[Coco] Get Al to the Fest!

[Aaron Wolfe]

Again not encouraging or discouraging video myself, smarter people
than me can decide what is right, but here are some details.

Live streaming from the fest doesn't require a lot of bandwidth or
special equipment.  What you need is the proper distribution method.
This means never, ever trying to provide data from the hotel directly
to the viewers.  This would require X bandwidth * Y users, not good at
all.

Instead, the only practical way is to use a service such as Ustream.
There are probably others, they are just one I am aware of.  You
send a single feed to the Ustream server using their software, which
employees a special low bandwidth codec.  It will automatically reduce
framerates or even fall back to audio only when necessary.   Viewers
then connect not to you, but to the Ustream server where the signal
is relayed to them.  This means whether 1 or 1000 people are viewing
the stream, the bandwidth requirement at the fest location is the
same,
and it works within the hotel's limited bandwidth.

As for the money side, its been mentioned before that Glenside might
be missing an opportunity to generate additional revenues by using the
internet to include those who cannot make it.  I think most of the
ideas were centered around ways to let people online participate in
the fund
raiser auction.  Maybe video access would be another way to raise some
$.  Not sure what the details would be.


On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Boisy G. Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:
> On Feb 18, 2012, at 6:33 PM, Todd Wallace wrote:
>
>> I am all for live streaming. I watched it last year.  Our little coco community is already too small as it.  People have all sorts of reasons they can't attend the cocofest.  To make it some exclusive club thing for ppl with the time/money doesn't make sense in a small community like ours.  It's not like saying "nope. no streaming. you want to see the cool stuff, you better pay!" is gonna suddenly gonna give someone vacation time from work or the cash to travel.
>
> Think of it this way: Glenside uses the fest and the auction as a means to make money so that they can put on another fest the following year.  People who attend "virtually" aren't paying the $15 fee that everyone who is attending in person has to pay, and that's part of Glenside's revenue stream.
>
> I think live streaming is fine as long as those watching the stream are paying something to watch it while it is live.  Any less is freeloading, and not fair to those who have paid to attend in person.
>
> That said, I don't think anyone is going to bother trying to monetize video streaming.
>