Ustreaming Convocation on Education 2008 — Tech Notes
Posted by: Stephanie in Categories:
Uncategorized.
I had the pleasure of running a live webcast via Ustream for the 2008 Convocation on Education held today in Houston, Texas. The Convocation was hosted by Houston A+ Challenge and the American Leadership Forum, and the keynote speaker was David Warlick.
This evening I am counting my blessings that the technology gods smiled upon us today! This blog post is being written to share the technical details of what I used and how I used it in order to pull off three successful Ustream webcasts today. I will post my reflections on the day along with links to all of the relevant resources in a separate post.
Equipment:
1 Apple MacBook Pro
1 Canon Elura DV Camera
1 Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 (webcam)
Software:
Ustream (web-based)
CamTwist
Computer Set-up:
The MacBook Pro (MBP) was connected to the internet with an ethernet cable. The wireless in the building didn’t seem to be working very well (if at all), and I hadn’t planned on using the wireless anyway for the streaming video. I wanted to avoid the “choppy” effect that tends to come with wireless connections.
The Canon Elura DV camera was connected via firewire to the MBP.
The Logitech QuickCam Pro was connected via USB to the MBP.
CamTwist handled the arrangement of cameras and I used the “Picture-in-Picture” feature in CamTwist to place a small video box of David inside of the larger video box that displayed the screen where he was showing his slideshow.
Ustream Set-up:
After clicking on “Broadcast Now”, I made the following adjustments to the controls:
Video Source = CamTwist (note: CamTwist had to be already running in order to do this.)
Audio source = Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 (The audio from the webcam sounded better than the audio from the built-in microphone. The “built-in audio input” didn’t seem to work for my configuration even though I did have a nice mic plugged into the input on my computer 
)
I adjust the audio and video quality as needed, and under “advanced” features I increased the frame-rate for the video since I was connected via ethernet cable (not recommended if connected wirelessly.)
I think that covers it all. If you would like to see the final products, you can view the archived clips here. Any questions? Feel free to post them here and I will answer to the best of my ability. 
Technorati Tags: CamTwist, Classroom, Flat, Ustream, Warlick
