2016 AirVenture Webcam Feeds

[Todd Ritzman]

The Streaming Media Volunteer Crew will be monitoring this thread for the remainder of the show for any comments, suggestions, and issues that may occur during this years event.

Our team has worked hard to get the streams up and available as soon as possible, we know many people like to watch the set up and wait to see the first aircraft arrive. We also have also strived to make all the feeds are as compatible with as many different operating systems and devices as possible, however, we know that there still will be some devices that they will not play on properly, unfortunately we can't support all the equipment out there.

One suggestion to start off with, if you are having an issue with opening the stream, make sure you either turn off the pop up blocker, or set these pages as an accepted site to allow for pop ups to be displayed.

Below is a link to the AirVenture Webcam page that will have all the links to the cameras. Note, as of today, the Airshow, Theater in the Woods, and a new Random Feed links are not currently displayed on the page, but will be added to the page as we finalize the configuration of those streams and are ready to make them live.

(http://www.airventure.org/webcams)w (http://www.eaa.org/en/airventure/eaa-airventure-news-and-multimedia/eaa-airventure-webcams)ww.airventure.org/webcams (http://www.airventure.org/webcams)

Some things to remember about the camera feeds:

Some of these cameras run on pre-programmed tours and show live feeds from the grounds, and some cameras (like the Control Tower Videographer camera) may display live video of portions of the daily air show as viewed through the lens of a EAA Volunteer.This is not intended to be television-quality broadcast of the event, just a chance to share their view. There will be times when the videographer is moving the camera, reviewing existing footage, etc., where you may not see the show itself. This is to be expected as they are also capturing footage for other purposes as well.

For the Theater in the Woods feed, this camera displays live video from evening programming. However; due to contractual and other obligations, there are certain events that cannot be broadcast.

Also, if you go to our Livestream or YouTube page, you will be able to view recordings of some of the feeds.
http://livestream.com/accounts/4758466
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9D-HpzJrNVP1n_NS6hhRTw

We hope you will enjoy getting a small glimpse of the action around the grounds of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh!

Todd Ritzman

[mc20]

Thank you Todd for all the work that goes into this!

[wyoranch]

Thank you soooooo much!
Rick

[Tom Steber]

Thanks Todd! This will hold me over for the next two weeks until I get there!

[Wrongway Feldman]

Todd Ritzman,

Pros:
I have checked the North, Central and South webcams.
The actually video picture quality of all three webcams is about the same as it was prior years.
There does seem be a slight slowness in the frame rate when something like the trees limbs are blowing.
But it does look like the frame rate will suffice for this application.
The nice feature about the HTML5 player live stream is it has a 4 hour buffer.
You can back-up and preview any where in the past four hours of the stream. Pretty Slick!
To return to live stream or real time, just click on live.

Cons:
There is one thing I notice different from prior years.
When the web cameras are moving through their pre-programmed tour or panning.
They do not move smoothly when they are panning, left, right up or down.
There is a little jerky-ness when they pan.
When I click on the gear icon and change the speed to 2 while in the live stream mode.
The camera panning smooths out a little, but the player starts to buffer and the speed setting keeps
automatically returning to the normal speed setting.
When I view anywhere in the preview stream and set the speed setting on 2, the camera panning is smoother. (like in prior years)
And the speed setting stays at 2.
I tested on IE, Firefox and Chrome Browsers with same results.
My download speed is 15.20 Mbps.

Zooming in and out is smooth.
When they are parked they look fine.

I was reading one of your recent POST (http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?6772-Cams-When&p=56491&viewfull=1#post56491) and you mentioned that you have lost your past bandwidth sponsor.
Are you dealing with the same bandwidth you had in the past?
Are you able to do a simulation bandwidth load test to see how many streams the system can handle?
By what you said it looks as though your feeds and distribution method has also changed.
Maybe the camera panning (small) issue is attributed to the above changes.

Hope the above info helps with the tweaking.

[Sirota]

Thanks Todd. Another GREAT job.

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd Ritzman,

Pros:
I have checked the North, Central and South webcams.
The actually video picture quality of all three webcams is about the same as it was prior years.
There does seem be a slight slowness in the frame rate when something like the trees limbs are blowing.
But it does look like the frame rate will suffice for this application.
The nice feature about the HTML5 player live stream is it has a 4 hour buffer.
You can back-up and preview any where in the past four hours of the stream. Pretty Slick!
To return to live stream or real time, just click on live.

Cons:
There is one thing I notice different from prior years.
When the web cameras are moving through their pre-programmed tour or panning.
They do not move smoothly when they are panning, left, right up or down.
There is a little jerky-ness when they pan.
When I click on the gear icon and change the speed to 2 while in the live stream mode.
The camera panning smooths out a little, but the player starts to buffer and the speed setting keeps
automatically returning to the normal speed setting.
When I view anywhere in the preview stream and set the speed setting on 2, the camera panning is smoother. (like in prior years)
And the speed setting stays at 2.
I tested on IE, Firefox and Chrome Browsers with same results.
My download speed is 15.20 Mbps.

Zooming in and out is smooth.
When they are parked they look fine.

I was reading one of your recent POST (http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?6772-Cams-When&p=56491&viewfull=1#post56491) and you mentioned that you have lost your past bandwidth sponsor.
Are you dealing with the same bandwidth you had in the past?
Are you able to do a simulation bandwidth load test to see how many streams the system can handle?
By what you said it looks as though your feeds and distribution method has also changed.
Maybe the camera panning (small) issue is attributed to the above changes.

