Canon HV20 Live Internet Feed at DVinfo.net

Brad Schreiber · April 7th, 2008, 03:06 PM

Hello,

A client of mine has asked me if it is possible to do a live internet feed using my Canon HV20. I have a MacPro I could use as a base station, but I honestly have never done anything like this. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how this might be accomplished?

Brandon Svec · April 7th, 2008, 04:23 PM

I have done this on my iMac with Yahoo Messenger and iChat. Recent versions of OS X support firewire cameras very well.

Brad Schreiber · April 8th, 2008, 07:46 AM

Brandon,
Thank you for your response, but were you able to broadcast the feed on a seperate web page? Also if you could include a little more detail in your process I would appreciate it. I come from a Broadcasting background, and have no real Web-Casting experience.

Ian Albinson · April 8th, 2008, 08:36 AM

QuickTime Broadcaster might be what you're looking for.

URL: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/broadcaster/

John Hotze · April 8th, 2008, 10:27 AM

The Quicktime Broadcaster sounds like a good start for you. Keep in mind if you are wanting to broadcast an event from your own computer via your DSL or Cable ramp to the Internet, you will be severely limited to the amount of clients that can view your stream. We do live streaming here where I work but we use a service bureau that pushes it out on the Internet with a very high bandwidth and all we have to do is push our stream to the service bureau. We're paying about $400 a month for the service. I tested live streaming from my home computer in which I have an upload bandwidth of 512kbs. I pushed it at 640 X480 at over 500 kbs. I think if there were more than 3 or 4 people viewing the stream, they started getting stops and starts from rebuffering. It was a cool venture but not really practical from a home connection. Using a web streaming service bureau is the only way to go if you want a large audience.

Also keep in mind there will be a propagation delay. Ours usually winds up to be about 15 to 20 seconds. Incidentally we're on the PC side of the world and use Windows Media Encoder. It all works very well. Windows Media Encoder recoginzes whatever camcorder we connect to the computer via Firewire. There are lots of different resolutions and bitrates to choose from. We have found our clients get a pretty good experience from pushing out at 320 X 240 at about 360 KB bitrate. You get much higher bitrates and your clients or likely to encounter a lot of rebuffering while viewing the stream. The WME also allows capturing the stream to hard disk, which we also post with or web streaming service for "On Demand" viewing.

Brad Schreiber · April 9th, 2008, 12:41 AM

Ian, thank you for the reference to Quicktime Broadcaster. I appreciate it.

John, could you give me the name of your service, or a service that will work with QT Broadcaster? I would appreciate it, and gladly mention you referred me.

John Hotze · April 9th, 2008, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brad Schreiber

Ian, thank you for the reference to Quicktime Broadcaster. I appreciate it.

John, could you give me the name of your service, or a service that will work with QT Broadcaster? I would appreciate it, and gladly mention you referred me.

I haven't had to contact them for a couple years since we got up an rolling so I can't certify that this contact info is correct. I also don't know whether they support QT Broadcaster since we are strictly a PC shop. Incidentally, I am with Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Mark Wilkes
Streaming Media Hosting
Dedicated Hosting Services
t: 1-800-963-4347 x202
f: 1-949-266-9470
e: mark@streaminghosting.com

Jay Fisk · April 26th, 2008, 12:26 AM

There are several startups that offer free streaming - Try http://www.justin.tv or http://www.ustream.tv/live

They're both flash-based using Flash Media Encoder or ON2 - Justin has private channel options - both are using Amazon's servers and scale as well as most commercial services.

Charles Young · May 25th, 2008, 08:18 PM

VLC media player and a cheap machine connected to a high speed network is the best bet. Do you want the HDV at 30 frames per second? Bandwidth will be your issue.

I think there is a company called www.norpix.com that may be able to help.

Yi Fong Yu · May 27th, 2008, 02:33 PM

are there software or web application services that take ur firewire connection from your camcorder and siphon it into a higher bandwidth server, which buffers a few seconds (delay is fine), then rebroadcasts it on a much faster upload pipe?

sounds like the previous links are similar to youtube, u upload the entire stream then people DL it later. i'm talking about live streams.

Jay Fisk · June 1st, 2008, 11:19 PM

Both Justin and ustream are providing live, flash or ON2 based streaming services and are free.

