Streaming Media/Cameras - 2013 Official Thread

Its going to quickly be that time of year again, so I thought I'd start the official thread.

The Streaming Media team will be monitoring and updating this thread from now until the end of the show. Any questions, comments ect please post up here and we will do our best to address them.

Here is the plan....its pretty much the same as last year. There will be 3 roving cameras on top of the way finding towers. One overlooking the ultralights and the far end of the grounds and 18/36, one on the vintage tower covering show center and the middle area of 18/36, and one overlooking the Warbirds and covering 9/27.

We are planning on the airshow feed from the professional cameraman on the FAA tower again this year. As in years past we are sharing his time with other media outlets, so expect the same random shots and not getting to see 100% of everything in the show. Remember its one guy up there with a list of shots from dozens of people he is expected to capture, we are just along for the ride. We are working to have greater availability of the airshow stream. Last year we know we had capacity issues, steps have been taken to address that, but still have the highest quality stream, on as many platforms/devices as is practical.

Theater in the Woods. The theater lineup, as we have seen it so far is very interesting, and we again will stream all presentations that do not have copyright issues associated with doing so. We have been outfitted with a few sport cams which we have a desire to play with, so everybody might be subjected to additional random stuff before the Theater presentations start. Along those lines, if anybody has footage they wish to share through the week, let us know.

Thanks everybody,

***Updates***

All Cams online and functional. Still testing, so there may be occasional random issues...

What date does the live video start?

that is a magical and mystical answer...It depends on about 6 parts to fall into place but I would think its safe to say they will be live well in advance of the show. I think last year we were live 10 or so days before.

Thanks for all of the hard work to make this happen. I won't be attending...again...but I will someday! I really enjoy listening to ATC and watching the arrivals.

Interested in your last statement Paul, about sharing footage. I've asked around and tried for the past couple years to volunteer in a video capacity. I've got a Prosumer level video rig, full HD, and all the accompanying gear to get decent footage. I edit with the Adobe Premier suite. I shoot hours of footage all over the field each year, but really don't do anything with it other than enjoy it myself at home. My son shoots with me, so we get multiple angles and perspectives of the events and airshow acts. We've been at this video thing for years, shooting weddings, airshows, car races, and performing arts events. We're happy to share it if there's some way we can help out.

the wayfinding towers are up, so we are one step closer to live. Now I think those cement mixer trucks are having a little too much fun hauling butt down the taxi way. Sawdust, PM'd you

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Originally Posted by Paul Hayden

the wayfinding towers are up, so we are one step closer to live. Now I think those cement mixer trucks are having a little too much fun hauling butt down the taxi way. Sawdust, PM'd you

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I'd love to see footage of that! :)

Are they Oshkosh cement mixers?

Hi Paul

Regarding the wayfinding tower camera tracking, can you please ensure that we have more ground coverage and less trees and sky? The trees are lovely, but when you've seen them once.... And the sky would be great if the cameras could track the flying, but as they can't, empty blueness (we hope) is pretty boring, and frustrating when we know that there's action on the ground.

By the way, a PioneerCam would be wonderful! How about that as an addition for next year?

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Originally Posted by RodBearden

Hi Paul

Regarding the wayfinding tower camera tracking, can you please ensure that we have more ground coverage and less trees and sky? The trees are lovely, but when you've seen them once.... And the sky would be great if the cameras could track the flying, but as they can't, empty blueness (we hope) is pretty boring, and frustrating when we know that there's action on the ground.

By the way, a PioneerCam would be wonderful! How about that as an addition for next year?

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Ron,

I am assuming you are talking about the Airshow camera and not the Wayfinding Cameras as the cameras mounted on the wayfinding towers can not look up at the sky. Generally we have the wayfinding cameras running on an automated tour that stops at certain areas of activity or shows some of the general area of the airshow grounds. When the camera moves from point to point, the camera software decides how it is going to move the lens and is not something we can control.

