As you might already know, I have been playing around with live streaming shibari sessions with some degree of success. Admittedly, the broadcasts have been a little variable as I have experimented with the settings and hardware. The last one only being marred by an irritating clicking sound which, although I have no idea of its cause, has now disappeared after changing the codec. As an unexpected side effect, it became possible to view the output on my Android tablet. I suspect this means iPad compatibility as well. Already, the video quality is superb and a major sound upgrade appears to be only a long extension cable away.
The most significant upgrade has been to the capture side. Adobe Flash Live Media Encoder worked but is limited compared to Wirecast. Wirecast allows multiple cameras and provides a very flexible and professional choice of ways to display the output. It even offers screen in screen, multiple views and live editing. So far, it doesn’t look as if the learning curve will be too steep, so expect some big improvements. I have had screen in screen running and even a 3-cam set up which included my HV20 DV cam.
My geriatric notebook has proved no match for this sort of technology. Given that loading a browser seems a supreme effort for it, I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d really like to be able to go mobile for outside broadcasts from BOUND and other events. Consequently, I’m trying to negotiate the maze of i7 laptops and get some bang for my buck. I’m confident a solid HD single cam stream should be possible but I’d prefer user selectable 2-cam if that wouldn’t break the bank.
It’s beginning to look like a very good idea that I snagged the domain name shibari.tv recently 😉
The next stream is 19:00 GMT, Saturday 12 October. Click to watch live shibari tv.