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Producing a Quiz Show from Multiple Locations?
Bloke in a box asks: "One of the pubs I help manage is putting on a quiz show. The landlady's two sisters also run pubs, so we have decided to do this quiz for charity (for the Tsunami disaster). At the moment I have: three pubs, three webcams, two laptops, a desktop, three microphones, three sets of 512kb broadband, three big screens, three projectors and one willing quizmaster. I'm aware of various remote admin software which will aid with this, but I'm wondering if there is conferencing software that might be a better fit for this, since I'd need the ability to control the communications between the pubs (like when questions need to be repeated, and so forth)." What other pieces of software would you recommend for such a production?
I'm sure you could set up something simple with PHP to synchronize the locations, although I don't know how effective it would be.
You're going to attempt to stream 3 separate video and audio streams over a 512kbit link?
I think you need to look into more bandwidth, that's quite a low amount and I think you're going to see some issues from it.
Make a video with your landlady and her sisters, you'd make more money.
It sounds like you've got a blank slate and aren't sure where to start doodling plans. Make sure you test the system thoroughly and keep cell phones for when the system bombs.
Trolling is a art,
You can probably set up a NetMeeting conference, but you'll need Windows, so that's no an option. How about some sort of a very simple client-server setup, with you sending information to the clients. Or hell, how about a simple Instant Messenger program?
A blog like any other.
Your done...
:)
You just have to wait a few months until Mac OS X 10.4 is released. Or have a hot copy, just watch out for lawyers.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/
At the moment I have: three pubs, three webcams, two laptops, a desktop, three microphones, three sets of 512kb broadband, three big screens, three projectors and one willing quizmaster.
you got the makings of a small time porno production unit.
Maybe think a little smaller. Instead of full video conferencing, perhaps use text and audio, sort of like the old "You don't know Jack" site. Use an IM client as the method of 'buzzing in', post the questions on the screens as you read it, then allow the user to speak a reply. As a fallback, make sure people at each location have the questions and answers in case there's tech problems, and to verify the answers in case 'shenanagans' are called. If you have the spare bandwidth, then maybe you can snap a picture every 5 seconds and post it. Best not to overthink it, save those braincells for the questions, and the beer!
webex!! we use it for something similar and they'll help with the bandwidth issue...
Check out Windows Media Encoder.
You can attach to your input streams and send them to a central location with more bandwidth.
"What other pieces of software would you recommend for such a production?"
Ken Jennings? Well, his brain is kinda like software.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Video Production Support
if you have buzzers that lock out other people when you buzz in your gonna have to deal with the latency times for it to lock the others out
This could be built fairly easily using the Flash Communication Server for data comm and video streaming, and building the quiz show client in either Flash or Director. (Despite its name, FlashComm works with Director just fine.) Keep the quiz logic in the client, and use a bit of server-side Actionscript to do the scorekeeping/results arbitration.
I hate MACR's pre-built components, but given that real-time video streaming is pretty much drag'n'drop with them, you could have a prototype up in a couple of hours.
I think this would make a quiz show, running on a 512k line, almost impossible. You'd never be able to tell who really buzzed in first- worse, every location would have a different "first" buzzer and there'd be no way to tell who was ACTUALLY first.. unless you did somethin wild like sync timecodes at the source and after every buzz use instant sync tape relay to figure out who REALLY buzzed in first...
www.GrenadeHop.com
Once you've done that, just use iChat, MSN Messenger, or something similar.
did you win a free ipod? build a case for it here
Just a thought...
You haven't explained the quiz-show setup. Where is the quizmaster? How are you asking questions and how are contestants answering? In a pinch: Use Yahoo Messenger for the video links and then create a Yahoo chatroom and turn on the voice-chat. Use VNC to control the remote machines; if you have three pubs, I would suggest getting another machine to handle the VNC'ing, and just leave all the others hooked up. Pub1 views Pub2 and Pub3, Pub2 views Pub1 and Pub3, Pub3 views Pub1 and Pub2 --- and they're all in the same voice-chat. Is it oh-so-hacker cool? No. Is it free and will it work? Yes.
use IRC. best option.
if you don't want to put it on a major network, try irc.blitzed.org
Considering you're running this as amateur, you better do it plain and safe. You're going to waste much more time/money into this than you can gather.
