Streaming Setup

Sorry, due to technical problems with the webcam microphone distorting the audio and a synchronization bug when using an external microphone, we have temporariliy disabled streaming of the open mic nights. We will switch to an audio only feed in approximately two weeks until this is resolved. Please check back then.

Tuesday nights at 10PM Hong Kong Time (GMT +8), you can watch open mic live over the internet.. Tune in by dropping this link into your Windows Media Player (or compatible streaming player), currently hosted by our California server dante:

	mms://dante.peelfresco.com:7012

NB - The stream will only error out before the uplink begins broadcasting! If you don't want to do the timezone math to figure out when the starting time is, please take a look at the World Time and Date calculator and punch in your timezone.

If you encounter technical problems, please write us at Tech@peelfresco.com and we will try to correct the issue for the next session.

Technical Support Frequently Asked Questions

1. Tuning in / Playback
   1. What system hardware and software do I need to watch?
   2. Why doesn't this work in Quicktime?
   3. Are you recording this? Can I see past shows?
   4. How can I tell if my connection is fast enough?
   5. I still have a question...
2. How it's powered
3. Miscellanea
   1. You guys are great! I'd love to leave you a tip, how can I contribute?
   2. What's the answer to life, the universe, and everything?

1. Tuning in / Playback

   1. Question: What system hardware and software do I need to watch?

      • Windows Media Player or an mmsh / WMPv1 - MP3 compatible stream decoder
      • Approximately 400kbps available bandwidth to dante.peelfresco.com

   2. Question: Why doesn't this work in Quicktime?

      The short answer: We're working on it.

      The longer answer: Quicktime doesn't like the WMPv1 video codec and the ASF container format. We're going to need to do some experiments to figure out the best way to simulcast the video streams, but it will probably involve setting up a second streaming server connection endpoint for quicktime users and copying / transcoding the stream to an appropriate container and video codec in the rebroadcast (seems easier than setting up a second camera).

   3. Question: Are you recording this? Can I see past shows?

      Yes, but not really. At the moment we're only recording the streams for post analysis on how we did to improve the quality in successive broadcasts. When the beta ends, we have some plans to archive the past sessions for the artists involved and the club members who've agreed to the IP terms. Who knows, maybe we'll throw it on youtube later..

   4. Question: How can I tell if my connection is fast enough?

      While these measures aren't terribly accurate, they can give you a general idea of whether your connection is fast enough.

      1. The Bandwidth Place

      The actual stream is about 400kbps (kilobits per second) from dante.peelfresco.com. Since these bandwidth tests are measuring your speed to other places on the internet, the results may not be directly applicable for downloading speed from dante. In general, assume that the speed should be about 20% more than what is required to leave a margin of safety for a good watching experience.

      Also, keep in mind that if you are downloading lots of things, using peer to peer sharing protocols such as bittorrent or gnutella, or streaming other music / video anywhere on your connection (someone else in another room or outside if you forgot to lockup your wireless, for example), then that will cut your actual available streaming bandwidth.

   5. Question: I still have a question...

      Email us at Tech@peelfresco.com and we will try to answer your question.

2. How it's powered

   Question: How did you guys get this to work? What's under the hood?

   Answer: As you might know, Fresco is an open source powered bar - we've got a gentoo linux box sitting in the backroom. I managed to get the PWC driver to find the webcam, and was able to capture some video using mplayer.

   Unfortunately, mplayer doesn't seem to like encoding on the fly and sending the video to an upstream reflection point (the broadband connection at Fresco probably isn't enough to support more than a few of you at a time), so I built the VLC stack (based on the "transcode" framework).

   VLC ended up doing the trick for the primary encoding / uplink and the rebroadcasting / streaming reflection service.

3. Miscellanea

4. Question: You guys are great! I'd love to leave you a tip, how can I contribute?

   Well, we are a bar.. You can come down and buy a drink and show that you like this sort of thing and want to see it keep going ;)

   You can also contribute to some of the projects that we use to make this a reality. Here's some examples:

   • Gentoo: These guys made a hell of a linux distribution, tight, maintainable, and it can be completely optimized to extract every last ounce of computation power from your existing hardware. Go to Gentoo.org and click "Make a Donation" on the upper right in the body
   • VLC: One of the top open source video/audio playback and streaming systems. They have a contribution page here.

5. Question: What's the answer to life, the universe, and everything?

   42. The wikipedia seems to know everything, as usual.

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