This is a great 40 minute video. I just now had time to watch it and should have made time earlier. The interesting thing is that Leo and I are starting from opposite ends. Spacevidcast started with a live 24×7 channel and is working backwards to on-demand options and podcasts whereas he started with podcasts and is working up to a live 24×7 channel. The good news is that he is starting to see some traction on his live channel, so there is hope for us yet! Of course we’re starting to see traction too, but probably not to the same level that Leo has.
I have been doing a terrible job of keeping this blog up. I do have some interesting ideas I thought I would throw out to the Interwebs and allow you all to see what I’m thinking for Spacevidcast 3.00. For those who don’t know we number each season with the season number then episode, so the very first episode was 1.01 and the latest we just did was 2.33. Next year in 2010 we begin 3.xx shows so the season is called 3.00. Now on to the ideas.
1 – I’m thinking we will release Spacevidcast Pro as an attempt to monetize the show. Making money is very important here as I can’t fund the show out of pocket forever. We have some great donators but that’s not enough to keep the lights on. By adding a pro option that will allow us to have monthly subscribers and hopefully bring in enough income to allow us to do live coverage of additional events across the country. One of the reasons we could not cover the *awesome* 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge was that we simply didn’t have enough money to travel to the many different sites. Dailies and live shows will remain free, Pro will be options on top of that. Basically, a freemium model. My big concern is that space is a niche industry with not a lot of money for new media shows like ours. Not sure how many people would be willing to pay for Pro. To do my full vision of what I want, I would need 2,500 subscribers at $10.00 a month. That is a lot. To break even with our current setup I just need 100 subscribers at $10.00/mo. Well, that’s a starting point at least.
2 – I’m not sure we will be able to do this for 3.00 but I want to create a mobile production truck. The NewTek StreamOrDie.com site is quite inspiring. For not a lot of money (relative of course) we can create a mobile HD satellite production truck that I can drive just about anywhere in North America to do live streams. The truck would use something like a ToDoCast.tv mobile satellite solution. I’m also thinking that mobile events like that would be pay-per-view for users that are not Spacevidcast Pro members. Why not free? Well, 24 hours of satellite time is $2,200 so we have to recover those costs somehow. If the event itself is willing to pay for the satellite time, then we would offer it for free with pop-up ads or without pop-up ads for Pro members. That’s the idea at least. I believe the initial cost would be around $150k for the car and all production equipment. Not too bad when compared to other HD satellite production trucks but still more than I have today. Anyone want to sponsor our 3.00 series?
3 – I would like to bring in a NewTek Tricaster XD300 combined with an LC11 and 3Play. Expensive solution although it would still be HD and it would allow us to record 3 HD cameras in slow motion for live playback. Imagine watching Xoie’s engine close up in slow motion after the successful landing. Would be epic! I’m not sure it would work, but if the Canon EOS 5D Mark II can output 720p clean via component HD that would be a pretty powerful solution. This would probably all still link to CamTwist since there is a lot of stuff in there that even a Tricaster simply can not do today.
4 – And finally, I’m looking in to moving the studio. I don’t have a lot of detail here but I want to bring in a live audience each and every week. Crow River Coffee Company is awesome but we can’t fit an audience in to the back room. Currently I’m looking at theatre space that would allow for a full production. Might be able to just drive the Spacevidcast truck up to the location and stream from there. See how that all comes together? To add to the awesomeness, I may know just the theatre to use…
What does the community think? Ambitious plans for and ambitious industry. Feedback?
The BBC aired a story about Spacevidcast! Well, actually, no. They aired a story about UStream and how freakishly awesome it is. The funny thing is that when the Spacevidcast screen shots pop up they start talking about how you should protect your children. HA! They also mention how low quality it is, then go one to show our HIGH DEFINITION COVERAGE of STS-125. Oh well. Click the picture below to watch, the segment starts about 2:20 in to the clip.
A huge THANK YOU to Crow River Coffee Company and PSB Satellite for allowing us to install this great C-Band dish and helping to set it up. We could not have done it without you guys.
