[57north-discuss] Live Video Streaming Project

[Hibby]

Ace, I see there's some interest...

On the money idea, perhaps it's worth looking into community project bursaries from ACC, the one that Andy, Midder and I applied for last year is open again [1] and I think this ticks every box if we pitch it as a "community event broadcasting" system. 
Tied in to Aberdeen's Digital Infrastructure/Wifi/Superfast broadband investment that's going on,  we might be on to something that the council would assist in funding. We might 'only' get 5k, but that could be the base cost for a production workstation, a few ok cameras and a decent audio set up.
They're having a few turn-up-and-discuss meetings in the coming months, and applications are due April 26.

I see a lot of digital cameras, control surfaces and VMSes passing through my workshop - There's an increasing number of 4k PTZ options on the market now for ~$2.5k USD, but to be honest the technical overheads incurred with 4K are still high and with 1080p being 'good enough' for most situations for the next 5 years, I'd maybe pitch 1080p system with a future expansion to 4k once hardware costs are lower. 4K cameras and 1080p output stream would be lovely, but might be costly. 

There are also digital / USB control keyboards, and with the rise of ONVIF it's becoming easier to do network control, but I don't believe that OBS has support for that. There's a problem to solve there - two operator workstations, one for camera, one of live production. Maybe production also has a 4-8 channel audio desk... 
All of a sudden, it's beginning to grow legs. 

There is the issue I forsee that as the system becomes more expensive and complicated / professional it becomes a) less easy to reproduce for other small groups and b) we are increasingly tied to it, and will have to provide things like training services or our own outside broadcast support...
 
For PoC, I was wondering about how well £40 1080p 'security cameras'  would work as a starter, so we can assemble something, find the most immidiate pain points and then work to solve them before upping the investment requirement...

[1] https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/services/leisure-culture-and-parks/creative-funding-awards-2019-20

-- 
  Hibby
  d at vehibberd.com
  MM3ZRZ

> 
> Sounds like a cool project, best deal plan going forward is to get like
> 10-20k for equipment. I don't think it is a crazy ask, I am sure someone
> will fund it.
> 
> As for a PoC, these all sound like the correct peices, OBS is the right
> thing to use. There are some ideas in my talk that you liknk in the
> thread, but it is a different end goal. 
> 
> At work we have PTZ cameras that have a serial control interface,
> unfortuneately they output analog video. We use a Roland 4VEX video
> mixer to digitise the video, that is a 4k item (see you quickly need
> lots of money).
> 
> For a POC we might be able to arrange tests with the stuff from work, I
> would have to ask when I return from the ietf (mid april).
> 
> Beyond that you need to think about audio (do others do it) and
> operators. This will take atleast 1 person to run, but I think more like
> 3.
> 
> There is a lot to this idea, could be fun to play with. I'll give it
> some more thought on the remaining 13 hours of this flight (4 down!)
> 
> - [tj]
>