Camp Envy Burners: How did the Ustream Webcam work for you?

[stego_s_aurus]

Here in Southern California, the Ustream feed seemed to be pretty decent, considering there were 6500+ viewers at the height of the burn. However, theres a Burner from England who received Sound but no Video.

That now makes me wonder: Where were the viewers located on the planet, and How was your overall experience this year with the Ustream feed? Knowing this information would be Highly useful for the Camrea Crew to know so that things can be tweaked over the next 51 weeks:

(Camrea Crew: THANK YOU for taking the time to man the camera and give Camp Envy an eye onto the Playa!)

(disclaimer: I'm NOT associated with the camera crew: I work in the IT field and am just awestruck with what the official Camera Crew had to go through to GET us that feed!!)

[Grazelda]

The stream in the midwest was excellent, we watched 3-4 days. Got some black screens during the burn and missed the pre-burn fireworks. Still an excellent experience, with the chat adding to the warm fuzzies from the playa. Looking forward to watching the Temple burn tonight, dust willing.

But how did they do it? What sort of net link survived those dust storms?

[DVD Burner]

Question for stego_s_aurus, is there any way to use SEO tools such as google analytics? That would give you an accurate account of geo/demographics.

[Hoolie]

I was also watching in California, and the stream from beginning to end was nearly perfect. Big thanks to all those who made it possible.

[Prospero's Ghost]

Just fine here in NYC! I really appreciated being able to watch and connect in some way while afar.

[QueenQuill]

Did anyone capture a good picture of the nut? If so, could you pretty please email it to me at QueenQuill@gmail.com and I would love you forever? Thanks so much!

Peace, Love, Flame, and Dust,
-Ash

[smohq]

The camera worked wonderfully here in southern California. It was much clearer than the previous two years, with only the occasional buffering, even with 6,500+ viewers during the peak of the Burn last night. I had a black screen for a bit this afternoon, but I was heading out anyway. When I got back, it was back and beautiful.

I just want to give a HUGE thank you to HyperJohn and co. for all they have done for us here in Camp Envy. Your work has completely salvaged our sanity for the past 3 Burns my wife and I have had to miss. Even more so this year since Current TV dropped the ball and didn't broadcast the Burn or even show any TV Free Burning Man pods from this year.

BOO, Current TV!!!

HUZZAH HyperJohn!!!

[MozyBonz]

[AdamJackson]

If anyone that operated the cam could email me that would be great.

I have an idea for them. owner@ourblock.tv

[indigothirdeye]

BM, thank you so much for the live feed. It was incredibly smooth and clear 99% of the time. The only hiccups were during the burn (slow mode) and severe dust events.

One major problem I ran into was the feed caused my FireFox to have a major memory leak, which would cause it to crash every 5 hours or so if I didnt reload the page to clear the memory problem. This is probably a flash/Ustream problem though.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Camp Envy 2009!!! <3 (flame) (pow)

See you nutters in 2010!

[Grazelda]

Bravo MozyBonz!

[Remark]

Was a great picture for me. No problems for me using firefox.

[pablo del diablo]

Thanks to the camera crew and uStream techs.
The LAX stream was great even during the almost 7k viewers @ Burn o'clock.
Thanks to all the ENVY chatters, I laughed non stop.

MozyBonz- Great p-shop of nutless bolt. Thanks!

May ENVY live in all of our hearts the whole year thru.

BOOM POW BACON http://baconhaikus.wordpress.com/
Viva ChairGuy

peace to all,
phart_slap

[stego_s_aurus]

Am currently listening to the BMIR broadcast that was being transmitted during the Burn, and Now the name HyperJohn clicks into my head as being the Webcam operator: Thank You HyperJohn!!!

And of course I Must give my thanks to BMIR for providing the live coverage with the crowd that was waiting for the Burn to go on!

One year I'll get there... I have a New Goal now!

[Starman97]

It was the best viral ad ever, 100% infection.

Must... go to.. playa... 2010.

I can Haz NUT!!

[Monkeypoo]

I enjoyed the burn as best I could. Got a bit sad a couple times cuz I wished I was really there, but then I held hands with a friend on the phone and we watched it together. THANK YOU HYPERJOHN!!! Great job on the cam.

I occasionally had a black screen every now and then, though. Ditto on what folks said above. Firefox crashed on me too, but no worries. Enjoyed chatting with Camp Envy camp mates, with the exception of asshole trolls. They act that way because they envy us. Happy to see Camp Envy morph over to FaceBook and it's great seeing them come over here to Eplaya.

I love love LOVE BMIR Radio. It was soooo great hearing BURNER MUSIC. And I learned that I could listen to Burner Music all year long at: http://www.shoutingfire.org/

I'm introducing Baby RJ to electronica on Tuesday when he comes home and we are gonna dance, dance, dance!!! I gotta figure out a way to talk his Mama into letting me take RJ to Burning Man in 2014 when he is 5 1/2 years old.

Kindergarten Teacher: RJ? What did you do on Summer Vacation?

RJ: Are you fucking kidding me?? Any kid who is cool - like me - went to fucking Burning Man!!! I got painted green, ate bacon all week, picked up MOOP with other kids my age, saw dirty hippies and lots of freaks dressed up in costumes, looked at lots of really cool art, went down the zip line, and then we burned THE FUCKING MAN!!!! It was righteous, Teacher. Oh yeah, Kyle showed me the best places to hide from adults. Then we went and got tattooed. GrannyPoo got a bit upset about that...






*waves to all Camp Envy campmates*


See you next year in NUTROPOLIS!!!!

