i keep seeing these beasts popping up.

sooner or later one of these will be used for festivals/events doing some kind of social media live streaming i'm sure - not sure how it would work out. maybe a nice shotgun mic facing downwards with a nice windscreen on and a basic mobile phone with qik/bambuser installed to start with - mic used as a line in. either way i would love to play with one of these. they look a lot of fun.

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quicklink | http://me.dm/link/lacemarkethouse - google streetview

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based at 54/56 high pavement (@lacemarkethouse) is a brand new high quality and high definition web streaming video studio. our aim is to cater to the person in the street with an idea and concept right through to the fully fledged business with existing products and non-for-profit companies.

the community based 'fibre studio' as we are calling is unique in that we have a very fast fibre optic internet connection allowing us to broadcast video to the internet at a very high quality better than videos you normally find on youtube and facebook. our product has been designed so that the user can 'dropin' to the studio record a bunch of videos and clips and walk out of the studio knowing that the videos are already posted and online ready for you to promote on your blog, company website or intranet.

our prices is extremely low compared to a usual broadcast studio because our overheads are low and we want to scale the business up organically and so we have adjusted our pricing to suit. we are also able to provide additional social media and blogging services to assist our clients with promoting their content across the internet and show you how to build up your audience in the social digital space.

if you require any additional information feel free to contact myself (@philcampbell on twitter) or caron lyon (@pcmcreative on twitter) or use the contact phone numbers below to give us a call. the booking system for the website will be going up shortly on which you can book in the calendar date that suits you best.

example web streaming content shows are.. .

- makeup in hq (getting better, sharper quality that usual youtube videos)
- golf equipment reviews (direct from the source instead of magazine reviews)
- prepaid mastercard (howto use the card, model and spoken word)
- weekly or scripted episode based video show.

our fixed pricing is as follows

9:30 till 11:30 (2hr slot)
- £375 (record as much content as you can fit into 2hrs)

12:30 - 1:30 (3 x 20 minute slots)
- £50 a slot - (fast, company update or progress reports)

2:00 - 4:00 (2hr slot)
- £375 (record as much content as you can fit into 2hrs)

the studio is available every weekend and a special arrangements could be made for later evening or weekends if required but weekends would require the studio be hired for a complete day at a cost of £700 (9:30 > 4pm) - breakfast/lunch would be provided throughout the day.

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some people get to play with the best tools. looking forward to the next generation drone bots to use at sxsw next year utilizing an ipad as the controller. that will seriously be some fun stuff - must talk to the guys that do the hoverpod thing here in nottingham about taking that unit to the next level ;)

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i was moving the studio around yesterday.

             

Click here to download:

reorganising_the_fibre_studio_.zip (941 KB)

- moved the main mac pro into corner away from 'stages'
- ledge above door with bracket to camera @ head height
- sofa on the side wall for weekly show
- main free standing box for twin shot
- old style sofa seats and old reading lighting
- fixed webcam and blue snowball for video chat
- lighting attached to the gazebo

I also came up with a genius idea yesterday that will be very useful for our projects on pcmprojects and also be useful for the studio. i'm keeping it a bit hush hush to raise a bit of excitement because we have to have something custom built and find some cash to enable us to be able to get the kit together. i promise you thou it's gonna be awesome. i spent a few hours yesterday making sure it would work on the configuration i wanted for the lowest possible footprint.

more soon.. .

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currently streaming live to the web with bambuser (our preferred streaming service) using our wirecast (preferred because of the streaming component - waiting for boinxtv to get one!) software to broadcast out live in hq/hd streams means that the format of the video stream for the user is currently flash. of course the problem with this is that many devices do not support flash natively and more people are wanting content mobile and therefore expect a mobile stream.

bambuser are aware of our requirement for a mobile stream (often in quicktime format - h264 and progressive) as part of the 'firingup' process of a bambuser stream is posting the live embed block into the facebook stream thus bringing additional people into the conversation. if your on an iphone or ipad however you do not get the video. we want to fix that.

obviously the additional issue that we have with live streaming video is that not everyone has the time to watch at the time it was streamed so we need to make available the video in as many formats for as many devices as possible. currently the live stream is archived in .flv format and you have to be logged in to get access to that download.

we are looking at building out a small converter system to be able to take the .flv via the api and pass it to a variety of places. the system needs to be modular in that it can pass these videos to an unlimited amount of distribution targets. currently i'm thinking heavily about the following places.