Hope the above info helps with the tweaking.

The internet connection speeds that we have at Oshkosh for each of the cameras has remained the same as all the other years (1 DSL at each camera) and are sending the video out of the cameras at the exact same rates and quality as past years. Have to remember for 11 months out of the year, basically the place is just a large field that has no need for any type of connectivity, so internet/phone companies have no incentive to improve their systems for that area.

The portion that has changed is, in the past years we use to host the video ourselves directly on our own server that had access to a gig fiber connection to the internet. The only reason we need such a connection speed was each connection to our server was it's own stream using a small piece of that gig connection and when we would have close to 1000 connections at a time, that was getting close to using all available bandwidth. This year that connection was no longer available so we had to come up with an alternative as that much bandwidth is not cheap to go out and buy. Luckily the solution is thanks to YouTube introducing a live streaming feature. So now we only need enough bandwidth to send the video from the camera to YouTube (a single connection per camera), and YouTube handles all the individual stream connections to the stream and they handle the bandwidth load that is required (so actually, we now have far more bandwidth to the end viewer than we did in the past). The streaming media team still had another challenge to do this as well. These cameras are security cameras and were never designed to have the ability to send the video to a mass amount of people around the world, so we had to come up with an interface to allow a connection to YouTube.

Far as your comment about you changing the play back speed to 2. Yes it is going to appear smoother, you are playing it as twice real speed and yes it is going to start to buffer. YouTube incorporates about a 20 second buffer into their stream to allow for a playback that does not need to stop and buffer/reload the video all the time, when you double the playback speed, you use up that buffer the YouTube stream has in the playback, the incoming stream from our servers will remain the same no matter what you select.

Todd

[Mike Kitslaar]

Will the web cams be added to the 2016 Airventure app?

[Todd Ritzman]

Will the web cams be added to the 2016 Airventure app?

Just heard back from our EAA contact and yes the links will be added to the app.

[MEdwards]

I have a comment on the south camera's tour, if you're still tweaking them. It dwells a lot, I guess on ultralight activities, and it is, after all, on the Ultralight tower. But the dwells seem excessively long to me. Second, is there any way it could go a little further left, to show more of Vintage parking, before it reverses back to the right? Many people park down there and want to show the folks back home where they're parked. Thanks for all your long and hard work.

Mike E

[Todd Ritzman]

I have a comment on the south camera's tour, if you're still tweaking them. It dwells a lot, I guess on ultralight activities, and it is, after all, on the Ultralight tower. But the dwells seem excessively long to me. Second, is there any way it could go a little further left, to show more of Vintage parking, before it reverses back to the right? Many people park down there and want to show the folks back home where they're parked. Thanks for all your long and hard work.

Mike E

Until aircraft start arriving we don't do a lot of adjusting the tours of the cameras, so this tour is the same as last year. The reason it has some long stops is during the show, the ultralight runway has a lot of activity on it, we receive a lot of requests just to leave all the cameras pointing at the runway, so we try to put a little more time there.

Far as how far we can turn the cameras, I will have to check, but we usually move it as far as we can all directions without it looking at the tower it is mounted on. For the ultralight tower, we had to mount the camera on the west facing point of the tower because of how the crane attaches to the tower when it is raised and lowered, so unfortunately there is a lot of area on the east side of the tower that cannot been seen. When we originally mounted these cameras years ago, we did have it on a different corner, that is when we found out about the lifting requirements. Basically, if we did have the camera on the other corner, the chances of it getting broken off during raising or lowering of the tower is very high.

We are also trying to tweak the encoding of the video in hopes of improving it's quality a little more.

Todd

[MEdwards]

Thank you, Todd, for taking the time to explain to us folks who aren't aware of all the complexities. Indeed I am remembering quite a few years ago when I was parked right in the middle of the easternmost extent of travel for the tour; no doubt before you had to mount them differently.

Mike E

[Wrongway Feldman]

Todd Ritzman,

As of 7/16/16, 10:03 AM
There has been a vast improvement in the South Ultralight and the Central Vintage Webcams.
Both South & Central Webcams are operating like Full Motion video cameras. (Nice and Smooth)
What ever you guys are tweaking it is working! (Encoding?)
If possible, apply the same tweaking technique to the North Warbird Webcam.
After that EAA Streaming Media should be good to go for The Really Big Shoe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnNM-vZoaHw).

Maybe next year you guys could tap into this Fiber optic line (http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/2015-news/11-12-15-weekend-work-party-prepares-flightline-for-airventure-2016).

Does EAA Streaming Media have your own Logo or Flag?
If you did, I would proudly Fly your flag.

Thanks for the viewing pleasure,

Wrong

[wyoranch]

+1 on the above post!!!!!! Looking great.
Thank you so much, as I just found out I can not attend this year, on a personal level it means the world to me.
Rick

[spongebobiwan]

I've noticed that I cannot go full screen by clicking the full screen icon in the lower right hand corner as I thought I remembered being able to do in previous years. Maybe I'm mistaken about that as the older I get the more fuzzy past events seem to be. I've gone through all of the troubleshooting checks that are shown when I attempt to go full screen and the "Full screen is unavailable. Learn more" link that I pops up which I click on, to see if the problem is on my end somehow. I've tried Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (all on a Mac). The last thing I can see that may be at issue is the very last thing listed on the "Full screen is disabled" YouTube help page that pops up when clicking that link. It says "The owner of the website who has embedded a YouTube player has disabled fullscreen."

