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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?
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,
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!
Check out Windows Media Encoder.
You can attach to your input streams and send them to a central location with more bandwidth.
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...
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Once you've done that, just use iChat, MSN Messenger, or something similar.
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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.
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.
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
Why yes, of course! PHP! Why didn't I think of that! The Magic Elixir!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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/
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.
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.
Although you may not be a fan, keeping things simple and not re-inventing the wheel might help. You should consider contacting a company like WebEx which provides great application sharing/conferencing services to many companies, and explain what you're doing and why. It might be a great idea for them to participate (good publicity, maybe they'll have a press release) and get more attention for your event and ultimately raising money. If they donate their services you acknowledge them as a sponsor, etc.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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...
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