- filter videos based on keywords (so no random mobile videos)
- multiple clients accounts bonded into group
- pass the .flv to encoding.com for conversion to h264 (iphone/ipad)
- while at encoding.com convert to html5 and webm format
- ability to pass through via email to a posterous site (use api/100mb)
- passing for major distribution to blip.tv
- heyspread and heywatch targets (convert to many formats/devices)
- multiple storage locations (clouds and ftp)
- feed different devices rss feeds and itunes

what this will allow is the client to record content at fibreca.mp quickly and for a fee (converting video to different formats costs money) have access to our distribution system admin to be able to select which destinations they would like their content to be spread too (either manual or automagically) across multiple platforms. after this stage work will be required to pull together the conversation from around the web so that a user can reply to messages posted to that service.

we aim to use backtype api for doing this across the clients accounts we will have setup for them. this will allow the client to concentrate on delivering the best content for the show and allow us to spread their output far and wide.

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click on the full screen resize to see the quality this is now working at. now to mess around with boinxtv to see what kind of output i can get from that. i'm quite happy with the camtwist configuration. the fact that you can do categories and sets is a nice touch meaning we can get setup for different shows quickly. we like that.

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quicklink | microsoft bluetooth numpad

       

Click here to download:

using_camtwist_bluetooth_numpa.zip (385 KB)

giving us enough buttons to switch between different views/camera angles to make the video more interesting to the viewer and disconnect us from having to have the computer near allowing us to relocate the computer to side tables around the studio instead of having the round table in the actual shot. my only concern at this stage is if certain applications have the ability to start and stop the stream - not all applications we use have the ability to hot-key certain actions.

we will be using this setup in the fibrestudio (which btw will have a new home at http://fibreca.mp - we are going to offer hotdesking shortly too) for switching between the main camera and the secondary dv input. we need to get additional stands and tripod mounts firstly to make these fixed assets.

i did a little screencast showing you how this thing actually works utilizing camtwist as an example - but we know that boinxtv can switch between layers too.

pros

- you can switch to different shots without computerin shot/nearby.
- setup all the media for the client before they arrive at the studio. 
- it's fracking bluetooth dude. 
- using boinxtv you can switch natively between layers.

cons

- battery powered so another battery to have 'in stock' in the studio 

camtwist / wirecast / ideas

- had a few times when the software 'locked up' - not uber reliable.
- have to play with the window capture sizing to get right 
- wirecast can stream hq/hd automatically it has not hotkey ability :( 
- another piece of software to have running/setup 
- bit of a flick between 'sets' in camtwist may lose video as loads.
- noticed you had to restart camtwist to be able to set the sets from new 
- would be great to start and stop wirecast broadcasting 
- camtwist input main camera in wirecast, use boinxtv layers switching?
- can stop and start boinxtv rec/stop on a hotkey?

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i noticed quickly on this stream that you saw some compression blocks but that is because both my laptop and main machine are doing backblaze backups as well so might have been effected by this for upload speed today. hope video explains a few things.

we are using wirecast for this broadcast again but we are going to start a fusion of using wirecast and boinxtv - one so we have the great pre-production enhancements of boinxtv but using the strong streaming features of wirecast that allow us to broadcast directly into bambuser fms (flash media server) backend to get that hq/hd stream.  it works perfectly and i prefer to use bambuser over livestream and many others.

*NEWSFLASH* - check out http://bambuser.com/business for some awesome
things coming from bambuser

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We used boinxtv in basic mode today quickly and uploaded the content to vimeo.  should have it setup to stream out to bambuser next week but it does not give us that better picture quality that wirecast does - we are testing a bunch of applications that give us different features that we can offer from the studio.

donations welcomed for a second lapel mic welcomed.  we are actually looking around now for additional kit.  first thing is a bluetooth keypad.  you'll see why in the coming week.

Issuu - http://www.issuu.com
Mobile Roadie - http://mobileroadie.com
Mini Moo Cards - http://uk.moo.com/en/products/minicards.php
Band Central - http://www.bandcentral.com
Delivr - http://delivr.com
Miro Video Converter - http://www.mirovideoconverter.com
Scribd - http://www.scribd.com
Multiurl - http://www.multiurl.com

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Setting up for a live video stream at nine am this morning talking all things data centre and nottingham with emnet this morning but before that i thought i would show you some of the cool branding we will be using for the studio.   His name is 'speedo' - we like him a lot! :)

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i think the media say it all really.