For the Airshow Camera. We have been lucky to be able to provide this feed the last few years for those that have not been able to attend. The reason I say we are luck is we are not in charge of the camera or operator that we get this video from. He works for a different area and is given daily assignments of what items he is to capture during the day. So while he is recording the airshow, he also has to do some of his other assignments as well. Far as the camera being pointed at the sky, it can be very difficult to follow or find some planes as they are soaring or tumbling across the sky. There are times as well you will see the camera pointed at tents, trees, etc... this occurs as he is adjusting some of the balances on the camera as the conditions change. And there are times that the camera might just be parked in one position, he the only person up on the control tower operating the camera, standing out in the hot sun for hours at a time. He deserves a break once and awhile to get a drink or cool down a bit. You might not think running a camera is hard work, but when you are the only one doing it for hours at a time and standing in the hot sun, you will get tired. Without us being able to piggy back our video feed off this camera, we would not be providing this feed to you at all.

Far as the Pioneer Camera idea, I like that. We will add that to the list of possible additions in the future. We do hope to be able to provide some recorded footage of that this year from some action cameras that were added this year. What for some misc feeds during the day running on the Theater in the Woods Camera link. Remember this will be random, so check and see from time to time.

Todd Ritzman
Media Streaming Chairman

www.airventure.org/webcams

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Originally Posted by pjaffray

www.airventure.org/webcams

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Awesome!

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Originally Posted by pjaffray

www.airventure.org/webcams

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Yes, as some of you have found, some of the cameras are online, but not officially yet.

While we are using the same settings as last year, we are having some difficultly with the connections on the DSL lines. You will find that some of them pause or jerk in there movements and sometimes even drop offline entirely. We are aware of this and are looking into trying to resolve the issues. Because of this, we will be taking the cameras offline at times as well.

Both Paul and I hope to be in Oshkosh tomorrow for awhile to test the DSL connections and start some troubleshooting.

Todd Ritzman

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Originally Posted by Todd Ritzman

Yes, as some of you have found, some of the cameras are online, but not officially yet.

While we are using the same settings as last year, we are having some difficultly with the connections on the DSL lines. You will find that some of them pause or jerk in there movements and sometimes even drop offline entirely. We are aware of this and are looking into trying to resolve the issues. Because of this, we will be taking the cameras offline at times as well.

Both Paul and I hope to be in Oshkosh tomorrow for awhile to test the DSL connections and start some troubleshooting.

Todd Ritzman

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Thanks for volunteering your time and expertise gentlemen.

Hi Todd

Thanks for that. I was talking about the Wayfinding cameras - as they move between some points on some traverses, they aim at the sky rather than the ground - I noticed that last year as well as in the last couple of days. For example the Ultralight one, on its track from left to right along the ultralight runway, it just catches the tops of the trees while below the trees there's interesting stuff going on. I understand that the track is automatic, but perhaps you can program an extra stop on that traverse to lower the camera.

I appreciate what you say about the Airshow feed - I regard that as a great bonus when it does aim at the action!

As to the Pioneer Webcam, I reckon one on the Museum tracking the length of the runway and returning via the hangars would be a great addition for us poor souls who can't get there every year. Even when I have visited AirVenture, the webcams are great to check out what's going on when I'm back in the hotel/university room.

Keep up the great work - and many thanks for it!

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Originally Posted by Todd Ritzman

Yes, as some of you have found, some of the cameras are online, but not officially yet.

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:) :) :)

Official or not, seeing the live feed with tents going up, mowed grounds, people setting things up - gets me so pumped for Oshkosh! Wish I lived closer and could work weekends helping prep, but we'll be there ready to help on the 27th! Thanks so much for getting these cameras up!
Steve

If you want to view the webcams (Flash video) on your your iPad or iPhone, download a free app called "Photon". Paste or type in the URL address, hit enter and press the lightning bolt symbol in the tool bar and your set.
Mike

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Originally Posted by mikeno

If you want to view the webcams (Flash video) on your your iPad or iPhone, download a free app called "Photon". Paste or type in the URL address, hit enter and press the lightning bolt symbol in the tool bar and your set.
Mike

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Sounds like an interesting tool, but not necessary in this case - the webcam streams play on IOS devices (via HTML 5, I believe) without any additional plugins or apps.