Maybe you should organize something more conventionnal, with the help of your municipality maybe ?
I'm not pessimistic, I'm realistic, it's about dying people, don't forget that point. Do it the efficient way.
You could get one of those NTN Bar Trivia setups going, but I don't know how much those would be. I bet you would sell a lot of drinks (people like to sit around and play), and they are fun. You could run your contest over that system, and keep it around when you are done.
Use the phones on a conference call: the contestatnts hear the question at the same time, and the first one to speak the correct answer wins the point. The webcams are just window-dressing to add to the excitement factor. Audio from the phones and the webcams can be hear/shown at each location, too.
If you were to take the conference call and drop it online, folks from everywhere could tune in.
Sounds like fun!
This is a sample sig. Press F1 to personalize.
Being a nerd is fun and all, but the pub quiz game will be just as fun if you do it with cue cards and microphones.
postmodernsideshow.com
Also, If possible, run a timecode run from the host location somehow, that way all the timecodes match up with the video from the host location. Add delay lines on the returns AND on the main/host line so that they all match up back at the host/main, then judge timing based upon that.
Video Production Support
I see this all over Colorado already. But I haven't "peeked under the covers" to see how they were doing it.
There is no video tie in with this but I use TeamSpeak all the time to keeping in touch with my gaming pals. It does not use up so much bandwidth that it will crush you, but the performance is pretty good. Best part is there is a Linux server version. http://www.teamspeak.org/
What's wrong with you? WebEx does provide the exact solution to the guy's problem, albeit, at a price. But seeing how they have a reference to the Tsunami victims, this may be a great opportunity for both the poster and the company.
Why not? It might be the best/easiest option available. Why must you automatically dismiss all things Microsoft?
This sounds like just another case of self-defeating zealotry.
My advice? Pick whatever works best meets your needs.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Call webex and tell them what you are doing and ask them for a few 30-60 minute spot. maybe even try arkadin.
From the summary, it looks like this is going to be a one-time thing, a charity event with the proceeds going to tsunami relief. Rather than spend all this time and money trying to set up a technological way to do this, why not just get three quizmasters with three PA systems? You'd have less expenses, so more money would go to charity. I'm assuming you are getting volunteers to run the quizzes, so I didn't figure in costs for paying the extra people.
Another thing I worry about is, if you're only doing it once, you can count on stuff going wrong. Things always do with something this complicated. I could see if you were going to do it week after week, because after a few weeks you'd get the hang of it and you could streamline the process. But if you're just planning on doing a one-shot event, stick to the tried and true. You could rent three PA rigs for the evening and be good to go. Hope this helps.
The hardware is available (iSight) and so's the software (iChat AV)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Microsoft's ConferenceXP is designed to do exactly this.
I could say more things informative or praiseworthy, but best to clarify is that: yes you can use it to do what you need.
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
I hear the telegraph is making a come back.
You have:
No Turntables and
Three Microphones.
That is not where it's at.
get an channel on irc and have it be like one of those irc quiz bots, that is leet
Tiger iChat ;-)
Consider Macromedia Flash and perhaps FlashCom server, especially if you're looking to do something relatively bandwidth-light yet attractive.
Flash has come a long way in the last few years: Flash 7 supports video and has XML parsing and even Xpath functionality baked into the player. Actionscript 2 supports class-based and OOP development. The XMLSocket class might be useful if you're looking to maintain persistant communications.
The nice thing about Flash is that you could develop a engaging experience without spending a ton of money. You can maintain programmatic control of what to show when, and you have this rich platform that will encapsulate whatever sorts of multimedia you want to show.
