New Idea for an Online based LEM

[Shadow]

Talking to a few guys on our skype group tonight I brought up an idea for an online based LEM. They liked the idea and I'm sure you guys had already thought of it many times before.
What do you guys think of it?

Have the same type of shows but streamed from others homes that they set up with their lasers, cameras set up and shows they wish for others to see. Somehow streaming and for everyone who joins online can communicate between shows.

To explain further..

Say Buffo has a room in his home set up with his gear. He has a set amount of time like 11am-2pm. During that time he can do an hour or two show and then talk for and hour or two with those who attend online.

Then next would be say Swamidog. His time table will be 2pm-5pm or however long he wants to run his slotted allocated time. Say he skips doing shows and just chats while running some lasers in the background and showing his gear along with discussion.

There are a few mediums that could be used for this event but I'm not entirely sure if any of the ones I can think of are adequate for such an event.
Perhaps a combination of skype and some streaming site.

So basically those who have shows and lasers that they would have showcased at an LEM but instead each have a time slot in which they have to talk with the group and show their own lasers, shows and/or discussion of them with attendees of the event who log online.
Say 8 people will host their time slots and those who attend do the watching and discussing.

I was hoping these could be for people who cannot attend LEMs due to time, money and other issues and these could be hosted any time of the year to satisfy those who can't wait for the next actual LEM.

[araugh]

One thing to bear in mind if you try to do this via live stream, some services like facebook live and youtube have built in content monitoring and they kill your stream if you play copyrighted music that they're set up to auto recognize. Additionally you have an issue where most live streaming compression algorithms are not good for laser shows, the high contrast and saturation while beams move quickly isn't a winning combo for that quite yet. I tried to do the live laser show thing for some folks and unfortunately it didn't work out well for those two reasons, but this sounds awesome if you can find a way around these problems.

[HankLloydRight]

What about finding a way to stream the ILDA signal live over the internet? We could set up our own projectors and watch a real laser show at the same time. Then just stream the music over Skype.

Yes, I know there are about 100 reasons why it won't work or is not safe or won't sync... yadda, yadda, yadda.. but it would still be a cool thing to get working.

[Photonbeam]

What about finding a way to stream the ILDA signal live over the internet? We could set up our own projectors and watch a real laser show at the same time. Then just stream the music over Skype.

Yes, I know there are about 100 reasons why it won't work or is not safe or won't sync... yadda, yadda, yadda.. but it would still be a cool thing to get working.

Cool idea! How much bandwidth would it take? What internet speed?

[telmnstr]

I actually talked to FLECOM a while ago about doing this. You would just want to stream 7 channel FLAC I think, or perhaps something lossless that is CBR... Maybe if you could get Icecast to do OGGPCM @ 8 channels?

A CD is what, 660MB per 74min, so 4x that is 2640MB. Using 60 minutes, that's 44MB a minute. 733KB/sec perhaps? 10 megabits/sec ?
That's raw PCM like a CD, not using FLAC. You can get yourself in trouble since the compression scheme is going to be variable. If it peaks above your bandwidth or ability for computer to decompress real-time.

but modern 50 megabit internet should handle it okay.

Could run audio over MP3 or AAC and save space there, and channel 6 can be dumped usually.

[swamidog]

i would guess that using a lossy compression on the data stream would kill the projection quality. YMMV

I actually talked to FLECOM a while ago about doing this. You would just want to stream 7 channel FLAC I think, or perhaps something lossless that is CBR... Maybe if you could get Icecast to do OGGPCM @ 8 channels?

A CD is what, 660MB per 74min, so 4x that is 2640MB. Using 60 minutes, that's 44MB a minute. 733KB/sec perhaps? 10 megabits/sec ?
That's raw PCM like a CD, not using FLAC. You can get yourself in trouble since the compression scheme is going to be variable. If it peaks above your bandwidth or ability for computer to decompress real-time.

but modern 50 megabit internet should handle it okay.

Could run audio over MP3 or AAC and save space there, and channel 6 can be dumped usually.

[Shadow]

Glad to hear your thoughts on the matter. How about renting a server for the streaming. No need for youtube and facebook. I figure as long as we have the server we can show and play whatever shows and music we want. I know that Benm on lpf knows his stuff around servers and rentals.
I'll give him a message and see what he says. Just like real LEMs you could charge an admission fee to "attend" the show. That would pay for the server just like it would for the venue at a real LEM.

[telmnstr]

Glad to hear your thoughts on the matter. How about renting a server for the streaming. No need for youtube and facebook. I figure as long as we have the server we can show and play whatever shows and music we want. I know that Benm on lpf knows his stuff around servers and rentals.
I'll give him a message and see what he says. Just like real LEMs you could charge an admission fee to "attend" the show. That would pay for the server just like it would for the venue at a real LEM.

Servers and datacenters and such is my world, that part is the easier part -- although my residential FiOS server is more bang for the buck than colocated servers. Also have experience as a friend and myself used to run a lot of live audio streams of fire/rescue/air traffic to the internet, and I used to run a original local music internet radio station as well.

Bigger issues are going to be that IceCast might not like a 8 channel PCM feed encapsulated in OGG wrapper shoved through it without modifications, not sure.

DarkIce, one of the utilities used to feed Icecast from live input source would probably need to be modified to read from a lightpipe source or one of those multichannel sound cards.

The content is going to be the biggest part. What content? There isn't much that is in the public domain. I might have a *few* DV format shows that I'd be willing to stream as a test, but they're mostly corporate and such. Pangolin content is licensed for use for users of Pangolin software, no go there without approval from show creator. Any of the better commercial shows in hands aren't going to be streamed on something like this.

Also, much of LEMs is about the friend connections IRL. The lasers are the backdrop and common interest.

[buffo]

Also, much of LEMs is about the friend connections IRL. The lasers are the backdrop and common interest.

This.

The appeal of a Laser Enthusiast's Meeting is not the lasers, it's the people. OK, lasers are what draws us together initially, but what KEEPS people coming back year after year are the friendships, the camaraderie, and the face-to-face, hands-on learning possibilities. It's pretty hard to replicate that using the Internet.

If you want to stream laser shows live to your friends, set up a Ustream channel and go for it. Lots of PL members have done this. It's free, and it's an easy way to show off your content, if that's what you want. But without that face-to-face interaction, it's a lot like going to the movies. Entertaining, but not very social.

Adam

[JohnYayas]

Some people can't or don't want to go LEMs for various good reasons. A virtual LEM wouldn't replace a LEM but it could certainly augment them in some ways. For one thing, it immediately would solve geographic distance issues. I don't expect everyone to be interested in this but at the same time I fully expect that it would be interesting to many people. I personally, would at least check it out and would be agreeable to participating. It would be a great way to demo Spaghetti, for example. As long as I can screen share and use my webcam I would easily be able to do that.

So, if someone wants to do the legwork and get it going, I think it would be worth a try. Start a thread, find the technology to host it, and let's do it. At worst, we could just try it once for one hour and see what happens. I think there are some free online meeting things out there but I don't know how many users they support. I suspect that will prevent this from actually working more than lack of interest.