UpLoad.cfm form has been created and tested locally on the lab's dev server (not the SPH dev server).
Applications:
This form could be modified to create upload forms for various stages of processing. Especially to send audio for processing to the video lab before it becomes a podcast.
so... pbbly create a RawUplaod.cfm from this file later.
The features of this cool code are:
1. Mime-type restriction for upload
2. File size restriction for the uploaded file so that it doesn't kill the server or anything.
Drawback: The mime-type checking is done on the server after the upload - this is not a major problem as such, because its not that it checks file size after upload. Its just the mime type. However, the question is - what if some-one gets a malicious file with wav/mp3 extention to upload?
In that case, we have to make sure that this page is restricted to authorized users only.
Next Steps:
1. Create a processing page for adding metadata to the file on upload. Not in the same form, because there shouldn't be a frustrating situation where the upload failed and all the entered metadata needs to be entered again. That would frustrate people. However, we don't want the uploaded file to be orphaned if there was no data entry on the metadata page - so update the database with the filename, date of creation, Coursename, length (size in bytes) values. The AddMetadata page will then take over.
2. AddMetadata Page: Update the record created in the previous page with additional Metadata. Give choice of loading fields from a set template and then doing only minor changes. Also, ability to add searchable text from a powerpoint file is a great idea. The rtf export of the powerpoint slide, with demarcated slide numbers. This might be a little too ambitious.... but, well!
More later.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Coldfusion Podcasting Solution: Revival
On Friday, the 27th, I was able to retrieve and test the old coldfusion code from last year, which spews out a RSS feed into the browser. Still waiting for the Coldfusion development server to be Fixed. It seems like it is on their January To-Do list. Hopefully once that is up, this derailed project will take off and we can serve some podcasts - piping hot.
Also, the original idea behind the diracaster.php script was to get something working since the coldfusion dev server was down. Now that it will come up, we will no longer need the php script and the lands can rejoice in coldfusioness again.
Also, the original idea behind the diracaster.php script was to get something working since the coldfusion dev server was down. Now that it will come up, we will no longer need the php script and the lands can rejoice in coldfusioness again.
ConferencedClass: More Sunday R&D
Today, I think I achieved a small breakthrough - being able to interface audio from 1 soundgrabber into the instructor's Centra station without any noise.
Waiting on the AAA batteries: I think an interesting dry run would be with ALL the gizmos connected, because in the past I've seen wierd noise sources when the actual setup is established.
Here are some noteworthy settings for the pre-amp and M-Audio Mixer which worked out today:
Shure Pre-Amp Fed to M-Audio Interface by XLR-XLR connector.
Shure Pre-Amp Settings:
Wired Lapel: 7 (10 Scale)
Soundgrabber: 9 (10 Scale)
Master: Almost 12 (12 Scale)
M-Audio External Sound Card:
Mic Input: 1330 (clock comparision)
Mix: 100% Input
Output: 100% (Maxed)
Adjustment Principle
Adjusted sound levels at all stages until Centra Audio Wizard was not recording significant noise. This will be a part of the setup on conferenced class mornings.
G'nite
Waiting on the AAA batteries: I think an interesting dry run would be with ALL the gizmos connected, because in the past I've seen wierd noise sources when the actual setup is established.
Here are some noteworthy settings for the pre-amp and M-Audio Mixer which worked out today:
Shure Pre-Amp Fed to M-Audio Interface by XLR-XLR connector.
Shure Pre-Amp Settings:
Wired Lapel: 7 (10 Scale)
Soundgrabber: 9 (10 Scale)
Master: Almost 12 (12 Scale)
M-Audio External Sound Card:
Mic Input: 1330 (clock comparision)
Mix: 100% Input
Output: 100% (Maxed)
Adjustment Principle
Adjusted sound levels at all stages until Centra Audio Wizard was not recording significant noise. This will be a part of the setup on conferenced class mornings.
G'nite
Friday, January 27, 2006
Apple Podcasting Class: At the Dude
This is a good class to take. John Hickey, Apple Systems Engineer was the instructor.
Some take aways for me:
1. Export in QuicktimePro as Mpeg4 BUT name it as .m4a instead of mp4 (the default).
2. I used to think that podcasting directions is a silly thing to do. But!!! Found some useful insight:
Podcast for Directions: Why not silly -
- prevents nausea
- allows people to use their attention properly
- idea of a professor who 'read' his coursepack to
3. The itpc:// protocol was something new. This was the question running through my heart last evening "How the heck do I cut down a user's step of copying and pasting the podcast URL. Whoa!!! Apple has Internet Explorer obeying the itpc protocol to launch iTunes! That was an eye opener. - This should be included in the podcasting workshop.
4. Other good stuff:
Podcast Interviewing: the new iLife has integrated iChat (4 videos at a time), Garageband, iPhoto etc etc. This is fantastic stuff, really.
Garageband: Very efficient and easy production of enhanced podcasts! Mind blowing, sire. Photo syncing, automatic ducking (lowing bg music when speaker speaks, jingles, canned loops).
5. The iMac photo presentation (and the reflection effects) are done using latest AJAX technology.
6. Profcast - what I din't know was the ability of a presenter to switch between presentations while creating an enhanced profcast. Keynote and Profcast integration was quite good.