Flash Communications Server would be ideal for what you're trying to do, though its cost is probably prohibitive. I wish Macromedia would revisit the pricing structure of FlashCom.
Besides all of the technical mumbo jump - dont forget to have plenty of Guinness on Tap!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
* Although I have never used it, you could try th e program "openmcu" on http://www.openh323.org/. It is designed to multiplex audio and video-conferences. You can use gnomemeeting with this. h263-video is designed for video on 64 kbps I believe. It would be even better if you could use h264.
...
... it supports conferencing and looking at the video-codecs I would also think it supports h263-video-multiplexing.
For audio you could use the speex-codec I suppose. It can work well I think with > 8kb/s, even less if you want
* asterisk PBX is able to do this I think. I'm trying to set it up, but h323 is not easy
You need good echo-cancellation I think!
Hopes this helps some,
Michel
I have conducted chats between a coffeehouse in the US and the Baghdad Internet Cafe using Yahoo! Messenger. The video is webcam-like, and the audio is actually quite good. Plus you can always type if you get into a connectivity jam.
So, you have all the hardware you already need? What's wrong with the following?
Find a volunteer location that is near the network center of the three locations. Do the webcast from here, which simply includes your host's webcam image overlayed with the text questions as s/he speaks. This is to avoid any one pub having an unfair advantage.
Assuming quality webcams, at each pub you should display on the overhead a split-screen -- maybe the announcer on the top 1/2 and each of the other pubs left-to-right below that? For simplicity's sake you should probably have one real workhorse that combines the feeds at location 4 (non-pub) and makes that stream available in psuedo-realtime.
The most important aspect, though, would be (a) spotter(s) at each location: The best idea I can come up with is two spotters with one scorekeeper. The spotters simply point to whichever contestant "rings in" first, and if they disagree the scorekeeper breaks the tie. S/he also keeps score, nitwit.
Perhaps, for the sake of more helpful suggestions, you could describe the format of this quiz show? In my head I pictured a "1 point per pub" series of elimination rounds followed by a "pub off", but maybe that's not what you had in mind...
-theGreater Riddler.
Use WebEx. They make online meeting software that works pretty seamlessly. Get a "pay as you go" account. The pricing is pretty reasonable. At $.33/user/minute, you're looking at $.99/minute with 3 pubs. An hour long show would cost 60 bucks - not bad. Check them out and give them a call.
slashdot username - at - email.domain.name
the developers at microsoft don't even suggest using windowsmedia for realtime conferencing. sure with all kinds of registry tweaks and whatnot you CAN get the latency to a respectable amount but you will NEVER get 'no delay, woh totally realtime' but you will get excellent quality.
you may be able to get your latency down to a few seconds (think the CNN reporters in the field) but for a bare bones setup it's going to be more likely a significant delay, much more than you would want to have for a quiz show.
Best advice I ever heard for videoconferencing via internet was to set up the audio by conference call. Better quality and frees bandwith for video.
It can also solve the lag problem people are concerned with. Since the phone lag should be negligible (no guarantees), each contestent can be equiped with a different noise maker. You could even make them funny sounds. Whichever is heard first wins the buzzer. Could be automated, but making it fun could keep people more involved.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
While I have no answer to your question, I urge you to reach for your nearest dictionary and look up "non sequitur".
Thank you.
-Hal
I'd like to see software to enable, in increasing order of complexity (and I think not *all* that complex, though I'm certainly not a programmer, so I'm just naming the ideas :))
...
;)
- For games with loose / free-form answers, paddles like on Jeopardy (or any game show with "buzzing in"), where tapping a sensor is associated with a physical device or a contestant, and it can be displayed on a screen, etc. A Griffen PowerMate would be good for this, and would look cool, too. Every contestant gets a powermate attached to a USB extender cable
- a multi-part answer device (hey, it could be a 4-button trackball for all I care!) so constestants with identical input devices could each hit one of the buttons to select from multiple answers. Or, with a trackball, they could be told to roll lower left for A, upper left for B, upper right for C, lower right for D.