                                                                                       

Click here to download:

Fantastic_Social_Media_in_Busi.zip (6458 KB)

also managed to record some vimeo clips outside of the work that i was doing.

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a great little interview for her forthcoming videoblog series.

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a few weeks ago i was concentrating on the house - hoping that maybe a secure base would make me feel like i had some kind of security, appears not.

bits of furniture and deep cleaning from room to room started to become morbid again when i was presented with each room needing *something* for it to be sorted. during the last week or so i have been just 'living' here - my motivation has dropped off - due in part from a variety of 'life' things. sods law thou (all of a sudden) my projects seem to be heading at full tilt again, trying to have the funds to get to places has been a bit of a restriction however this week. I thought i would put a list of projects that i will be working (or hoping to work on) in the coming month(s)

the nottingham and birmingham hubs
i've become very attached to both places, probably nottingham more so because of the faster connection (i'm a sucker for bandwidth) - nottingham is great to get to the lacemarket house for the fibre studio within ten minutes and birmingham with aquilatv in broad street is great when i want a change of scenery over in brum - they always have a really energetic vibe going on in the office with lots of things getting edited or talked about. i like that a lot. falling face first into both places and scrambling to my feet on both as been an experience so far - i'm really hoping to tap into some of the local nonprofits in nottingham and see what fantastic things we can get started with them in the fibre web streaming studio. i need to structure out some flyers and start really actively promoting that around the city. so much of the city i have not seen yet. would like to make some of the places nearby aware of what is possible from our little room.

a buddist podcast
a good friend who i have known for a long time (time flys with online friendships) jason jarrett and his lovely family has been producing the buddist podcast for five years now. it has a massive following in a large number of countries and recently we caught up in austin, texas at south by southwest (sxsw) - it seems weird to only see your friends outside of the country at conferences but it was a great surprise and a much needed chat and catchup. i'll be working with jason raising the social media profile of the buddist podcast and making sure that the distribution of the podcast is spread across as many platforms and formats as possible. it actually goes hand in hand with an idea i have had for years which needs a simple transcoding engine to take a format and encode into a variety of formats. i'm looking forward to see what open source code is now out there for conversion. be nice to get back into that side of things. i'll be working on his facebook fan page to start. Looking forward to seeing him this week to talk about the projects.

little old me is giving a lecture of sorts at nottingham university
how strange. feels like a weird paradox, to be presenting to a BA multimedia course about the 'things i do' - the social media work and how i got myself started with my personal brand - in fact why, i got started with it is probably more order of the day - i'm hoping it will go well, not really sure what to expect and i have no idea how many people will attend. i really need to start working on something punchy for this tomorrow. i need to find a stack of graphics and totally redo parts of my presentations. I was hoping to get a few other of my social media friends in attendance so they could tell the story of their 'entry'

an entrepreneur with a suite of businesses & services
not really keen to let this one out of the bag just yet until we have had our first meeting next week but if things 'click' and we feel like we could have a good working partnership together i think this suite of businesses and projects could be the cornerstone to my social media output (for nottingham to start) with a clear connection with the fibre studio at lacemarket house we are building out. this businessman (all to be revealed!) has a number of businesses in and around nottingham and is expanding into other areas of the uk as we speak. the crossover could be fantastic.

an old client reappears in walsall
not really sure what went wrong here, break down in communications or just issues that never got resolved in the right way but i do know that the website that we wrote from the ground up never truly got used and since then a lot has changed in the website world. i no longer enjoy or find the time to spec out website builds when the majority of people are using the transport of social networking websites to get to content - the times of the static website are gone. it has to be easy to post to and realtime. i'm hoping that if the client goes ahead that again we will go with a custom, themed version of posterous and spend a few days onsite with the team training them up in using the social media tools. i'm hoping this time they will be able to have someone spend at least once a week publishing content out to the website. doing things by email and using gadgets like the iphone make things so much easier these days.

a meeting in london with a master of a card
i recently picked up and blogged about the prepaid mastercard from mygocard.co.uk that can be topped up at any paypoint or be loaded up by bacs (social, wages, etc) - one of the features that really jumped off the page to me was the ability to send funds to another card. this started me thinking about the homeless and the fact that your not required to have this card 'tied' to an address - you have a method of banking that requires no address - something very difficult to do if your homeless with no fixed abode. The first idea was to simply have those workers that you have problems employing because of such a situation utilise the sms sending ability from a master company card.