Comments?

You know, I should mention something that I failed to mention in the above. I know that by clicking on the YouTube icon located between the Settings icon and the AirPlay icon (which all happen to be just to the left of the FullScreen icon) I can go to YouTube and THERE I am able to click the Full Screen icon and then go to Full Screen. I was merely trying to avoid the step of leaving the EAA.org page to utilize Full Screen as in past years I thought this step was unnecessary. File this as a "Just Curious as to why" comment and not as a "complaint" comment please. AND, if my memory of this is total hogwash, kindly disregard. :)

EDIT: On second thought, I guess it really does not matter much if I need to go to YouTube first before being able to go FullScreen. Just disregard this post and call it a senior moment.

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd Ritzman,

As of 7/16/16, 10:03 AM
There has been a vast improvement in the South Ultralight and the Central Vintage Webcams.
Both South & Central Webcams are operating like Full Motion video cameras. (Nice and Smooth)
What ever you guys are tweaking it is working! (Encoding?)
If possible, apply the same tweaking technique to the North Warbird Webcam.
After that EAA Streaming Media should be good to go for The Really Big Shoe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnNM-vZoaHw).

Maybe next year you guys could tap into this Fiber optic line (http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/2015-news/11-12-15-weekend-work-party-prepares-flightline-for-airventure-2016).

Does EAA Streaming Media have your own Logo or Flag?
If you did, I would proudly Fly your flag.

Thanks for the viewing pleasure,

Wrong

We will be adding the changes to the North camera here soon. Currently Paul is hosing and encoding that stream and has been out of town for work and this weekend was spent in Oshkosh preparing for next week. I am heading home tonight and will work on the current feeds again tomorrow.

Todd

[Todd Ritzman]

I've noticed that I cannot go full screen by clicking the full screen icon in the lower right hand corner as I thought I remembered being able to do in previous years. Maybe I'm mistaken about that as the older I get the more fuzzy past events seem to be. I've gone through all of the troubleshooting checks that are shown when I attempt to go full screen and the "Full screen is unavailable. Learn more" link that I pops up which I click on, to see if the problem is on my end somehow. I've tried Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (all on a Mac). The last thing I can see that may be at issue is the very last thing listed on the "Full screen is disabled" YouTube help page that pops up when clicking that link. It says "The owner of the website who has embedded a YouTube player has disabled fullscreen."

Comments?

You know, I should mention something that I failed to mention in the above. I know that by clicking on the YouTube icon located between the Settings icon and the AirPlay icon (which all happen to be just to the left of the FullScreen icon) I can go to YouTube and THERE I am able to click the Full Screen icon and then go to Full Screen. I was merely trying to avoid the step of leaving the EAA.org page to utilize Full Screen as in past years I thought this step was unnecessary. File this as a "Just Curious as to why" comment and not as a "complaint" comment please. AND, if my memory of this is total hogwash, kindly disregard. :)

EDIT: On second thought, I guess it really does not matter much if I need to go to YouTube first before being able to go FullScreen. Just disregard this post and call it a senior moment.

I will take a look. I know setting YouTube up I did not restrict it and I was the one to provide the embedding codes to EAA for the website.

Todd

[Todd Ritzman]

I've noticed that I cannot go full screen by clicking the full screen icon in the lower right hand corner as I thought I remembered being able to do in previous years. Maybe I'm mistaken about that as the older I get the more fuzzy past events seem to be. I've gone through all of the troubleshooting checks that are shown when I attempt to go full screen and the "Full screen is unavailable. Learn more" link that I pops up which I click on, to see if the problem is on my end somehow. I've tried Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (all on a Mac). The last thing I can see that may be at issue is the very last thing listed on the "Full screen is disabled" YouTube help page that pops up when clicking that link. It says "The owner of the website who has embedded a YouTube player has disabled fullscreen."

Comments?

You know, I should mention something that I failed to mention in the above. I know that by clicking on the YouTube icon located between the Settings icon and the AirPlay icon (which all happen to be just to the left of the FullScreen icon) I can go to YouTube and THERE I am able to click the Full Screen icon and then go to Full Screen. I was merely trying to avoid the step of leaving the EAA.org page to utilize Full Screen as in past years I thought this step was unnecessary. File this as a "Just Curious as to why" comment and not as a "complaint" comment please. AND, if my memory of this is total hogwash, kindly disregard. :)

EDIT: On second thought, I guess it really does not matter much if I need to go to YouTube first before being able to go FullScreen. Just disregard this post and call it a senior moment.

I did verify what you described on my machines too. EAA and I discussed this today and we don't exactly know why it is happening, but I have been told that they have come up with a work around and have implemented it.

Todd

[Wrongway Feldman]

Todd Ritzman,

I have say that the ability to "Click & View" anywhere in the past 3 hour stream.
Makes this new system viewing a lot more efficient .
In prior years you had to wait for the webcam to move threw its tour in order to see what you where looking for.

A. Does it still count as a bandwidth hit, if you are not viewing in live stream mode? (i.e. Viewing past stored streamed video)
Or
B. If all the viewer streams are being viewed in live stream mode, is there more bandwidth being used?