Don't know if you worked on them, or if it's just lighting, but the video quality on the South and Central cams looks much better today. The ground level scan on the South cam is great - will show so much more of what's going on. So appreciate what you guys do!

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Originally Posted by Sawdust

Don't know if you worked on them, or if it's just lighting, but the video quality on the South and Central cams looks much better today. The ground level scan on the South cam is great - will show so much more of what's going on. So appreciate what you guys do!

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Paul and I were at Oshkosh yesterday doing some troubleshooting and have narrowed it down to the DSL lines.

We have AT&T working on the connections. They are not expected to get to work on these lines again till sometime this week, but I expect they will get them working better soon. You many notice a change of quality from time to time right now as the DSL lines have been varying in it's capacity from time to time, this should stabilize when AT&T gets these connections resolved.

You will also notice that the Warbird Camera is offline now, this due to work on the DSL lines, but should be back up this week as well.

Far as the grounds in general. The EAA staff and all the volunteers have been hard at work getting the grounds ready. It is really amazing how much can get done in such a short time and can be interesting to watch. That is one reason Paul and I try to get these cameras online as soon as possible so others can watch the City of AirVenture be put together.

I will be taking the cameras offline for a little while this even while I work on the Vintage camera in hopes of getting some type of a tour running on this camera as well.

Todd Ritzman

I just checked the ultralight camera and found, like Rod said, it seems to follow the sky.
But one time it scrolled lower and I saw a new road with big changes near the Barn.
What is that road for?

Thanks for the cameras and your hard work.

Right Hal - I jumped the gun when I got an error message on the first webcam I selected. Since it's something I run into frequently with my iPad I assumed that was the problem here. The webcams work great without anything special required.

yep, The page tries to load mpeg, if it no likey, it rolls to http streaming which is supported by most newer android and iOS devices.

We are also going to try to keep the first post updated so nobody has to sift through the whole thread to figure out what is going on.

This is probably the least of your webcam troubles.
I noticed when I opened the in browser pop-up JW player
the aspect ratio is different in the south webcam than in the
central webcam.
Meaning the the video image is wrapped in a black
frame in the south webcam and the central webcam does not have
have a black bar on top.

Also Firefox 22.0 allows you to adjust the size of the browser pop-up JW player.
Internet Explorer 10 does not allow browser pop-up JW player size change.
South webcam looks like it is operating great.

Firefox screen shot below
Attachment 3094
Internet Explore screen shot below
Attachment 3096
Natural Flyer on camera sphere
Attachment 3097

Another update on the camera status.

All the wayfinding tower cameras are back online. We are still working on the DSL lines with ATT, but that has been going really well. I have to say the technician AT&T has out there is great to work with and has been going out of his way to get these lines working properly. We expect the last changes he made to roll out with a system update during the night and hopefully that will take care of the remaining problems with those lines.

In the mean time, I have made several changes to the camera and encoder configurations to get the streams working as smoothly as possible. The Vintage camera is new this year due to an untimely death of our previous camera when it's parachute did not open in time. It has taken a little extra time to find the configurations that seem to work well, but we are getting there. Something you will notice in the Vintage camera tour it is running, it is completely random, so there are times it takes an extended tour looking near the tree tops as it pans between stops. But as I said, the tour is completely random and is decided by the camera. As aircraft start arriving, the tours on all the cameras will be adjusted to try to highlight some of the aircraft, but still tour the whole grounds as well.

Hope all are enjoying the feeds.

Todd Ritzman

Hi Todd,
When I try to access one of the cameras, such as the warbirds, from my work computer I get a bar across the window with the words:
Server not found: rtmpt://205.213.124.41:80/warbird/

Now this is a government system, and they've been blocking access to all kinds of stuff in the last year, so perhaps it's hopeless. But do you have any ideas? Thanks.

Mike E

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Originally Posted by MEdwards

Hi Todd,
When I try to access one of the cameras, such as the warbirds, from my work computer I get a bar across the window with the words:
Server not found: rtmpt://205.213.124.41:80/warbird/

Now this is a government system, and they've been blocking access to all kinds of stuff in the last year, so perhaps it's hopeless. But do you have any ideas? Thanks.

Mike E

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Mike,

Is this the only camera you are having that issue with?