John Hotze · June 2nd, 2008, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay Fisk

Both Justin and ustream are providing live, flash or ON2 based streaming services and are free.

I wonder what their gig is & why we are paying about $300 a month for a live feed service provider where thousands of viewers can watch at the same time.

Bob Curnow · August 24th, 2008, 03:46 PM

Any comments as to which has the best servers and picture quality? I might do a simple test tonight of ustream.tv , justin.tv , and live.yahoo.com

I guess there are a few others that do online live streaming too... stickam.com , mogulus.com , livevideo.com

Bob C

Bob Curnow · August 25th, 2008, 02:36 PM

My buddy and I tested a few of these sites last night. They all were fairly simple to setup/get going, but our favorite was justin.tv

My buddy has a good eye and he said that although all the sites do 320x240 video as the max size, justin.tv had the clarity advantage. He even went full screen on the video and said it was looking great.

A very close second was ustream.tv

We also tested stickam and live.yahoo.com . They did just fine for the most part. I don't think you can go wrong with any of these... especially considering that they are all FREE!

I was using a JVC GR-DVL9000U mini-dv camcorder outputting via firewire. most of the above websites recognized the camera no problem. This camera is my favorite to use for webcam use because it has a 30p progressive mode... which I assume is outputted as 60i over the firewire... but the computer seems to display it as 30p because there is no interlacing at all. I tried my HV20 first, and it was interlacing bad... whether in 60i or 24p. I bet the HV30 would do just fine in 30p mode though... wish I had one!
Bob C

Bob Curnow · October 26th, 2008, 09:27 AM

The 2008 Halloween Webcam

Check it out, bookmark it, and tune back in on halloween.

Since my last post, ustream has launched it's high quality encoder. It uses the adobe flash media encoder. So, we can now stream widescreen video.

It still has a way to go, such as hdv support. I had to set the HV20 to dv-wide output. But other than that, it is pretty cool. The adobe encoder even has a deinterlacer. Also, my audio is very choppy from any of my mini-dv cams, so I have to use a seperate mic plugged into my computers mic input. I haven't had much time to test it, but I think I am going to stream 640x360 500kbps video and 11hz 20kbps audio. Quality looked pretty good even at 350kbps though.

Anyways, if you're bored halloween evening, tune in!

Bob C

April 7th, 2008, 03:06 PM	#1
Brad Schreiber Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 96	Canon HV20 Live Internet Feed Hello, A client of mine has asked me if it is possible to do a live internet feed using my Canon HV20. I have a MacPro I could use as a base station, but I honestly have never done anything like this. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how this might be accomplished?

April 8th, 2008, 07:46 AM	#3
Brad Schreiber Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 96	Cool Brandon, Thank you for your response, but were you able to broadcast the feed on a seperate web page? Also if you could include a little more detail in your process I would appreciate it. I come from a Broadcasting background, and have no real Web-Casting experience.

April 9th, 2008, 12:41 AM	#6
Brad Schreiber Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 96	Further Details Ian, thank you for the reference to Quicktime Broadcaster. I appreciate it. John, could you give me the name of your service, or a service that will work with QT Broadcaster? I would appreciate it, and gladly mention you referred me.

May 27th, 2008, 02:33 PM	#10
Yi Fong Yu Trustee Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Vulcan Posts: 1,564	are there software or web application services that take ur firewire connection from your camcorder and siphon it into a higher bandwidth server, which buffers a few seconds (delay is fine), then rebroadcasts it on a much faster upload pipe? sounds like the previous links are similar to youtube, u upload the entire stream then people DL it later. i'm talking about live streams. __________________ bow wow wow

April 7th, 2008, 04:23 PM	#2
Brandon Svec Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Alameda, CA Posts: 35	I have done this on my iMac with Yahoo Messenger and iChat. Recent versions of OS X support firewire cameras very well.

