I’ve been working on a new integrated chat and video page. I tried a couple of 2-column CSS layouts, tweaked one, picked it and started dressing it up.

phpFreeChat requires that IE be in IE7 compatibility mode which messes up some of the formatting. The big problem if the browser window is too skinny, but for now I think we’re safe (enough) to assume that IE users’ windows will be at least 1000px wide. IE7 mode also messes up one of the new Twitter widgets I added to the page, but it’s also functional enough and doesn’t detract. I might be able to work around these problems by putting chat in an iframe, but I haven’t tried yet.

Oh yeah, I added a Twitter search box that follows #DBAsAtMidnight and a button that tweets to #DBAsAtMidnight, so maybe we can get some cross-discussion people chat and Twitter. There is also a “Follow @MidnightDBA” button. The MSSQL community has a large and active presence on Twitter. (Pssst…search for #SQLhelp)

Sean wants a live viewer count on the page, and that’s a fabulous idea. But at the moment I don’t have comprehensive stats logging, but it was on my list to do real soon. We’ll probably manage something with an AJAX update from a text file we’ll refresh periodically. The trick would seem to be that we’re running two streaming servers: Windows Media Services for the main feed and a VLC h.264/AAC transcoder for the Flash and iPad/iPod viewers.

I’m hoping to get one integrated chat/video page to support all browsers, but that won’t happen this week. For now I’ll have 2-4 interface pages to support the various combinations. Targets include:

• Windows Media Player plugin (primary, best stream)
• Flash (transcoded)
• HTML5 video (not sure yet if this works live, should work in iPad, transcoded)
• Silverlight (might allow all browsers on Windows to access the primary stream)

Windows Media Services and player will likely continue to be our primary target because of the features we have. I hope to soon start multi-bitrate encoding so the streaming quality can rise and fall with the client’s bandwidth availability.

Now I need to go work on something else we talked about in the show meeting, but I can’t tell you what just yet.

Usually both speakers are facing away from Sean and Jen and the mic, towards where I sit. Up until Friday I turned one speaker towards them and left one facing me so the infrared remote would work. I watch the VU meter on the video encoder to gague where I need the volume to be, but it often seems a bit loud to Sean and me, and it isn’t coming across as well as I’d like on the microphone.

This week I realized their monitor (doubling as a stand for camera one) was between the speaker and microphone, so I moved the speakers forward so both of them face the microphone, and the IR-receiver speaker is also tilted towards me so the remote works. I think the music sounded noticeably better on this week’s recording, and the VU meter looked like it was picking up enough volume without Sean or me complaining about the in-studio volume.

I guess that’s so simple it’s stupid, but sometimes you don’t notice the blindingly obvious until you look at what you’re doing and ask yourself if something could be done better.

So I still have no solution for putting text or image overlays encoded in the video stream. That seems so simple in concept, and the LifeCam driver lets me use all sorts of silly video filters like putting hats on a person’s head, sunglasses on their face or floating stars over their head. I don’t see how they missed letting me put a static logo or some text in there instead.

First I want to talk about recent changes and last week’s show. We’re recently clamping one or two of the webcams to tripods, which gives us a lot of flexibility in placing the cameras and even moving them during the show. Previously we were using monitors or old laptops as camera stands or setting them on a table.

We had Sri Sridharan (NTSSUG president) live on set campaigning for a seat on the PASS board. I set up camera 3 on a tripod on the desk so it was eye level as he was standing at his podium, but when he came on live it looked like the camera was looking down on him. I then realized the camera was angled down, and I had used the software’s zoom and pan controls to frame the set, and that caused a perspective control problem. See how the left side of the flag and backdrop converges inward, giving the perspective of looking down? If I had thought about or noticed this beforehand I could have physically moved the camera to frame the set and have both sides of the flag and backdrop appear vertical. If you want to know the details look up view cameras, architectural photography or shift lenses, but make sure the webcam—specifically the focal plane—is parallel to the backdrop or whatever virtual plane you want to appear flat.

This week’s show: I tried hard with camera 1 to keep the backdrop looking square while being eye-height with Sean and Jen. It took more camera-moving than I expected, but it looks a lot better. Actually the photo doesn’t look as good as I thought I had aligned it, but when I aligned it the backdrop was rolled up, so I had to align by the top only. I guess next week I need the backdrop down before adjusting the camera.

