Streaming the Inauguration In a School?

Anonymous Teacher writes "I work in a small school in Washington and we are trying to prepare a way to watch the inauguration in 20 classrooms over a 1.5 T1. As our bandwidth severely limits the ability to individually stream to these rooms, is there an alternative to presenting it to the students? Are there any sites that offer a downloadable copy of the video quickly after the event that can be hosted locally or is reconfiguring the computers to use a proxy server the best solution?"

Comments

Projector

[russlar]

1. Gather all the students in an auditorium, gym or cafeteria 2. Set up a single PC with a projector 3. ????? 4. Profit!

television

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously... that's how we did it back in my day. While it isn't as sexy as modern computer tech, it just works.

Re:television

[SydShamino]

CSPAN?

Re:television

[adolf]

I agree, in theory.

But in practice, your argument just doesn't stand up.

First: TV is best. It's a broadcast medium, made to transmit a single moving image to thousands (or, in this case, millions) of recipients. It does this job very well. If you want to avoid outlandish commentary and commercialization, obvious channel choices are either C-Span or PBS (in order of preference).

Second: There isn't enough bandwidth in a T1 to send 20 video streams of any rational (for 2008) quality. Multicast IP would solve this problem, of course, but the M-Bone is all but dead. (Wikipedia those terms yourself if you don't understand.)

Third: Why do you assume that the coverage on a television channel like C-Span is worse than the coverage which might be available online? No matter what the medium, someone has to produce the feed, and in doing so, they'll almost certainly be adding commentary of some sort.

Fourth: Internet video for the sake of internet video. Who gives a shit? I know it's 2009, and we're supposed to be in Teh Future and stuff, but for fuck's sake: If, in 2009, this were a solved problem, the question would never have been raised. Think about it.

VLC?

[Tyris]

Could be wrong, but can't VLC (VideoLanClient) do the trick?
Get it to recieve one copy of the stream, and then repeat it over the local network (assuming your local network has the bandwidth).

VLC - VideoLAN Client

[Jherek Carnelian]

VLC might be an option.

VLC can play back from a file that another process is writing to. So if you can figure out how to write the incoming video stream to a network filesystem, each classroom could use VLC to playback that file and you would only have to worry about a delay buffer of a minute or two to ensure smooth playback.

While I have not tried it myself, VLC is also capable of rebroadcasting video. So if you can view the live stream directly with VLC, you can probably get that copy of VLC to multiplex it out to other VLC clients on other machines.

TV

[Toonol]

It'll be broadcast free over the air. Give each classroom a TV. Why deal with the internet?

Re:TV

[Ecuador]

What is this "TV" you speak of?
And does it run Linux?

Is this why...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...we don't get much bang for our education dollars? Something that is going to be broadcast on 97 different networks for free, and you need to go through who knows what effort to stream it? Do you have math classes at that school? Get some parents to volunteer to bring in a TV. If you want the kids to see it later, you don't think YouYube will be inundated with copies of it?

Re:Is this why...

[NNKK]

The fact that they're running off a single T1 would seem to imply that the "Washington" being referred to is Washington State, not D.C. (since the latter is unlikely to have anywhere in it that it's not far easier and more economical to go for DSL or another more modern solution, yet there are many such places in Washington State).

That being the case, some small schools, particularly in eastern parts of the state, may have difficulty getting any sort of television signal. Check out a map, we've got an awful lot of empty space up here.

Odd

[WindBourne]

I keep trying to get that to work on my system. Where in KDE can I start this and make it work? Otherwise, I will stick with VLC.

Re:Just do what you did...

[dcowart]

First Black President, that's why this is important. I plan to watch it. This is how far we as a nation have come in the 60 years since the civil rights movement and the Jim Crow laws that held black people down for so long. More than just another president being inaugurated this is a statement that anyone can achieve anything they push for. Yes, I'm a flag waving optimist about this but having grown up in an inner city and having seen the devastation of being poor in America, It makes me hopeful that things can change for the better.

This is the kind of thing that can give an inner city kid a shred of hope that he can get out of the slums and into something better.

I'm starting to get all preachy now, but that's why this is something kids should watch.

Re:Your racism is showing.

[shiftless]

Hi, I'm a good ole boy from Alabama and I get called a racist--that is, racist against anyone who isn't white--all the time on the interwebs. So allow me to weigh in with my racist opinion. I am glad Obama got elected. Back in the 60s, or even the 80s, a black president was an impossible dream. Now today it is reality. This is certainly proof of how far we have come as a nation. This is a shining example for the world to see, at a time when America's image is somewhat tarnished. I'm happy that black folks, especially the old timers who saw real racism in past decades, now have something like this to stand up and be proud of. I'm glad that we had a record turnout this election and large numbers of people becoming interested in politics. It's good for the country. The story of a poor black kid growing up to be the president of the United States is very inspiring. It IS a big deal.

Chucking...

[Stanislav_J]

This old fogy is getting a good laugh at the thread. Some (very few) have already touched on it, but what the hell is wrong with watching TV on a TV? Borrow someone's huge-ass plasma and set it up in a large classroom. You don't even need cable or satellite as the broadcast networks will be covering the inauguration stem-to-stern in beautiful 1080i HD.

But no, the parent is hellbound to do this via computer. (And most of the responses seem to be troubleshooting and spitballing the idea.) Why? Because it's "cool" or the latest thing? Because he has some anti-TV bias? Or because he's so caught up in that "it's newer, so it must be better" mentality and literally did not even think of good old broadcast TV?

Sometimes the best and most appropriate technology is the good ol' tried and true. There are many applications in life where previously existing and "old fashioned" solutions are good enough. (And much simpler.) Often it's also cheaper, and it's almost always a hell of a lot less convoluted and headache-inducing.

Alas, so many are caught up in this "newer must be better" mentality. And the companies who develop and more importantly sell the stuff feed the frenzy by insuring that there's always something new out there to shell out the big bucks for. Today's new, neat-o technological breakthrough will be "obsolete" next year (hell, maybe next month) and of course you are encouraged to upgrade or replace what you already have that still works perfectly well for the newest, biggest, fastest, sharpest, shiniest, coolest thing. Feel free. I sit here with my old computer, relatively tiny picture-tube TVs, $29 radio and CD player, books and printed newspapers, and enjoy the hell out of all of them with no diminishment of my quality of life because all of these things are "old-fashioned." And I laugh.

Now, turn down that music and get off my lawn, you whippersnappers...