If A. or B. are true, then its a win win.
Win - When viewer can see what they are looking for quicker, viewer is spending less time using the system. Which saves bandwidth.
Win - When viewer is in non-live stream mode less bandwidth is being used.
:thumbsup: Wrong,

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd Ritzman,

I have say that the ability to "Click & View" anywhere in the past 3 hour stream.
Makes this new system viewing a lot more efficient .
In prior years you had to wait for the webcam to move threw its tour in order to see what you where looking for.

A. Does it still count as a bandwidth hit, if you are not viewing in live stream mode? (i.e. Viewing past stored streamed video)
Or
B. If all the viewer streams are being viewed in live stream mode, is there more bandwidth being used?

If A. or B. are true, then its a win win.
Win - When viewer can see what they are looking for quicker, viewer is spending less time using the system. Which saves bandwidth.
Win - When viewer is in non-live stream mode less bandwidth is being used.
:thumbsup: Wrong,

There is no difference in bandwidth if watching live or recorded portions.

Todd

[spongebobiwan]

I did verify what you described on my machines too. EAA and I discussed this today and we don't exactly know why it is happening, but I have been told that they have come up with a work around and have implemented it.

Todd

Well, that's just kewel beans, Todd. I wasn't really expecting anybody to do anything as it wasn't a big deal to go to YouTube and go FullScreen there. But, as usual, you guys outdid yourselves and whatever EAA did is working so that one can go FullScreen right on the feed. You guys (and gals) are all just finer than frog's hair. :)

[Todd Ritzman]

Well, that's just kewel beans, Todd. I wasn't really expecting anybody to do anything as it wasn't a big deal to go to YouTube and go FullScreen there. But, as usual, you guys outdid yourselves and whatever EAA did is working so that one can go FullScreen right on the feed. You guys (and gals) are all just finer than frog's hair. :)

Thanks. And you know not many people know about that finer than frogs hair thing, but I have been hearing it more lately.

[wyoranch]

Todd,
While I have never had any complaints about the webcams (Except for the year you kids tried the pay for play). I have to say you are really on top of the cams and the user issues. EXCELLENT work!!!! Thank you. In the FYI area, Everything is working great on my iPad, laptop and Amazon Firestick using the You Tube app. The streams are smooth (last time I looked the Warbird cam was a little jerky) and I love the ability to go back and re-visit something.
Thanks Again
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd,
While I have never had any complaints about the webcams (Except for the year you kids tried the pay for play). I have to say you are really on top of the cams and the user issues. EXCELLENT work!!!! Thank you. In the FYI area, Everything is working great on my iPad, laptop and Amazon Firestick using the You Tube app. The streams are smooth (last time I looked the Warbird cam was a little jerky) and I love the ability to go back and re-visit something.
Thanks Again
Rick
Rick,

Thank you. Glad to hear it is working for you and you are enjoying them. Also we changed the encoding method last night on the warbirds after running tests on the other 2 cameras for a few days. You will find that it pans a lot smoother now, just makes it we have problems to remote into the cameras to make adjustments now.

Todd

PS, our volunteer group was not any part of those kids.

[Wrongway Feldman]

Todd Ritzman,

Just curious, When viewing the webcams, why does Firefox and Chrome use the HTML5 player and IE uses the Adobe flash player?
Does it have something to do with the YouTube Live stream and how IE handles that stream?
When I play non-live streaming video content on YouTube, IE uses the HTML5 player.
IE gives me only the one Adobe flash player option.

When I link to the webcams using IE, it briefly displays texts telling me I need Adobe Flash to view this video.
At the same time, the player is buffering, then video appears.

When I first linked to the north webcam this morning using IE the video started blocking.
Then I got a blue screen message telling me that windows 7 had to shut down to protect the computer. Weird!
After a couple reboots I got the computer up and running. I was starting to getting a Little nervous.
All I would get is a black screen. All is well now.

After I got the computer back up I went back to the north webcam link and it started to do the same thing.
I checked to see if my flash player was up to date and it wasn't, so I up dated.
The webcam links seem to be working now using IE.
But I still get that brief text that is telling me I need Adobe Flash to view this video.

The status on the webcams performance, is that they all are showing full motion video.
And I notice that the north webcam aspect ratio is fixed, it now fills the entire player. Boarder to boarder.

All of the above was directly from the YouTube EAA Streaming Media pages.
Not the embedded EAA website webcam page.

I think I'm going stick with using Firefox and Chrome, IE scares me.

Good Job:star:
Wrong,

[wyoranch]

Rick,

Thank you. Glad to hear it is working for you and you are enjoying them. Also we changed the encoding method last night on the warbirds after running tests on the other 2 cameras for a few days. You will find that it pans a lot smoother now, just makes it we have problems to remote into the cameras to make adjustments now.

Todd

PS, our volunteer group was not any part of those kids.
i know you had nothing to do with it. I am sure it was ALL Hal's fault. He strikes me as being a money grubbing devious person. :D

[Hal Bryan]

i know you had nothing to do with it. I am sure it was ALL Hal's fault. He strikes me as being a money grubbing devious person. :D

It wasn't me, either!

But I'm still billing you ten bucks for that comment... ;)

[Todd Ritzman]

It wasn't me, either!

But I'm still billing you ten bucks for that comment... ;)

No, Hal was one of them that was to the rescue when that all occurred.

[wyoranch]

It wasn't me, either!

But I'm still billing you ten bucks for that comment... ;)
you can take it out of the $10 credit you still owe me from that debacle....... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.........