On the Spacevidcast front a lot of really great stuff has been happening. First we have live High Definition coverage of STS-125. As far a I know we are the only Internet stream that is doing shuttle launches in HD. Even NASA does not do that! During the launch coverage we have some pretty stiff competition from SpaceFlight Now’s live web stream as well as from traditional TV. For the first time we were able to crush most of our “competition” which was pretty cool. Of course I don’t really view anyone as competition because I believe all ships rise with the tide and I’m excited to see more and more people trying to show off human space flight! It was also nice to have the largest number of concurrent viewers though. Made it feel like all of the work, pains and effort was worth it.
At the end of this month I’ll be leaving for Orlando! The first part of the vacation has nothing to do with Spacevidcast and will be the first time I have had a real vacation in… years! The second half will be for ISDC 2009. We will have live coverage of ISDC 2009 streaming on Spacevidcast (as far as I know the only ones) and we will also be hosting a New Media panel. To say I’m excited is an understatement. I hope we’ll find some good sources there to help relieve some of the financial burden that is Spacevidcast. Monetize or die. I would hate to see Spacevidcast die, I truly believe it is vitally important that we get humans psyched up about human space flight again, and fast!
Today I found out that while WCCO news may not be HD (yet) they do have a twitter account for breaking news stories. Ok, cool and good first step to getting my attention. Then I dig a bit deeper and find that not only do they have a Twitter account but they also have at least one N95-3 cameraphone that they are playing with.
WCCO is not sure how they are going to use it yet. Does one go for the Qik angle and stream breaking news directly from the phone? Should they walk the studio during a live broadcast and give a behind-the-scenes view of the show? Is there another angle that they can use the device for and really push the boundaries of new media? I don’t have an answer to these questions yet (mostly because they don’t know either) but I have a feeling that they will be doing something very cool, very soon.
My suggestion to WCCO News: do it all.
WCCO News isn’t known for getting the younger crowd but I think if they start to hit all of the new media markets they will slowly get there. I’m speaking as someone in the 18-30 year old demographic here. Go HD (don’t tell me it is expensive, I used to do R&D for HD studios far larger than yours, I know exactly how expensive it is, suck it up). Get on Twitter not only for breaking news but for other station personalities as well. Get on Facebook and MySpace for all of these personalities too. Have a nightly UStream.tv broadcast using something like the upcoming version of CamTwist that will allow you to cut between multiple cameras (one in the control room with ISO/IFB audio, one in the studio pointed backwards, one in the MCO, etc., etc.) Have Qik live streams that are linked to your Twitter account and bring these cameras out with you in the field. Bring us, your audience, in to the conversation. Make the news a community driven event again. Make your broadcast a social network in and of itself! Be innovators in Electronic News Gathering, push the envelope, force the other local stations to take notice. Heck, make CBS take notice. These technologies are incredibly inexpensive or in many cases free. All of them open you up to a whole new audience, some of which is even outside of Minnesota.
This is either going to be very exciting when WCCO starts to move forward, or they are going to get scared, back down and do something lame. Here’s hoping they just do it all.
Jason DeRusha of WCCO has a nifty segment called “Good Question“. I thought it would be funny to give him a hard time and ask why WCCO broadcasts some shows in HD but won’t broadcast their news in HD. I didn’t expect an answer and I certainly didn’t expect WCCO to air any part of my question. To my surprise on 02/18/2008 on the 10:00pm news WCCO decided to explain exactly why they don’t broadcast their news in HD. Here is that segment:
You may have noticed a few edits in that segment where I came in. That’s because my original question was a lot longer and clearly not designed to ever hit air. For fun here is the original I submitted to Jason in its entirety:
It looks like WCCO uses SlingBoxes as a confidence monitor to ensure that KCCO and KCCW are playing nice
The shot as Jason watching me ask my question as he sits at his desk makes him look very Dr. Evil. I was expecting him to turn around and say “MWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA”
I submitted the segment in 720p h.264 HD and they decided to record it off the screen via a camera rather than bring it in to the NLE
The VTRs look like DVCPRO decks, I would guess DVCPRO 25
Even if KCCO and KCCW are not ready for HD today, so long as the metro area is ready it is possible to broadcast HD here then donconvert for the other markets
If you look at my desk you can see a mixer which shows that yes, I actually do have wiring closets “in my house”
While I am happy that Jason thinks I have the best looking home office ever, in fact that was my actual desk at the real office (with studio lights)
WCCO’s segment was a blast! Cariann and I laughed all the way though. Well done guys, well done indeed!
Not that long ago I sent in my own