This week we had Denny Cherry as a live guest. It’s hard to properly fit three people on camera one. I’m not sure how much we can do about this with the current set. Camera one sits on top of a monitor Sean and Jen use during the show. I might be able to mount it elsewhere, but there is a lot of desk and table and stuff to work around. There is also the problem that moving the camera back exposes even more space not covered by the backdrop, but I don’t think we’re too picky about that.

Camera two is our favorite camera for Sean’s rants. Due to inertia it has been sitting on a spare monitor on a PC to Sean’s camera-left. He can look down into it, and it provides I think an interesting different perspective to the set. Well, the PC and monitor got moved for this week’s show, so I used a tripod. I wanted the camera to still look up at Sean, but I overdid it. It was almost down to tabletop level, and the perspective was too jarring. It doesn’t have to be much below eye level to make a difference.

Camera three has generally been to Jen’s camera-right and high. It’s sort of been a backstage look where you can see what’s on the desk and what’s around them. I would like to be more creative with camera three, but not much has come to mind.

Actually we’d really like at least four cameras. We have more than four, but so far due to USB bandwidth limits we have only been able to get three going.

Things to work on this week include restyling the chat page and video windows. Currently I have the video launch in a new window. Sean wants the video and chat side-by-side, but getting that to work properly in all our viewers’ browsers is tricky, and modifying the width of phpFreeChat has proven problematic.

Speaking of browsers, I would have thought that MSSQL DBAs would be watching the show with Windows and IE, but most of them use other combinations like Chrome, Firefox and iPads.

I also need to make progress on figuring out how to get live video guests on live, and preferably either split-screen or PiP with the live cams.

So please allow myself (IT Know-It-All) to introduce myself (midnightFreddie) as our new blogger!

Why, thank you, me!

We are currently using Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 to produce and record the live video. This allows us to switch between multiple webcams, screencasting and prerecorded media, however you can’t add or remove media or alter the screencast settings while broadcasting, and all the webcams are active at the same time.

We were excited about using multiple cameras, but since Expression Encoder keeps them all on at the same time we found out that multiple webcams will use up your USB 2 bandwidth in a hurry. We currently manage to run 3 webcams and a USB microphone, but hope to be able to add more with some equipment changes. Also, with all the webcams active, all the “live” lights are on, so Jen and Sean can’t tell which camera is currently broadcasting.

Between Expression Encoder and the LifeCam driver we are unable to split-screen, picture-in-picutre or even overlay text or graphics while broadcasting live. Silly face-tracking, distortion effects and color filters are plentiful, but we can’t put text or a logo on the video? Really? I tried using WebCamMax‘s virtual webcam as an input to Expression Encoder to add capabilities, but I can’t get WebCamMax’s output resolution to change from 800×600, and we’re broadcasting widescreen. WebCamMax also does not seem to switch smoothly between input cameras, and it takes up a lot of CPU cycles. It has been very difficult to get what I want with consumer webcams and software.

A big goal is to be able to have live video-chat guests on the show. We’re thinking Skype but haven’t worked out how to get the Skype video on our video. We might try something hackish like screen capturing the Skype video window, but we really want to have the show hosts and the guest on the screen simultaneously.

For sound we have a Yeti USB microphone, and any music and sound effects are played from speakers and picked up by the microphone. This is very convenient, but the sound is not top-notch. I would like more quality and control over sound, but it is adequate for now, and we have other features to work towards first.

Sean and Jen McCown, the MidnightDBAs started recording a weekly video in 2009 and later started live broadcasting the show and posting the recording on their website later.

When I joined the show they were using Ustream.tv for live broadcast and chat while using a second webcam and Debut video capture software to record the show for republication. I was able to change to widescreen video and update the quality and features within the Ustream controls, but Ustream had a habit of frequently changing the user interface and increasing ad intrusion until we finally got fed up and looked for other options.

I will write up articles on how we live stream self-hosted video as IT Know-It-All, but I decided I will also post weekly show production notes.

So please allow myself (IT Know-It-All) to introduce myself (midnightFreddie) as our new blogger!