[wyoranch]

No, Hal was one of them that was to the rescue when that all occurred.
I know Hal had nothing to do with it. I was just trying to interrupt his day. I am sure 'senior editors' are very busy editing stuff and drinking coffee. <sarcasm>.
Rick
p.s. Very nice to hear from you Hal........

[wyoranch]

Todd,
warbird camera is looking great now.
Thanks Again
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd Ritzman,

Just curious, When viewing the webcams, why does Firefox and Chrome use the HTML5 player and IE uses the Adobe flash player?
Does it have something to do with the YouTube Live stream and how IE handles that stream?
When I play non-live streaming video content on YouTube, IE uses the HTML5 player.
IE gives me only the one Adobe flash player option.

When I link to the webcams using IE, it briefly displays texts telling me I need Adobe Flash to view this video.
At the same time, the player is buffering, then video appears.

When I first linked to the north webcam this morning using IE the video started blocking.
Then I got a blue screen message telling me that windows 7 had to shut down to protect the computer. Weird!
After a couple reboots I got the computer up and running. I was starting to getting a Little nervous.
All I would get is a black screen. All is well now.

After I got the computer back up I went back to the north webcam link and it started to do the same thing.
I checked to see if my flash player was up to date and it wasn't, so I up dated.
The webcam links seem to be working now using IE.
But I still get that brief text that is telling me I need Adobe Flash to view this video.

The status on the webcams performance, is that they all are showing full motion video.
And I notice that the north webcam aspect ratio is fixed, it now fills the entire player. Boarder to boarder.

All of the above was directly from the YouTube EAA Streaming Media pages.
Not the embedded EAA website webcam page.

I think I'm going stick with using Firefox and Chrome, IE scares me.

Good Job:star:
Wrong,

IE Scares me to, I use chrome 99.9% of the time. Only when I have to do I use IE.

I get the same message when opening the feeds in IE about needing the flash player. The distribution from youtube to the end viewer/software/device is completely controlled by YouTube. We do not have any control of those type of settings.

Last night we switched the North Warbird camera over to my server which I am running a different version of software that allows me to resize the video to fit the standard YouTube player at the same time we also implemented the new encoding which has smoothed out the video, but it also will restrict us from remotely controlling and programming the cameras (now using all the bandwidth for the video). So we now have to go to each location and plug in to make any setting changes. The system now has to behave at least until Friday when we start arriving for the week.

Todd

[Hal Bryan]

I know Hal had nothing to do with it. I was just trying to interrupt his day. I am sure 'senior editors' are very busy editing stuff and drinking coffee. <sarcasm>.
Rick
p.s. Very nice to hear from you Hal........

You too, Rick! :)

To give you an idea how busy I am, I just accidentally drank some stuff and edited some coffee!

[Todd Ritzman]

For some reason after switching the North Warbird camera over to the new encoding, some players and devices have been having issues playing this stream, some of which Wrongway pointed out earlier. I have created a new feed on YouTube, those of you that are watching through the EAA Webcam page will not have to do anything different as we will update the link there, however if you saved a shortcut to the YouTube page for this camera, you will have to make a new shortcut. Hopefully this change will fix the issues, it did fix the ones that I was able to see from my computer.

Todd

[mcdewey]

I'm loving the webcams but it looks like all the webcams are stuck at about 2:42 am last night. They were working fine yesterday and have been great!

[mcdewey]

Sorry...they're working fine now. It's like watching a beehive with people scurrying around instead of bees.

[Todd Ritzman]

Sorry...they're working fine now. It's like watching a beehive with people scurrying around instead of bees.

Sorry about the cameras being frozen, at least it happened overnight. I think the cameras lost power in Oshkosh for a little while since they all stopped at the same time. When this happens our media server does not automatically reconnect (even though it is suppose to), so we have to manually go back and start it up. I noticed that they were not streaming just before leaving home for OSH, so reset them a little before 8AM. We will do our best to monitor the feeds throughout the day.

I am now onsite in Oshkosh and the other volunteers of Streaming Media will be showing up over the next few days.

This morning some of the equipment was installed in the control tower for the Airshow stream, hope to test that Sunday morning.

The Airshow, Roaming Feed, and Theater in the Woods feeds will not be hosted on YouTube. The best place to find them will be www.airventure.org/webcams (Links will be added as they become ready to stream), but can also be found at https://livestream.com/accounts/4758466

Todd

[wyoranch]

Todd,
a request for the future. Would it be possible to have a camera out at 36 for viewing arrivals? I understand the logistics, more of a curiosity than a need.
thanks
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd,
a request for the future. Would it be possible to have a camera out at 36 for viewing arrivals? I understand the logistics, more of a curiosity than a need.
thanks
Rick

We have tried to get cameras out closer to the runways, but as you said, the logistics of it is difficult, especially if it is live video. There is also a safety factor that has to be considered.

Starting last year we did a roaming camera around the grounds and those volunteers do spend time just watching the runway activity along with their many other activities they try to catch each day.

We have ideas we would like to try, but in order to do much of it we have to get approvals from several different organizations.

I will try to program two of the cameras to give more time on the runways.

Todd

[Paul Hayden]

We are also experiencing an issue with the central "Vintage" camera. It is currently offline and we are unable to remote in. Todd is onsite and we are attempting to troubleshoot and remedy the issue, but at first glance it's going to be offline awhile.

