Jason Silver

Refreshing blog

Web Development by CrookedBush.com Inc.

My Journal and Diary

2006

September

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

Concert in a Web Cam

Wow, I just had the most amazing experience.

I put a "trial" concert together for my friends on MySpace. I knew there was a potential for real problems connecting too many people to my web cam, as MountainCable.net, my ISP, told me I had limited bandwidth available for that. They said I might get 4 or 5 listeners and that's all.

So I set out to find the solution, which came in the form of a peer-to-peer broadcasting tool called PeerCast.

Tonight was the trial launch of a concert I want to have for my MySpace friends and other fans, and it was AWESOME. Over 150 people tuned in to hear me play and sing. About 80 were logged into the chat room and conversing with me and each other about my songs. HOW FUN!

My piano is broken, and awaiting repair, so I sang and played guitar. It was quite an intimate affair, with joking and laughing, helping people get connected. After a song, I'd get this torrent of WHOO HOOs from everyone. Very encouraging.

So the next video concert is being planned, but this time with (hopefully) a full band, and a better-looking venue. It's going to take some planning, so if you want to help, let me know.

10 years ago, no one would have guessed that a guy could start his own TV station from his PC. With web cams, peer-to-peer streaming, compressed audio and video streams, and a little creativity, the future comes into appalling focus.

See you next time!

~Jason


Tags:music 0 likes