April 8th, 2008, 08:36 AM	#4
Ian Albinson Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Springfield, US Posts: 63	QuickTime Broadcaster might be what you're looking for. URL: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/broadcaster/

April 8th, 2008, 10:27 AM	#5
John Hotze Regular Crew Join Date: May 2007 Location: Saint Louis, Missouri Posts: 129	The Quicktime Broadcaster sounds like a good start for you. Keep in mind if you are wanting to broadcast an event from your own computer via your DSL or Cable ramp to the Internet, you will be severely limited to the amount of clients that can view your stream. We do live streaming here where I work but we use a service bureau that pushes it out on the Internet with a very high bandwidth and all we have to do is push our stream to the service bureau. We're paying about $400 a month for the service. I tested live streaming from my home computer in which I have an upload bandwidth of 512kbs. I pushed it at 640 X480 at over 500 kbs. I think if there were more than 3 or 4 people viewing the stream, they started getting stops and starts from rebuffering. It was a cool venture but not really practical from a home connection. Using a web streaming service bureau is the only way to go if you want a large audience. Also keep in mind there will be a propagation delay. Ours usually winds up to be about 15 to 20 seconds. Incidentally we're on the PC side of the world and use Windows Media Encoder. It all works very well. Windows Media Encoder recoginzes whatever camcorder we connect to the computer via Firewire. There are lots of different resolutions and bitrates to choose from. We have found our clients get a pretty good experience from pushing out at 320 X 240 at about 360 KB bitrate. You get much higher bitrates and your clients or likely to encounter a lot of rebuffering while viewing the stream. The WME also allows capturing the stream to hard disk, which we also post with or web streaming service for "On Demand" viewing.

April 26th, 2008, 12:26 AM	#8
Jay Fisk Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: CSL BCS MX Posts: 67	There are several startups that offer free streaming - Try http://www.justin.tv or http://www.ustream.tv/live They're both flash-based using Flash Media Encoder or ON2 - Justin has private channel options - both are using Amazon's servers and scale as well as most commercial services.

May 25th, 2008, 08:18 PM	#9
Charles Young Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Heeney colorado Posts: 103	VLC media player and a cheap machine connected to a high speed network is the best bet. Do you want the HDV at 30 frames per second? Bandwidth will be your issue. I think there is a company called www.norpix.com that may be able to help.

June 1st, 2008, 11:19 PM	#11
Jay Fisk Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: CSL BCS MX Posts: 67	Both Justin and ustream are providing live, flash or ON2 based streaming services and are free.

August 24th, 2008, 03:46 PM	#13
Bob Curnow Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Sonora, CA USA Posts: 50	Any comments as to which has the best servers and picture quality? I might do a simple test tonight of ustream.tv , justin.tv , and live.yahoo.com I guess there are a few others that do online live streaming too... stickam.com , mogulus.com , livevideo.com Bob C

August 25th, 2008, 02:36 PM	#14
Bob Curnow Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Sonora, CA USA Posts: 50	My buddy and I tested a few of these sites last night. They all were fairly simple to setup/get going, but our favorite was justin.tv My buddy has a good eye and he said that although all the sites do 320x240 video as the max size, justin.tv had the clarity advantage. He even went full screen on the video and said it was looking great. A very close second was ustream.tv We also tested stickam and live.yahoo.com . They did just fine for the most part. I don't think you can go wrong with any of these... especially considering that they are all FREE! I was using a JVC GR-DVL9000U mini-dv camcorder outputting via firewire. most of the above websites recognized the camera no problem. This camera is my favorite to use for webcam use because it has a 30p progressive mode... which I assume is outputted as 60i over the firewire... but the computer seems to display it as 30p because there is no interlacing at all. I tried my HV20 first, and it was interlacing bad... whether in 60i or 24p. I bet the HV30 would do just fine in 30p mode though... wish I had one! Bob C

October 26th, 2008, 09:27 AM	#15
Bob Curnow Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Sonora, CA USA Posts: 50	The 2008 Halloween Webcam Check it out, bookmark it, and tune back in on halloween. Since my last post, ustream has launched it's high quality encoder. It uses the adobe flash media encoder. So, we can now stream widescreen video. It still has a way to go, such as hdv support. I had to set the HV20 to dv-wide output. But other than that, it is pretty cool. The adobe encoder even has a deinterlacer. Also, my audio is very choppy from any of my mini-dv cams, so I have to use a seperate mic plugged into my computers mic input. I haven't had much time to test it, but I think I am going to stream 640x360 500kbps video and 11hz 20kbps audio. Quality looked pretty good even at 350kbps though. Anyways, if you're bored halloween evening, tune in! Bob C