[wyoranch]

Guys,
Just a FYI, trying to watch the feeds on the Amazon Firestick using the YouTube app no longer works. Just a pixelated green screen. Not a big deal, I just hooked my laptop up to the tv.
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Guys,
Just a FYI, trying to watch the feeds on the Amazon Firestick using the YouTube app no longer works. Just a pixelated green screen. Not a big deal, I just hooked my laptop up to the tv.
Rick

Thanks Rick,

I am having the same issue with chromecast. That is a youtube issue. We will try to look into that as well.

Update on the Central Vintage Camera Feed. We think it may have been hit by lightening. We have no communication with the camera from the base of the tower and don't have access to the camera 65 feet up. The power supply that is where we can get to it, does light up when plugged in, but we do have a replacement power supply on order to be delivered Monday morning. I hope that will fix it, but it is a long shot at this point.

Todd

[spongebobiwan]

At 65 feet in the air, it would be a miracle if at some point in time, one of these towers was NOT hit by lightning. I think we've been running pretty lucky to not have had this already happen. Nature eventually catches up. As they say, some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. The other two cameras are running great and keeping me more than busy. :)

[spongebobiwan]

I have to say that I am really enjoying the Webcam Around the Grounds LiveStream notification system. No more check and re-check constantly to see if it's live. The notification just pops up on my screen and I can immediately go to the Webcams, Streaming, and LiveATC.net page and catch all the action. Great improvement. Thanks.

EDIT: Also, forgot to mention, the LiveATC.net setup is greatly improved. I no longer have to "squeeze" down a full page merely to listen to one or more of the channels. They automatically popup in a little, space-saving window.

[Wrongway Feldman]

Thanks Rick,

I am having the same issue with chromecast. That is a youtube issue. We will try to look into that as well.

Update on the Central Vintage Camera Feed. We think it may have been hit by lightening. We have no communication with the camera from the base of the tower and don't have access to the camera 65 feet up. The power supply that is where we can get to it, does light up when plugged in, but we do have a replacement power supply on order to be delivered Monday morning. I hope that will fix it, but it is a long shot at this point.

Todd Lightening strike on the Central Vintage Camera.
That is real bummer!
Have you tried to see if there is voltage at the power supply.
Other than that, if you can, try to procure a bucket truck. (Cherry Picker) and check out the camera.
You might luck out, it might be a bad connection some where.
If the the camera is smoked there is not much you can do other than replacing it with a new camera.
Oh well, the other two cams are still working.
Is the glass half full or half empty?
At this point its have full.

Wrong,:)

[spongebobiwan]

As a side note, for those that simply cannot get enough live feeds, don't forget that there are many AirVenture attendees who are broadcasting on Periscope, or Meerkat, or even FaceTime. I think there's another one called Busker or something like that. I'm not very knowledgeable about FaceTime live video as I primarily use Periscope for finding relevant live feeds. Just enter EAA, or Oshkosh, or AirVenture into the search of those apps and there are many replays and if you follow the broadcaster you'll most likely catch some live feeds as well.

And to Todd and Paul and the gang, sorry for hijacking your thread for something not exactly what it was intended for. I just hope it was close enough and of enough relevant interest.

[Todd Ritzman]

Vintage Tower Update.

We have great news. We have the Central Vintage Camera back online.

Todd

[mcdewey]

Very nice and good job folks! Enjoying the view!

[PaulDow]

I'm not sure if this is the right department, but I was looking through the Theater in the Woods schedule, and "Live broadcast" shows up as an event during the evening presentations except for Wednesday and Saturday. I know sometimes there are broadcast rights issues, but I would like to confirm that there will be a black rectangle for the feeds those nights, or was it simply not entered in the schedule?

I'm a bit surprised that the Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary, and Boeing 100th Anniversary presentations would have copyright issues.
The other reason that those may not be sent over the wire is that they begin at 6:30 and 6:00 PM for the night air shows instead of 8:00 like other nights.

[Paul Hayden]

I'm not sure if this is the right department, but I was looking through the Theater in the Woods schedule, and "Live broadcast" shows up as an event during the evening presentations except for Wednesday and Saturday. I know sometimes there are broadcast rights issues, but I would like to confirm that there will be a black rectangle for the feeds those nights, or was it simply not entered in the schedule?

I'm a bit surprised that the Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary, and Boeing 100th Anniversary presentations would have copyright issues.
The other reason that those may not be sent over the wire is that they begin at 6:30 and 6:00 PM for the night air shows.

As far as we currently know, we will be streaming theater presentations wed and saturday. Or at least up until the airshow, as they run on the same service. We will verify with the theater manager, but we are planning on streaming.

[wyoranch]

Kids,
Theater in the woods is really sketchy. Keep losing the feed from eaa page and directly from Livestream.
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Kids,
Theater in the woods is really sketchy. Keep losing the feed from eaa page and directly from Livestream.
Rick

Rick,

We are trying to determine if this issue is because of our DSL lines and us sending the feed or if this is a distribution issue from Livestream. Would you please watch Part 1 of last nights program from on the Livestream page and let us know how that compares to what you were watching last night. That recording is what we sent live from last nights programs and before we made a change after receiving your message. I do see some ghosting of image and a little breaking up of the video, but it did not stop when I watched the recording.

Todd

[wyoranch]

Todd,
i watched part 1 on Livestream and it was basically the same issue I saw last night with the exception that on my end it seemed to be more severe. I would lose connection fairly often. For debugging issues I ran a couple of speed tests on my end and I was holding around 4mb down while this was happening. The other feeds were working great.
Rick
p.s. All the feeds yesterday were awesome, both in the EAA pages and using my Amazon Fire Tv. Nice work!

