Joost a.k.a. The Venice Project

I do not know if this is the correct place to post this but here goes. I just watched conference yesterday on the www.byu.tv and I had an idea. There is a new technology being developed by the founders of Skype called Joost, (it was formally known as the Venice Project). It is basically internet t.v. where the content is cryptographically protected and commercials are kept minimal. The content protection that Joost has in place has prompted such corporations as Viacom to sign distribution deals with Joost. I don't know much about distribution but it seems to me that Joost could be an amazing avenue for much of the Church's media content that would allow global access. This is not another youtube by any means. The website has much more information: www.joost.com. I am currently beta testing it and the FAQs listed the email: content@joost.com for inquiries from content owners in possession of T.V. quality broadcast material. If not the church, then maybe KSL or BYU T.V. Please contact me with any questions. I think the possibilty of being able to get on and watch the newest church video or BYU programming is at least worth looking into.

I just recieved another invite for the beta. If it would help for someone at the church to have a beta account to evaluate the medium I could set it up. I just need the email address of whoever needs the account.

genbod wrote:I just recieved another invite for the beta. If it would help for someone at the church to have a beta account to evaluate the medium I could set it up. I just need the email address of whoever needs the account.

I've sent your post to those in the Church who would look at the service. Thanks for sharing. If we need a beta account, we will let you know.

Tom

Joost is a decent site. I have used it a few times to watch some streaming content. This is a good alternative to the following.
In the near future (the release date when I worked with the equipment, was set for January 2009.. yet I have not seen it released yet).
About 3 months ago we got our hands on some camera equipment that is supposedly going to be offered to all church centers. this includes video camera, tripod, Streaming video box, etc. The box connects to the internet and has a dedicated IP address. each church site can then broadcast anything from sacrament meeting, to Christmas party devotionals and/or activities in the gym. Each streaming box can take a load of 15,000 streams I believe. Users connect from anywhere where there is internet and can watch these broadcasts with a passkey given to them from the stake president.
This is a significant breakthrough because now people in resthomes, the sick, soldiers in foreign places, etc etc.. can now watch and feel like they are apart of these programs. to lighten church load this could also be setup to stream things such as conference by connecting the streaming media box directly up to the satellite hardware in the church and rebroadcasting the satellite programs via internet, taking a load off of byutv and the other sites by distributing the load through each and every churchbuilding that has internet access.
The package as a whole is quite expensive but to me it makes sense... what is everyones two cents on this idea?

I think it will be great if the church decides to supply the equipment, just hope the tripod is a video tripod and not a camera tripod. (Difference is that a video tripod allows smooth counter weights to smooth continious the movements).
I do think it will need to be very clear what the policies are around the use of the equipment.

it is a very very nice video tripod

thedqs wrote:I think it will be great if the church decides to supply the equipment, just hope the tripod is a video tripod and not a camera tripod. (Difference is that a video tripod allows smooth counter weights to smooth continious the movements).
I do think it will need to be very clear what the policies are around the use of the equipment.

There's a trick that can produce rather smooth camera motion with even a rather inexpensive tripod. Attach a piece of a flexible material to the tripod's handle and use that to move the camera. I had an older full-size VHS camcorder on a lightweight camcorder tripod with only mild viscous pan damping. With the camera zoomed in on the pulpit from a table in a stake center breezeway, just touching the handle caused serious shaking of the image. I taped a two-foot piece of funny pipe (1/2" black vinyl tubing) to the handle. The flex of the funny pipe greatly smoothed out the camera motion.

regardless of the tripod or the video equipment the church will sell to the church buildings... I would like your input on what you think of distributing General church broadcasts via each chappel's internet via the streaming internet to distribute the workload

Enigma1 wrote:I would like your input on what you think of distributing General church broadcasts via each chappel's internet via the streaming internet to distribute the workload

Enigma1 wrote:JEach streaming box can take a load of 15,000 streams I believe.

Color me skeptical that it would work out with the normal upload bandwidth available to the stake. Not unless the box is using something like BitTorrent to do it.

RussellHltn wrote:Color me skeptical that it would work out with the normal upload bandwidth available to the stake. Not unless the box is using something like BitTorrent to do it.

Now that you mention it, the numbers do look problematic. If my math is correct, ordinary unicast streaming with fiber optic service with 2Mb/s upstream would only support 8 streams of 256kb/s each. My last DSL had a lower upstream rate than 2Mb/s. High-end service with 10Mb/s upstream rate would still only support 40 streams of 256kb/s.

There are a few tricks that might make larger stream counts feasible. One would be using IP multicast rather than conventional unicast. Another would be peer-to-peer or other methods to multiply the upstream capacity. I haven't heard that IP multicast has become practical. Using peer-to-peer for real-time streaming would be an interesting innovation.

Is there anyone who knows who is at liberty to talk about how the system achieves large outbound stream counts?

larrydkb wrote:[Do we really want to encourage watching sacrament in bed?]

this is not the intended purpsoe. yet is a way that for example, a stake conference in alaska could be broadcast to all the meeting houses because it would take many people in such a stake roughly 10 hours to drive to their stake center. reasons like this is why we are testing this equipment. the stake president would have to decide who could recieve this feed, and in turn, they would recieve a password.

as for upload speeds do not miss-quote what i have stated. i have not said that the Internet will support all those streams, yet the streaming video box has the potential to have up to 1,500 streams or whatever the number was i said before. The internet connection WOULD be an issue, yet we arent looking at having all of the church members connected to the same streaming box.

There are several meetings during the year in our Stake (Adult Stake Conference mtg on Sat night, Quarterly Stake General Priesthood mtg etc) where it is not possible to fit everyone to fit in one building. I would hope that it would be possible for us to video and then broadcast into another building in our Stake so that everyone can see. The Stake President has already asked me what can be done to facilitate this.:rolleyes:

I would say that this is possible. Our stake covers basically covers the western half of South Dakota down into Nebraska. It would be great for use because as of now, we have our Nebraska units call in for our Stake General Priesthood meeting, and they listen. This would make it possible for them to be able to watch it also. The thing is that we all ready have our Stake Center wired for close circuit to show Stake Conference in various rooms in the building. We also have a place setup to mount the camera. So if you really want a cheap way to test it out, we would just need to box, we all ready have the internet setup, and a camera that we could use. And I am sure our Stake President would be willing to try.

Since we are talking about and exploring alternatives using the internet, what about Move Networks?

Does anyone listening at CHQ know anything about the possibilities of using Move Networks to stream Stake Conferences to other buildings? This is a medium used by BYUTV that would allow for a good to high quality video over internet connections. I believe that the Church also uses Move for streaming General Conference and other events. Could it be used on a small scale for Stake Conferences?

I have an enquiring mind.

MRK wrote:Since we are talking about and exploring alternatives using the internet, what about Move Networks?

Does anyone listening at CHQ know anything about the possibilities of using Move Networks to stream Stake Conferences to other buildings? This is a medium used by BYUTV that would allow for a good to high quality video over internet connections. I believe that the Church also uses Move for streaming General Conference and other events. Could it be used on a small scale for Stake Conferences?

I have an enquiring mind.

I'm not speaking officially but I would guess it would be possible but would require some type of licensing fee between move networks and your stake.

Tom