All three streams are should be configured the same on the stream off the server. While we have tried to make it so it can be accessed by a large variety of systems and from even behind some firewalls, we just can't provide service to all systems and through all security systems. The security system at my work also blocks it from being played, but will play just fine on the work laptop when not on the work network.

Todd

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Originally Posted by Todd Ritzman

Is this the only camera you are having that issue with?

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No, all cameras get the same kind of message. Looks like it isn't going to work this year. Thanks.
Mike E

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

I just checked the ultralight camera and found, like Rod said, it seems to follow the sky.
But one time it scrolled lower and I saw a new road with big changes near the Barn.
What is that road for?

Thanks for the cameras and your hard work.

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That is a new perimeter access road the airport is installing for their use. I am sure some of it will be used for the convention as well.

Here is a link to more information. http://www.eaa.org/news/2012/2012-11...ad-project.asp

Todd

I guess this just can't really be said enough, so thanks so much Todd to you and your crew for all the hard work put in to get the feeds up and running, and a bit earlier this year I think. I am thoroughly enjoying watching the little city come together again this year. Soooo.....thanks!

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Originally Posted by spongebobiwan

I guess this just can't really be said enough, so thanks so much Todd to you and your crew for all the hard work put in to get the feeds up and running, and a bit earlier this year I think. I am thoroughly enjoying watching the little city come together again this year. Soooo.....thanks!

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Thank you, we are glad people do enjoy them and appreciate the feeds as well.

Both Paul and I do spend a fair amount of time getting things running and trying to keep them running, which can be a challenge at times. Looks like we might have some extra volunteers this year during the week and hopefully that will provide some extra recorded video to watch as well.

We just found out that the Vintage camera is offline for some reason. We are not sure what happened at this point other than we lost all communication with all the equipment and modem on that tower. We will be working on this as soon as possible, the bad part is we both live a little distance away, but we will work on getting it back online as soon as possible.


Todd

I drove to Oshkosh today to fix the issue with the Vintage camera and it is back online and as of right now, all three cameras are streaming. I had the other two off line for a little while this afternoon while doing some other testing on the lines as well. AT&T will be making some more changes to some of the connections. The changes they are making should not take the cameras offline or if they do, it won't be for long. A lot has changed up there since last Saturday when I was last up there. It is really amazing how much can get done in such a short period of time.

Many thanks for your work, Todd - all looking good, and I see that two planes are already parked at Vintage Camping :-)

Thank you Todd. Those of us not in Oshkosh yet appreciate it.

AT&T rolled in the changes over night to the connections and all is looking good.

Now lets hope for a great show!

The cams are working well.
I viewed all three for an hour. Not a single moving airplane seen until just before I quit watching, a Bonanza taxied by.
I guess the busy day must be sat or sun.
But I will be on the road then.

Is the link on the Airventure main page yet,or am I just missing it;or is it somewhere else?

I can't find the link on the AirVenture homepage either, but this is it: http://www.airventure.org/webcams/

Enjoy!

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Originally Posted by BBRETTHORST

Is the link on the Airventure main page yet,or am I just missing it;or is it somewhere else?

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Originally Posted by RodBearden

I can't find the link on the AirVenture homepage either, but this is it: http://www.airventure.org/webcamsEnjoy!

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When the convention starts, EAA will fire up a separate convention page, it is called AirVenture Live, from that page you will see Links to the webcams.
Once the convention starts they may also link to the webcams from the the regular AirVenture.org home page.

The AirVenture Live page is kind of a one stop shop for the hour by hour day to day latest news on the convention.
There will be a link to the AirVenture Live page from the regular AirVenture.org page once the convention starts. So keep checking

This link http://www.airventure.org/live/ shows last years page, they have not update it yet, but the web address should be the same.

Here is link that explains more about the AirVenture Live page http://www.airventure.org/news/2012/120719_avlive.html

This is what they have done in the past years, but you never know what they have planned for AV 2013 until the convention starts.

Hope this helps,

As of yesterday and today, I've noticed randomly occuring pauses and/or jerks in all the cameras. Is AT&T going to be doing more work on the lines?