[spongebobiwan]

I watched the recorded event from last nights' Theater in the Woods. What I see in the recorded program from the Lifestream page is definitely not what I was able to see last night. Last night it got so bad I finally gave up and called it a night. It kept freezing and I would restart it from the webcams page. But either instantly or within just a few seconds it was freezing up again. I went through this 8 or 9 times before giving up.

[Todd Ritzman]

I watched the recorded event from last nights' Theater in the Woods. What I see in the recorded program from the Lifestream page is definitely not what I was able to see last night. Last night it got so bad I finally gave up and called it a night. It kept freezing and I would restart it from the webcams page. But either instantly or within just a few seconds it was freezing up again. I went through this 8 or 9 times before giving up.

Thank you for the help and understanding. We will keep trying to improve it. The theater was an issue last year too with AT&T. Took them quite awhile to get it stabilized last year too.

We are going to try to get AT&T out here today to check the lines again.


Todd

[Todd Ritzman]

By the way keep up the good work of watching. As of 2 days ago. the 3 wayfinding towers have over 1,148,000 minutes of video watched already!

[wyoranch]

Todd,
Since I am doing everything possible to prevent you from actually seeing the show..... Lol eaa radio through Tune in does not appear to be broadcasting live. I swear I heard the same stuff yesterday.
Rick

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd,
Since I am doing everything possible to prevent you from actually seeing the show..... Lol eaa radio through Tune in does not appear to be broadcasting live. I swear I heard the same stuff yesterday.
Rick

Will pass onto the radio boys

Todd

[spongebobiwan]

Todd,

I thought I'd pass on this little tidbit. Perhaps it can be helpful in some way. I was (and still am actually) watching the Live Webcam -Around the Grounds and they are interviewing the Emery Riddle people. At the same time, somebody with EAA Radio was also broadcasting part of the interview using Periscope.

What I observed is, that the Around the Grounds Live Webcam has/had severe audio issues. While the camera image is excellent, the audio keeps cutting in and out. You can hear the audio clearly for approximately 5 or 6 seconds or so, then it cuts out completely for a few seconds. It repeats this process continually.

On the other hand, the Periscope broadcast while not nearly as clear and sharp of an image (a bit fuzzy or blurry, actually), the audio is nevertheless pretty solid. There is very rare or occasional stuttering in the audio, for the most part it is steady enough to listen to and comprehend easily, unlike the Around the Grounds.

Just thought I'd pass this on for whatever it's worth as to troubleshooting or tweaking.

Russ

[wyoranch]

Experiencing extremely poor quality on the airshow feed.

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd,

I thought I'd pass on this little tidbit. Perhaps it can be helpful in some way. I was (and still am actually) watching the Live Webcam -Around the Grounds and they are interviewing the Emery Riddle people. At the same time, somebody with EAA Radio was also broadcasting part of the interview using Periscope.

What I observed is, that the Around the Grounds Live Webcam has/had severe audio issues. While the camera image is excellent, the audio keeps cutting in and out. You can hear the audio clearly for approximately 5 or 6 seconds or so, then it cuts out completely for a few seconds. It repeats this process continually.

On the other hand, the Periscope broadcast while not nearly as clear and sharp of an image (a bit fuzzy or blurry, actually), the audio is nevertheless pretty solid. There is very rare or occasional stuttering in the audio, for the most part it is steady enough to listen to and comprehend easily, unlike the Around the Grounds.

Just thought I'd pass this on for whatever it's worth as to troubleshooting or tweaking.

Russ

Russ,

Thank you for that bit of information. I have passed this information onto our guys with the roaming equipment and maybe they can downgrade the output quality to help this. I will give you a bit of information on how we are doing the roaming feed and this may help understand why the quality can vary.

The equipment for the roaming is all personal equipment of a volunteer as well as most of the bandwidth to send the video out of the show. It is a HD camera that feeds into an encoder and then is sent out most of the time through a cell phone data plan. As you can imagine using a cell data connection both signal strength and data availability can very greatly based on the cell system load at the time. For the morning EAA Radio show, we have been able to connect to better internet connection and I have not seen much of any issues while reviewing those programs.

We are continually trying to improve what we can send out, but we have so many variables that are out of our control, we will experience some of these issues.

Todd

[Todd Ritzman]

Experiencing extremely poor quality on the airshow feed.

Rick,

I have gone back and reviewed the DVR recording that is on Livestream and that seems to be pretty good which says our upload to Livestream was good for the show. So I think the issue was caused by the distribution from Livestream to the end viewer. When this happens either try closing the browser and reloading the stream or rebooting the computer and starting it again and see if that helps. There has been several times as we watch the stream that we have to reload because it either is choppy or keeps buffering.

Todd

[wyoranch]

Todd,
do you not stream the night show?
Rick

[WBNH]

No Saturday Night Airshow Livestream? Thought it was due to start at 8:Central...


9:50 EDIT: Found the livestream on "Around the Grounds" not the usual "Tower Videographer...."

10:pm EDIT: "Around the Grounds" feed is now offline, and switched to "Control Tower Videographer"...

[spongebobiwan]

Can't see much of anything. Too dark.

Edit: Plus, the feed keeps dying.

2nd Edit: Feed seems more stable now and can see the planes with pyro attached.

