SeattleWireless TV Broadcasts Again

adpowers writes "After a month long hiatus, SeattleWireless TV is back. This break allowed them time to include footage from August's Wireless Field Day. The episode also includes a how-to for making a BiQuad antenna and an interview with SeattleWireless founder Matt Westervelt about how SW is different from other community wireless networks. You can download an MPEG version with BitTorrent. Windows Media and Real Media versions are available on the website."

Comments

broadcast...? or better?

[certron]

I guess for it to be a real broadcast, it would have to be on at a certain time, and have to have real people 'tuning in' to see it. In this case, it is more of a video press release/news program.

Don't get me wrong, this is pretty cool in itself, but I was a little disappointed when reality reminded me that this wasn't some multicast video streaming thingie, with a program being available almost simultaneously over all nodes in the network. (Although, a sniffer-based audio/video player could be kinda cool, too, and actually be like a real broadcast, with lots of little repeaters...)

Then again, traditional time-based network shows (or informative / documentary shows) may be on the way out, and this is, in fact, a future video structure.

Re:broadcast...? or better?

[Robotron2084]

Well, currently, even with buckets of cash Time Warner can't seem to get a Matrix trailer out to everyone. Their supply chain(Akamai)saturates too quickly.

Bram Cohen of Bittorrent has said that he'd like to create a live streaming Bittorrent for the purposes of a virtual 'real broadcast'. This is the only real solution for those without buckets of cash and internet2 connectivity.

But the problem in this is that the ability to enforce 'tit-for-tat' downloads is lost in a live broadcast, and this is what makes Bittorrent so effective. But Bram's a smart guy, perhaps he'll find a way to shuffle crc checks around to create virtual tit-for-tats, and build a new bttp:// protocol.

Even with such a fantastically cool protocol, creating live content would still be hard to make beyond a webcam and a microphone. Video and audio mixing equipment, lighting etc. quickly eats away at your amateur budget.

I don't know if time-based network shows are on their way out for big companies, but it's a lot easier for people like Peter to make SWTV with a month of post-production. The content can recieve more polish, and the focus isn't on the protocol used, but the show itself.

I'm off to make a Bi-quad antenna :)

Re:Back when I was a kid

[dougmc]

but it doesn't sound like you youngsters know that there was TV before the cable.

And I wonder if you youngsters even know that before there was voice, there was just simple beeping ( .-- .... . . ). And before that, there were moving pictures again, but they took the form of smoke signals ...

Seriously though, my daughter (2.5 years old) thinks that TV is `on demand'. She comes into a room, sees a TV and starts screaming for Dora! (the Explorer.) And since DirectTV lets you have Tivos on every TV very cheaply, we do. So she gets Dora on demand.

She has no concept of the idea of having to actually wait for a specific show on TV ...

Re:Back when I was a kid

[GMontag]

Alpine had an automobile deck years ago that had recording from air capability. Combine that with auto-side select, etc and you have an analog version of a 90 min. loop mp3 setup. No telling what is available but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody's home-brew car system has something like this already worked out.

MPEG mirrors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many universities block BitTorrent, so a fast mirror of the MPEG video would be useful (especially an HTTP server on Internet2 or a connected network).