do the clapper board!
Looks like fun.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:19Jackie said:
Hello guys, you are very brave allowing us to watch you practice live. It’s looking good though.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:22Ollie said:
I preferred second, didn’t seem so quick.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:27jolly said:
Hi can Jolly join the party?
(Sync is slightly out)
Applause
October 25th, 2008 at 20:27Ollie said:
I am taking notes. I think I can manage it with a bit of tuition!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:29Ollie said:
Jolly, Ollie and Dom. And Jackie.
Yep, definititely kids TV
October 25th, 2008 at 20:29Ollie said:
Keep count! o_O Not sure about that!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:30jolly said:
Don’t say good bye
I only just got here
October 25th, 2008 at 20:32Dom said:
Busy enough, Christine?
October 25th, 2008 at 20:33Jackie said:
Cool, are you doing this during Free Practice? .. this will be the place to be!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:34Ollie said:
Seemed okay. Border not really needed. Controls seem okay. Looks good guys, well done.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:36Dom said:
Bye!
October 25th, 2008 at 20:37Jackie said:
Aw, shame it’s finished, I enjoyed seeing behind the scenes.
Looking forward to the next instalment
Thanks.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:38me said:
cheers all
October 25th, 2008 at 20:42Dom said:
I am having one problem. The comments on the live commenting, live… thing are appearing about 5 mins late. Am just testing to see if it’s working on Safari.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:44Dom said:
Problem solved - all is fine away from Firefox.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:45Ollie said:
I had a similar problem during the last Debrief. It sorted itself out though, so wasn’t a huge issue.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:49me said:
dom, tis my fault.
the refresh settings are variable, so we tend to slow them down when we’re not live and then up the speed when we’re ready.
twice now, i’ve forgotten. here’s a screenshot:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/livecommentingsettings
basically, if it happens again, give us a nudge.
in future we might tie the setting into calendar schedule, so that it’s just automatic.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:54lou said:
oh i missed it.
just when i was thinking nothing exciting was happening tonight.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:56Dom said:
Will do, but i think this problem may be my own. The comments really are taking an awfully long time to appear on firefox, but i have no problems on other browsers.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:56Christine said:
Aw, don’t worry. It was just a test making sure everything worked for Sunday. He’ll be putting the replay up shortly.
October 25th, 2008 at 20:59Steven Roy said:
Looks like I am just in time to be too late.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:01me said:
doh! should we have given more warning?
i guess it was unexpected that we’d be on time.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:03Christine said:
It wasn’t on the schedule at all.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:04me said:
ahh. sorry.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:10lou said:
maybe something on identi.ca… like - ‘we are going live in 1/2 hour’ or something… i mean i know you do the blog post alerts (which are great btw) but sometimes if i’m working i figure that i will read the post once i finish whatever i’m doing… but that means i occasionally miss the live things cause i figure it’s blog post… not sure that makes any sense.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:13Christine said:
Yup. That’s my fault. The Sidepodcast Updates identi.ca account is there for that express purpose. I just completely forgot.
Also, maybe it would help if we put “Live:” at the beginning of the blog post title to make it more obvious.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:19lou said:
ah ok
October 25th, 2008 at 21:26me said:
replay video now up. thanks to everyone who helped this evening.
October 25th, 2008 at 21:34Ollie said:
Thanks for fixing the video and for giving us a sneaky peeky at Inside Track.
October 26th, 2008 at 00:58Journeyer said:
So what time will the show be on Sunday? 4 PM your time?
October 26th, 2008 at 01:02me said:
i believe 7pm our time (ish). there’s not a lot to discuss during the debrief show given that it’s been a relatively quiet week in f1. should be onto the panel pretty quickly.
October 26th, 2008 at 01:08Journeyer said:
Hopefully, you’ll be able to drop the ish, just like last night?
October 26th, 2008 at 01:09me said:
well, we’ve kinda set a standard there. will do our best.
