Posts Tagged ‘wirecast’

This year’s Chachi Plays for Kids moved to the welcome walls of the Toonseum, where Chachi did a marathon to raise money for the Toonseum and Father Ryan Arts Center to help arts programs for kids.

While Chachi setup his gaming along with Brother Matt, I setup the command center where I’d live for the next 24 hours.

The setup should look familiar.  It’s the same thing I used last month in our inaugural pro wrestling filmings.  The same switcher, audio mixer, and miniDV cam interfacing this all into the laptop.

The difference is that we’re using WireCast to stream out to Justin.tv instead of recording for a DVD.  The live switcher in hardware gives one less thing to go wrong, relieving the laptop of some duties.  We simply setup a graphic for the website and imploring for donations and streamed.  The Datavideo was great for doing the minimal picture in picture duties I did last year and we didn’t experience a single crash.

The setup was great for the shots on the Gameplay and Chachi too.  As you can see in the shot to the right, there was a nice couch to the setup.  Perfect for determining the mics.  Once on each end of the couch to get all of the cursing when Chachi was beating Ginny at Mario Kart.  Mics and cameras were pretty much out of the crowd’s way as
end caps to the players.  Which is nice, since there was a good crowd for Friday night of about 25 people.

Last year, we tried to stream the event.  I initially had this idea to have some content rolling as we went, but the setup was so exhausting, we were lucky to have a live camera on Chachi the entire time.  This year, the setup was a breeze.  And we had a plan.  Chachi and I came up with some questions, and we developed a bit of an exit interview, and were presented with their shirts for participating.  It was like an assembly line of awesome.  The questions were pretty basic.  Stuff about art, going 24 hours, and the game they played with Chachi.  We had some great moments from it.  Everybody had some great things to say, and it gave a great reason to still be on the feed as Chachi took his in between breaks.

It was also great to get a few volunteers in during the Tetris tournament for a little bit of play by play, including my Mayhem compatriot, DJLunchbox and Dudders.

The Surprise

It’s always something, isn’t it.  While the setup was flying, I found something…interesting.  I had the Wirecast going, and brought a spare laptop to check on the feed going out and the chat room.  Well, the video worked fine.  Then I attempted to sign into Justin.tv.  And my account was suspended?  Not exactly.  It seems, according to the wiki I was sent to, WAY at the bottom of the page, Justin.tv doesn’t like open proxies.  I didn’t inquire, but I presume it had something to do with Toonseum’s internet setup.  No problem.  Just pulled out the iPhone and loaded the app off wifi to make sure things were good!

So another year.  Things go so much better, it was an amazing experience.  We’re already looking at making it even better next year.

Keep an eye on ChachiPlays.com for videos as I cobble them together out of 24 hours, and Unsung 21 for a small feature.

Return to video blogging!

We’ve worked in an old Videonics Digital Mixer, like the one I worked on in High School.  See how we use it to offload more cameras and incorporate it into Wirecast.

AwesomeCast 33: I Would Suck on a Plastic Game Piece

This week, we set out to Sharp Edge Bistro on Penn *ding!* for the big event, despite the snow going on.  It was a lot of fun to again have a live audience to respond to some of the discussion, especially the VeriPhone talk that just broke that day.  Fatherspoon of ShouldIDrinkThat.com made his debut on the show filling us in on what the venue had, and Mulango joined us for the later part of the show to talk about video games.  An Angry Birds board game may be in my future.

Wrestling Mayhem Show 252: The 5 Year Anniversary Show!

The snow really put a crimp on our attendance, but from the tweets I got, we would have had a room full!  Chest Flexor, Joe Dombrowski, Michael Facade, and Jimmy Demarco all joined us on the show, as well as Mayhem Originals Chad the Shad, Mayhem Missie, Mad Mike came in from The Bronx, and some guy called David Dimerra.  This one was the epitome of Mayhem, and a perfect way to represent the first five years of the show.  We talked about our beginnings, and other random things.  Honestly, I still have to watch back to figure out just what happened.  The setup worked well enough.  The room was a little darker than I would have liked (bring lights!) and the other miniDV camera I brought I couldn’t figure out why this camera insisted on shutting off since it was one I used previously in the studio.
Chachi Says 18: A Word on Science

A belated episode as we work on reworking some of the production schedules on the site, but this one was well timed since we were down this week at Evening with Podcamp, and Chachi got to visit his good friend Creation Rex, and talk about the public assault on Chachi’s Science.
Music Funtime Show 29: X-Pistols Premiere!

Another week of cool new music.  New mixtape, Scrub Club, and an advanced CD from Suburban Noize Records.  I’m enjoying the simplicity of this show’s setup once again.
An Evening With Podcamp: Kellee Maize

This was a night I took the oppurtunity to try a version of Tuesday’s Sharp Edge Bistro on Penn *ding!* setup another try.  It’s a huge difference to produce a two camera setup when you’re not the host!  WireCast worked out great for a quick two camera multicam.  Only drawback was using the digital8mm from the studio on the same area was far too obvious compared to my Panasonic 3 chip camera.  I took the time to go through the video to adjust some color.  While not perfect, I hope it looks better then what I had originally for everyone.

This is a setup I’ve been experimenting with to do some conferences and training presentations in the near future.  Almost there!