- Pretty, flashy software to display Quiz questions, answers, point totals, etc in the say that thos machines behind contestants (or stuck in their lecterns) do on game shows.
This could be based (thematically, I don't mean the code is the same) on things like Open Office presenter, so questions could be programmed to fade off or slide off, etc. There'd have to be a separate "display" part vs. the controller part, so no answers are revealed in advance
I've trawled freshmeat looking for this sort of thing (and have run a lot of quiz-show style games for kids, summers) -- anyone have help with using a commodity computer instead of an expensive rented buzzer system?
timothy
-
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
try a google search for palantir, it can handle multiple audio/video streams and display them all on one screen, there are clients for most platforms I think (but only servers for Linux), and you can show the Local stream on the screen as well. Its not too resource hungry (in my experience).
It doesn't offer any of the conferencing facilities you want, but you there's nothing to prevent you using it for video only, and something else for audio (which may have more control)
You may just want to have 3 different sounding buzzers, connected to the audio streams of each location, so that you can tell the difference between each one, rather than a lockout type system, and a PTT (push to talk) type system for the microphone (buzzer activated when button pushed?) so that you only get the audio stream when you want it.
.sigs are for losers
replace the willing quizmaster with text-to-Alex Trabek conversion software...
You might have a look at Macromedia Breeze; I don't have that much experience with it (other than watching a sales presentation put on by Macromedia), but it has all of the typical meeting capabilities such as audio/video, shared screens, remote control, whiteboard, chatting, etc., in a very customizable environment. As with anything, I would test the bejeezus out of it before putting on something like this -- it's a newish product and Macromedia's pushing it pretty hard. Good luck.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
These guys make movie trivia games for movie cinemas in Austin Texas. Maybe they'd help you out with some free software since it is for charity?
Looks like they require a hardware thing as well, although the site says they support "wireless handheld devices." Worth a shot...
Have reps from all three pubs in one location. No need for video feed.
In fact, if you really want to go whole hog have a three round tournament, one round in each pub. Triple your opportunity to solicit donations.
I've done a bit of pub quiz myself and I'd suggest a "keep it simple" approach. Get two more buddies (or have the pub owners get someone) to quizmaster at the other pubs and just go simultaneous. If you want something to tie the pubs together have "championship" plaque going to the pub with the high point total, donations, whatever you want. Not sure why this has to be all that complicated. Any technical issues that arise will most likely just annoy the attendees.
Cheers, Ed
Don't do it... every single time I've seen an event that tries to use high tech tools and communications, no matter how talented they are, the presentation always comes out feeling awkward and one step away from disaster. The communiation is difficult that that irritates the audience to no end.
KISS!
Apple's iChat does 4-way video conferencing. Maybe that's all you need?
Sweet jesus. The flip side of "every ask slashdot is stupid" is "every decent ask slashdot gets stupid answers." The only valid responses above (Webex and Flash Comm Sevrer) were modded to 1, while all the useless chatter about Tiger and iSights and not enough bandwidth are modded up. Crazy.
Anyway, this is exactly what our company's software does, so pardon the self promotion.
Let me answer some of the points above:
- Not enough bandwidth: You can easily do this on a 512k link, although you're not going to fall in love with the video quality. With three locations, Flash Communication Server would do fine. In fact, I think the developer edition supports a max of three users an 1Mbit of bandwidth, so you'd be able to use it on the cheap.
Even if you didn't use FCS, you could roll your own using Windows Media Encoders at each location pushing streams to a windows media server. You can make a page that hosts all three videos in it, with an area below for the quiz. Don't like WME? You can use Real's Helix, although it's a little harder to set up the first time. Both WME video and Helix introduce significant buffering delay, so you'll have to configure all components (encoder, server, and client-side playback control) to use the minimum buffering allowed. You'll still end up with at least 5 seconds of buffering.