The second idea was based around the idea of crowd-sourcing money via sms/twitter gateways to fund projects in a style similar to the way that kickstarter works in america. but this would be realtime and people could sponsor a variety of projects. i believe you can only have £3000 on the card at one time and you can only load £10000 onto it in one year. I think the idea for crowd-sourcing social media projects, creative arts and 'let's just build it' ideas could be massive with mygocard at the helm being the main sponsor. After all, they get commission from all transactions. I'm hoping we can talk about those charges too! :)

developing closer ties with hardware vendors for social media makers
already planted the seed with this some time ago and have a few hardware companies onboard with carrying on the conversation with a client and the use of the product after the sale. some of the content that is being produced by social media people 'ontheground' can directly feed back into promotion of the products and in turn the development cycle of future products that everyone needs rather than what everyone wants. i'll be starting an unofficial cradlepoint users website for all the prize winners that we had the chance to meet in austin and other users and communities that i have met recently in nottingham.

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what a fantastic day. still rejoicing in the fact that lots of keen media makers turned up and wanted to learn a bunch of new stuff

With my head still in the clouds after southby (sxsw) the mediacamp had quickly rolled around and i found myself over in nottingham again at the @lacemarkethouse getting ready for the saturday morning. The web streaming studio had just taken delivery of a settee (which is wonderful btw) and i had just gotten my head around the wiring up of the single lapel mic that we had been donated by @aquilatv - i ended up using the rode ntg-2 microphone to do interviews however.

People started to arrive early and the main room soon filled up for the great starting session by @lesanto about ten years in the past and ten years into the future of all the wonderful technology and gadgets, gadgety we get to play with (you can see it on ustream) I got to do a session about posterous which i hoped was received well and some wordpress people seemed to like the simple approach to blogging and get the message i was trying to spread about it being so very simple. it was great to get people excited about a service that on the face of it looks too simple to be useful but actually under the hood is very powerful - i'm excited to get my friends and prizewinners on a collaboration blog about the cradlepoint products.

Not only to keep in the loop with them about how they are getting on with the devices but also to try and learn new stuff they are finding the device can do. i know for instance that it has some kind of gps tracking/location thing that it can do (updating or something) and i'm sure we can build some really interesting mashups around that! :)

Ben Walker was on usual fantastic form and that guy seems to have been born with that guitar attached to his fingers - he did a fantastic set and he still manages to surprise me with his delivery even when tired - he just goes into performance mode. you really should book him to enhance your social media style media events. honestly, you will not be disappointed. Some of the things i noticed that the web streaming studio now needs to start empowering/delivering on.

• weekly skype dial in or tokbox chats. i now have the moderator tools and can manage a chat session better (timed chats weekly) 
• get my greenscreen over to nottingham (if i can the darn thing in the bag!) and start playing with boinxtv again 
• the unofficial cradlepoint users posterous of the ground and some funding together for the layout, design and slice. 
• find a 'day' sponsor for the room and start to gather local nonprofits, charities - high quality video for their website or blog. 
• additional second and third camera - one for macro on products and one for variety - donation or cheap hdmi out devices that work
• need to speak to blackmagic or find funding to get additional cards for the mac pro
• weekly live 'gravity' shows where we actually step through a product and service to compliment the 'audiogravity' audio podcast series
• we need sponsoring for the 4/8 channel alesis usb mixer
• revisit the configuration of the studio, look at organising the camera layout, cabling should be covered or 'out of sight'
• address the boomy sound of the room - find acoustic people who might be interested in at least giving us a quote for the work
• noticed that the video at times was a little bit blocky/compression on bambuser
• need to research distribution to multiple targets at the same time. media process/pipeline to do that.

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Click here to download:

the_streaming_studio_now_has_a.zip (6880 KB)

So really chuffed to see everytime that i come into the studio changes and differences happening - really fills you with excitement for what it possible. I'm speaking with a few people to start putting some lists together for nonprofits in the area as well so we can capture some video interviews with them and give them some high quality video/audio content for their websites. I'll start to work on the website for booking services this coming week. i have a mockup but i think i need to revisit it to make it more fun and run it past a few people first.

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