[baboss]

Hopefully tonight's airshow stream issues were just glitches that can be ironed out for next year. I'd suggest the camera operator leave it zoomed out all the way for the fireworks and wall of fire next year....

[N3kf]

Webcams are down now I guess. Keep going back watching stuff come down. Until next year when I can watch stuff go back up!!!

[Sirota]

Thank you Todd, and all your helpers, for another great year of hard work and great images.

[Todd Ritzman]

Webcams are down now I guess. Keep going back watching stuff come down. Until next year when I can watch stuff go back up!!!

Yesterday afternoon, the cameras were unplugged as they were doing the clean up and I have stopped the feed on the Ultralight and Warbird cameras as those areas were already pretty empty. I did get them to plug the Vintage camera back in last night and currently it is still streaming the area. I tried to log into the camera to just make it show Boeing plaza where the most activity now is, but it would not allow me to connect, so it is still on the tour. Hopefully it will stay powered until the towers are laid back down which usually happens within the week.

Todd

[Todd Ritzman]

Thank you Todd, and all your helpers, for another great year of hard work and great images.

Thank you for all the comments and watching the Live Feeds. It is the dedication and all the hours that the EAA Volunteers put in that makes the organization what it is!

As of yesterday there was 270,416 views of the feeds and 4,470,551 minutes of video watched from all the cameras.

Videos will stay on Livestream for about 2 months and can be found at https://livestream.com/accounts/4758466

Videos that were posted on YouTube can be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9D-HpzJrNVP1n_NS6hhRTw

Todd

[Wrongway Feldman]

Todd,

I'm curious to what was the issue with the Vintage Central Webcam earlier in the week?
I believe you thought it was hit by lighting or a power supply failure.

My overall satisfaction with the new system was that it functioned very good.
And it provided many hours of pleasurable viewing.

The only problem not related to EAA Streaming Media is how to stop AirVenture attendees from
accidentally pushing the transmit button on their Transceivers creating stuck mic problems during the Airshow or (anytime).

Thanks,
Wrong

Bonus Webcam Balloon Screenshots below.
2nd picture shows they launched (see basket upper left)

5670

5671

[Todd Ritzman]

Todd,

I'm curious to what was the issue with the Vintage Central Webcam earlier in the week?
I believe you thought it was hit by lighting or a power supply failure.

My overall satisfaction with the new system was that it functioned very good.
And it provided many hours of pleasurable viewing.

The only problem not related to EAA Streaming Media is how to stop AirVenture attendees from
accidentally pushing the transmit button on their Transceivers creating stuck mic problems during the Airshow or (anytime).

Thanks,
Wrong

Bonus Webcam Balloon Screenshots below.
2nd picture shows they launched (see basket upper left)



I would say we had an electrical surge that took out the power supply and luckily did not take out the camera.

As you probably know the Vintage camera is still in the air and streaming what it can of the teardown. We still have not been able to remote into the camera to control it, once the tower is down and we can get the camera off the tower, they will come home and get cleaned up for storage. At that time I will also test the connections and controls when it is on the local network.

Nice capture of the balloons.

Todd

[mazdaP5]

^Can't watch that, too sad. Looking forward to next year!

[mcdewey]

They took it down today. Kind of neat to watch them lower it to the ground. Once there, it faithfully recorded the Vintage entrance and the grass. Then finally, it looked one last time up towards the sky and with a sigh, knowing that it had faithfully done its job, went to sleep. :)

[N3kf]

Thanks for the great work Todd. Saw the tower being lowered down today. �� Well, from the cameras perspective! Oh well, onward to OSH17!. Always seem to go through withdrawal after a great week at Oshkosh. The camera brings back the memories even though stuff is being torn down!

[Todd Ritzman]

They took it down today. Kind of neat to watch them lower it to the ground. Once there, it faithfully recorded the Vintage entrance and the grass. Then finally, it looked one last time up towards the sky and with a sigh, knowing that it had faithfully done its job, went to sleep. :)

I did not see the tower laid to rest this morning, but did see the camera pointing at the Vintage buildings and then looking skyward before I shut the feed down. Most likely I will take a trip this weekend up there to recover the rest of the equipment. And then in just a few short months, start the planning for next years great event. Until next year, there is lots of video on YouTube and Livestream to get us through the withdrawals.

Todd

[spongebobiwan]

Well really, enough can never be said about Todd and the crew, and their dedication to excellence in providing this service. For volunteers, I repeat, VOLUNTEERS, to take on this challenge and give, I repeat, GIVE their time, their effort, even a lot of their perspiration I am sure, so that others are able to enjoy AirVenture remotely, is really something special. And I am sure I speak not only for myself, but for a plethora of other EAA members who greatly appreciate this as well.

Every year, I see improvements to the whole program. However, this year especially, there were many really wonderful improvements and/or changes, which I have already outlined in a previous post. For those of us who cannot attend, watching through this provided webcam service, along with EAA Radio, and LiveATC, it almost transforms us on to the AirVenture site at Oshkosh itself, almost as if we were literally there.

I honestly cannot express my gratitude for this enough. By volunteering a week of your time, you give me and others like me a week in OUR time to enjoy this event and relive numerous wonderful memories that we would otherwise not be able to enjoy. So I thank you for giving me this week of yourselves for my enjoyment. This truly is altruism on display.

Merely saying thanks just doesn't seem to be enough, but

Thanks,
Russ