October 26th, 2008 at 01:23me said:
just went to check out the honda f1 website but received a very unfortunate error message:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/hondafail
it’s unfortunate because i have the recently released flash player 10 installed. i’ve no idea how many people have already downloaded the update, but i’m pretty confident none of them are now looking at honda’s website.
someone has done a very poor job re: site design there. am guessing that the code takes the first character of the flash player version number and ensures that it’s higher than 8. for flash player 8 or 9 that would work a treat, but the first character of flash player 10 is a ‘1′.
oooops
October 26th, 2008 at 02:55Jordan Allen (Leader of the Group of Five) said:
Alex’s Giggles seem to have inflected Christine durining this test show….
October 26th, 2008 at 05:15Jordan Allen (Leader of the Group of Five) said:
I am getting kinda tried of using the bracket of (Leader of the Group of Five…) from myu position on the top of the leaderboard in Fantasy Racers… Who wants to me to use their surname as the second of the (Leader of the Allen- ???? gang) so it sound like some top-notch Wild West Outlaw gang like the James-Younger gang….?
October 26th, 2008 at 07:56Kathi said:
Dear Non-Europeans,
we changed back from Summer time last night. Don’t forget that in your starting time calculations for the live show tonight.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:16R.G (Crush him like an ant, no not Davidson) said:
Yay, GMT is back.
And before anyone asks, I didn’t drunk.
So, what important information did you announce last night then?
October 26th, 2008 at 10:23Kathi said:
Boo! Hiss!
October 26th, 2008 at 10:51Christine said:
For goodness sake, two people reminded me yesterday, and I still managed to forget.
Thanks Kathi
October 26th, 2008 at 10:58Journeyer said:
Indeed… Boo! Hiss! That may mean you’re probably starting too late for my time. In which case, I may have to pass this week. Sorry, folks. :O I’ll try to make it, but no commitments.
Whatever happens tonight, I’ll definitely be around for next week, no question about it.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:17Dom said:
Oooh yeah. That’s the good one, isn’t it?
October 26th, 2008 at 12:17Scott Woodwiss (Gotta beat Christine in FR) said:
Wassup guys
October 26th, 2008 at 13:12me said:
ahh shucks.
and we can’t start too much earlier either
October 26th, 2008 at 13:13lou said:
aww
oh dear. I won’t be downloading flash player 10 for a bit then 
well until they get it sorted I wont.
October 26th, 2008 at 13:50R.G (Crush him like an ant, no not Davidson) said:
Wouldn’t they struggle for a while until they got flash player 80 out?
October 26th, 2008 at 15:35me said:
October 26th, 2008 at 15:48lou said:
lol, am kinda hoping they will fix it before then
October 26th, 2008 at 17:26Alex Andronov said:
“So much words”
I too am really looking forward to Parade Laps return. There’s something very special about it. I don’t know why.
October 26th, 2008 at 17:34Scott Woodwiss (Gotta beat Christine in FR) said:
Plus it’s the last race of the season, so it’s an extra long special!
October 26th, 2008 at 17:41Scott Woodwiss (Gotta beat Christine in FR) said:
By the way, put me down on the list for tonight’s panel. last week was so fun and hilarious I gotta have another go
Please? 
October 26th, 2008 at 17:45Steven Roy said:
If we can have another go count me in. With Giggles presenting the show could take days to finish.
October 26th, 2008 at 17:47R.G (Crush him like an ant, no not Davidson) said:
Might not be able to make it tonight, not that I didn’t drop it or anything.
*Shifty eyes*
October 26th, 2008 at 17:50Scott Woodwiss (Gotta beat Christine in FR) said:
It takes him an hour to say a sentence because he can’t stop laughing
October 26th, 2008 at 17:51Steven Roy said:
RG,
Are you happy with your team’s new manager?
October 26th, 2008 at 17:52R.G (I don't think we can fix the internet, or maybe we can) said:
Yes. He won our first game of the season, whats not to like about him
October 26th, 2008 at 17:52R.G (I can't think we can fix the internet, or maybe we can) said:
It’ll be one to worth listening to.
October 26th, 2008 at 17:59Dom said:
Predictions, anyone?