- Lag: I doubt you'd have enough lag to make a big difference in determining whose answers are correct. Regardless, in our system, every message up & downstream is timestamped (down to thousandths of a second), and the client and server clocks are synchronized together, so you'll have a very decent idea who answered first. Not that it really matters, since it's for charity, who cares if it's slightly off, right?
- Webex is a fine choice if you DON'T care about video. Their video is very lousy, hugely bandwith intensive, and doesn't support n-way video conferences. The price mentioned above does not include video, I don't think. A better pay-per-minute options would be Breeze Live. They also have a 15-day free trial, which is nice.
Also, you should consider something like a Polycom, Tandberg, or other traditional video conferencing product. For one, lots of companies have them, so you can probably get loaner units easily.
Or (ahem) maybe give us a call. Our software does polls, quizzes, slides, chat, moderated Q&A, all synchronized to the video and and internal clock. Up to 5-way video conferences are supported using the Flash Communication Server, and we have bandwidth partners in the UK if you need them.
Have a running frame on the right-hand side showing 30s webcam shots of each of the pubs. Center frame would be questions, answers, current pub's score (central "Quiz Server" holds scoring / answers? Maybe repurpose some PHP polling software).
Mockup: It's possible, but lots of manual labor. If you're looking for a non-multiple choice stuff then look at getting a three-way call going between the locations, use (for example) apple quick-time streaming / broadcasting (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/broadcas
Verify it works before you have 50-100 angry beer-swilling patrons at your throat, and good luck, I have a feeling you'll need it.
--Robert
Well, it could be done but the quality and lag would be terrible. :)
:-)
Have you considered asking your local amateur radio clubs for help?
Better still, rent the town hall
Many GPS receivers have a "pulse per second" output. The timing on these is accurate to way better than 1 millisecond - no matter where you are.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This is another one of those occasions where technology is being used for the sake of it, not because it will enhance the quiz for participants.
The joy in pub trivia is that it is simple, no computers, no technology, no hassles. You show up, get your piece of paper, and scribble away. Why unnecessarily complicate things?
take a look at access grid. www.accessgrid.org It is commonly used among universities for doing video conferencing from small one to one communications all the way to conferencing with large numbers of participants.
I have used it for these types of purposes. I saw it demonstrated at SuperComputing a few years ago where they had musicians spread all over the world (drummers in brazil, bassist in florida, dancers in denver, etc) all doing a simultaneous performance.
This would be a good place to start looking.
You might look into WebEx conferencing software. http://webex.com/
It does great video feeds and might do what your looking for.
It's an amazing product!
I recommend a slight change in overall scope:
Each location has it's own 'contest', with the computer providing a results display of each of the 3 seperate matches. Some form of bar chart could be kept 'live' showing the results for each pub.
You could 'film' 30-second interviews of the contestants, between questions, and play them back during "intermission" periods.
This way each of the pubs is competeing for an ultimate score, highest scoring pub/player = 1st place, etc.
This eliminates the majority of the concerns around latency, and provides a more effective use of the equipment at hand.
Setup an Asterisk Conference room. The only problem I see is the mount of people it can hold, but other than that, it might work.
A Darwin Award is devoted to something similar. An Australian hotel (for some reason) had a contest to see who could drink the most - I don't think the "winner" survived.
While the concept of drinking for charity sounds fun, it would be a really unfortunate way to die (indirectly) from the tsunami. T
I think I understand what your resources are, and I think I can see what you should do.
:o). Reply here with a way to contact you and I'll get back to you.
Firstly, I think you are short 1 camera, 1 Mic and one computer. You might be able to do without the extra computer.
If you can get the extra computer and mic, set the emcee up in one pub with the camera and mic. Set up one further mic and camera in that pub, and a mic and camera in each of the other two pubs.
Use a piece of video conferencing software that can 1> Tile multiple connections and 2> show that view, or one large view of who has the "floor". There are tons for both windows and linux. Also make sure it can take commands interactively.