[hello_Chip]

In San Diego I had the webcast (sometimes alone & sometimes with chat room on ustream) on nearly every day for hours and hours. Rarely got stuck or black video which was fixed with web page reloaded.

Thanks for having webcast WITHOUT chat room as that was a perfect link to share with G and PG friends.

During the man-burn, there was a lot of probably FSR radio chatter with telltale beep/ring. I thought it was just someone near remote-microphone, but this continued after remote broadcast from near man was ended and sound broadcast was returned to BMRI control (six hours of non-stop music).

In the chat room, IF there were anybody from the Playa participating it would have been helpful to indicate it in their name somehow to differentiate that they were LOCAL.

Leaving the camera on slow-rotate was GREAT when unmanned!!!
There was a steady wind-noise as if there was a microphone @ the webcam in addition to the BMRI audio channel.

Emotionally it was sometimes depressing during the week to be so close yet so far away.

THANKS for all your effort!!!! You folks ROCK!

[hello_Chip]

When the camera zoomed in, I did sometime wonder about "asking permmission of individuals before taking a picture of them" as required of every other photo/video person.

Since the webcast is nearly LIVE one cannot go back and edit/sensor pictures/videos prior to broadcasting.

Was this discussed someplace prior to start of webcast.

I greatly enjoyed the webcast, but am asking a tough question.

[hello_Chip]

In San Diego I had the webcast (sometimes alone & sometimes with chat room on ustream) on nearly every day for hours and hours. Rarely got stuck or black video which was fixed with web page reloaded.

Thanks for having webcast WITHOUT chat room as that was a perfect link to share with G and PG friends.

During the man-burn, there was a lot of probably FSR radio chatter with telltale beep/ring. I thought it was just someone near remote-microphone, but this continued after remote broadcast from near man was ended and sound broadcast was returned to BMRI control (six hours of non-stop music).

In the chat room, IF there were anybody from the Playa participating it would have been helpful to indicate it in their name somehow to differentiate that they were LOCAL.

Leaving the camera on slow-rotate was GREAT when unmanned!!!
There was a steady wind-noise as if there was a microphone @ the webcam in addition to the BMRI audio channel.

Emotionally it was sometimes depressing during the week to be so close yet so far away.

THANKS for all your effort!!!! You folks ROCK!

[Tar]

MozyBonz, You're the best. Too funny. Viva La Nut, Viva Camp Envy!

[MsLynn707]

The whole week was AWESOME inasmuch as This would have been my first burn in 3yrs and as luck would have it, I was Not able to go and with Current TV not being there. Wed was my birthday and it was turning out to be a crappy day until I came home and Googled B'Man and I found the Ustream and it was on in my house 24/7 as in I did not turn my computer off the whole time and yes there were a few glitches BUT it really made my B'Day a whole lot more Bearable, I turned 60 and that was kinda hard to deal with. There are a couple of things that could have been better, such as when the burn started the cam person kept zooming in and out and not letting the viewers absorb the pic a little bit more and those two dudes that were talking like they were calling a baseball game was sorta silly but BMIR WAS AWESOME ALL WEEK LONG all I can say is next year when I get back to the playa, I'm checking those people at Camp Envy out. I F*****G LOVED IT AND MY NEIGHBORS GOT TURNED ON TO BURNING MAN CAUSE WE HAD A PARTY.. Once Again THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH....MsLynn707 PS I forgot to add I live in Santa Rosa, Ca.

[skibear]

One major problem I ran into was the feed caused my FireFox to have a major memory leak, which would cause it to crash every 5 hours or so if I didnt reload the page to clear the memory problem. This is probably a flash/Ustream problem though.

Though I love Firefox, I've found all versions of Firefox and Netscape/Mozilla
before have always had memory leaks.

Twice I forgot to turn off the webcam and after a few hours the PC would
completely lock up!! Every bit of RAM memory in use. Total lockup (as bad
as the blue screen of death) cntl-alt-del wouldn't work.

Pulling the power plug out OTOH worked!! grrr grrr

[veleda]

the stream was made of win.

[Nitevenus]

A big THANK YOU to the powers that be for building and installing it on the playa. So appreciative of the camera operators for close ups and zooms on the artwork.....almost as good as being home.

[princesspisces]

Thank you to everyone who worked on the camera project! It was awesome to watch everyone at home.

Here's to Camp Envy 2009!

[Grazelda]

the stream was made of win.

and smelled of bacon.

[Isotopia]

Even with a small group of ~1600 people watching I wonder what was the point of people try to say anything. Certainly nothing of substance was ever written as far as I could tell. The spamming and the stupid shite posted posted in excess by the same obsessive regulars gave the whole thing an air of a Cub Scout circle jerk. Certainly there was little written by anyone that made me want to know any of the posters better. In fact, I felt better that I was physically removed from the vast majority who were 'contributing' to the inane dialogue. When the numbers ramped up to around ~5000 it was insane. I mean, WTF were people thinking to believe that anyone was trying to read lines of text flying on the screen at 140 mph? Really, it was more like having a camera watching people in a room talk to themselves. Surely no one is calling such dialogue 'community.'

The the camera and the camera work were very well done. I think for the passive observers that wanted a taste of the playa that they were served well by the crew who put that portion of the broadcast together. Kudos to them.

[Grazelda]

Entertainment and a sense of community come from different sources for different people. Just close the window and you wouldn't have been bothered.

The feed was fun.

[stinkiepie]

I'm extremely grateful to those who were working the camera. I've finally resolved to go next year, because what I saw was so amazing....


Alert: Camp Envy Theme 2010: (flame) NUTROPOLIS (flame)

[vagrant]

It worked well mostly; I did need to do repeated logons at busy times because sound or video wasn't properly streaming at that particular logon moment.