For the buzzers, use video game controllers. There are several that can output to the screen serially. Get one of those. On linux, the app that displays them is called "joytest".
Now you run an IRC server on one of the computers. Then you write an expect (why expect? because its designed for this sort of thing, and it takes 5 minutes to learn[expect.nist.gov]) script that monitors the irc channel. Expect is a language designed for scripting interactive programs like telnet, ftp, bots, lynx, etc.
Before the emcee asks a question, he types a command like "question". This will tell the expect script watching the irc session to tell each client of videoconfercing software to set to a view of him speaking. When he's done, he can type "everyone" and the script will tile the screen again. When a the first person pushes the buzzer, it will give the floor to that pub. Depending on how complex you wish to get your rules for missed questions, this could get much more sophisticated quickly. Then the emcee can type "everyone" or something like that and the expect script can then set the video conference back to tiled mode while you play music waiting for the next question.
If you'd like help with this, I've used all of the above before, and can help. I do this sort of thing at work
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
There's a pub-quiz system that's already in thousands of bars in North America called "NTN".
http://yadvr.com/ I have seen their stuff compress and send DVD quality video and 2-way audio over a 128K connection with very little loss. Might be worth checking out.
Gimme that booze you little pumpkin pie hair cutted freak!
Most of the posts I've seen to far have presumed that this is going to be a 3-site TV gameshow style event, with 2-way video streams and buzzer-sync issues. This is almost certainly not the case, and the below is based on the usual style of UK pub quiz... which means each team writing answers on a piece of paper, and marking each others answers when read out at the end. So...
Also, I'm not going to mention specific software, rather the infrastructure approach to doing this successfully...
First, each site has a technician. At the remote sites, they're responsible for feeding the video and audio to the projector, and for using some sort of low-bandwidth instant messenger or dedicated IRC to chat with the host site technician for things like question repeat requests and so forth. At the host end, the tech feeds messages to the quizmaster and runs the outbound video/audio feed.
Second, remember that the 512kb link is downstream only - the upstream is going to be half that for basic UK ADSL, which means much less bandwidth for the video/audio as most ISPs don't support multicast. It'd probably be worth contacting the ISP - if all three venues us the same one - to try and get some dedicated/increased bandwidth for the event, or at least some "preferred" routing for the video.
Next, the host site server needs to be the most powerful you have, in order to compress the video as much as possible in as close to real-time as possible. Hardware encoding is a big plus at this point. Also, forget about webcams for the video source - beg/borrow/whatever a decent video camera, capture card and lighting.
Also, have a backup plan. For example, feed the ear-piece output of a cellphone to the remote site PA, and have the host-site microphone also feed the mic input of two cellphones as an alternate feed. Return feeds would come from/go to the techs.
Finally, test everything off-site well before the event to make sure it all works, then test it all extensively on the day. It might sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how often it doesn't happen.
Oh, and if you're running this somewhere in the south-east of England, drop me a line if you want a tech for one of the sites...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
This post was justly modded way up. I just wonder why the posts that he refers to ("the only valid responses") about Flash Com and Webex didn't get modded up, too.
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
The real focus is on making money for disaster victims not producing a full blown multimedia experience for drunk people.
You're.....
really, sorry.... i am... i just couldnt help myself.....
bah!*@%!
or python
There's a lot been done on multicasting stuff without the actual existence of IP Multicast (as is the case in much of the public Internet). It's funny this came up, seeing as my project at uni this year will turn out an implementation of an overlay multicast protocol on which I'll be able to run conferencing tools.
In the absence of my wonderful software, I'd suggest taking a quick look at Yoid, which should theoretically use your bandwidth intelligently. The applications which run on yoid without modification are few in number, but I believe they ship a modified version of VAT (Visual Audio tool). If not, and VAT runs on Yoid without modification, VAT can be found here: www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/ (the URL appears to be down just now. I'd imagine it should be back up soon-ish.)
Available on that site is some form of collaborative whiteboard system, which could (possibly) be useful for such an event.