Some take aways for me:
1. Export in QuicktimePro as Mpeg4 BUT name it as .m4a instead of mp4 (the default).
2. I used to think that podcasting directions is a silly thing to do. But!!! Found some useful insight:
Podcast for Directions: Why not silly -
- prevents nausea
- allows people to use their attention properly
- idea of a professor who 'read' his coursepack to
3. The itpc:// protocol was something new. This was the question running through my heart last evening "How the heck do I cut down a user's step of copying and pasting the podcast URL. Whoa!!! Apple has Internet Explorer obeying the itpc protocol to launch iTunes! That was an eye opener. - This should be included in the podcasting workshop.
4. Other good stuff:
Podcast Interviewing: the new iLife has integrated iChat (4 videos at a time), Garageband, iPhoto etc etc. This is fantastic stuff, really.
Garageband: Very efficient and easy production of enhanced podcasts! Mind blowing, sire. Photo syncing, automatic ducking (lowing bg music when speaker speaks, jingles, canned loops).
5. The iMac photo presentation (and the reflection effects) are done using latest AJAX technology.
6. Profcast - what I din't know was the ability of a presenter to switch between presentations while creating an enhanced profcast. Keynote and Profcast integration was quite good.
Password Protecting Podcasts
I was able to password protect individual podcast mp3s using simple directory authentication on my personal server. Now I have to try that with Kerberos cosign.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Conference XP: Test Drive
Thanks to Bob Riddle at Internet2, we were able to test drive Conference XP using our Black Friday $10 Labtec webcams. It worked great. We were using the server Bob has setup at the Internet2 on S. State St. as a reflector. It also acts as the test archival and venue server.
Things went smoothly. The following things were tested:
1. UW Presenter
2. Screen Streaming
3. Multiple videos - 3 cams online - great view.
4. Voice quality was great using ordinary headsets.
Things went smoothly. The following things were tested:
1. UW Presenter
2. Screen Streaming
3. Multiple videos - 3 cams online - great view.
4. Voice quality was great using ordinary headsets.
DAMS Update
DAMS Update: Project name changed to BlueStream. Since I have been in a lot of meetings with the DAMS folks, the update for me personally was in the CSS stylesheet of the interface. Lot of the cool features I had seen before. One thing, I thought was new, was publishing video podcasts. But investigation found that it was a proof-of-concept - m4v's did not come from their video compression core 'FlipFactory'. Hopefully, we might be able to work in server based video crunching, which is the most attractive aspect to me personally.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Storage Space: Holographic Storage at Turner Entertainment
Step aside Blue Rays and HD-DVDs... Holographic storage will blow us away:
From a Computerworld article:
“The holographic disk promises to retail for $100, and by 2010, it will have capacity of 1.6TB each. That’s pretty inexpensive,� said Ron Tarasoff, vice president of broadcast technology and engineering at Turner Entertainment. “Even this first version can store 300GB per disk, and it has 160MB/sec. data throughput rates. That’s burning. Then combine it with random access, and it’s the best of all worlds.�
more... (useful numbers)
Some useful numebers:
Turner Entertainment:200,000+ movies
25,000+ commercials
49,000+ promotional spots
Current Storage Solution:Digital tape libraries from Storage Technology Corp. as well as a caching system of disk arrays.
Current N/W data rate capacity:The company now has 96 1Gbit/sec. Ethernet connections
Future:it plans to upgrade those to 10Gbit/sec. streams in the near future
The Vendors
DHD called 'Tapestry' by InPhase Technologies, Inc. (Longmont Colorado)
Optware corp, Japan
Raving:
Tarasoff (Turner person) said InPhase’s hardware performed flawlessly, feeding a promotional spot to its networks about as quickly as its tape library system does. “Their production version promises to be much faster than tape, but we’ve not seen that yet,� Tarasoff said.
From a Computerworld article:
“The holographic disk promises to retail for $100, and by 2010, it will have capacity of 1.6TB each. That’s pretty inexpensive,� said Ron Tarasoff, vice president of broadcast technology and engineering at Turner Entertainment. “Even this first version can store 300GB per disk, and it has 160MB/sec. data throughput rates. That’s burning. Then combine it with random access, and it’s the best of all worlds.�
more... (useful numbers)
Some useful numebers:
Turner Entertainment:200,000+ movies
25,000+ commercials
49,000+ promotional spots
Current Storage Solution:Digital tape libraries from Storage Technology Corp. as well as a caching system of disk arrays.
Current N/W data rate capacity:The company now has 96 1Gbit/sec. Ethernet connections
Future:it plans to upgrade those to 10Gbit/sec. streams in the near future
The Vendors
DHD called 'Tapestry' by InPhase Technologies, Inc. (Longmont Colorado)
Optware corp, Japan
Raving:
Tarasoff (Turner person) said InPhase’s hardware performed flawlessly, feeding a promotional spot to its networks about as quickly as its tape library system does. “Their production version promises to be much faster than tape, but we’ve not seen that yet,� Tarasoff said.
Juan Cole's: A Blogging Success story from UM
Juan Cole is a blogging success stories. Respected, well researched blog that is used by journalists, politicians and academicians all over. Juan Cole is a History professor who presented the CRLT seminar on his professional blogging activities since the early 2000s.
The success of the blog lies in its transparency and authority. Today, anyone can start a blog... and let it die. But Juan's blog-flame has burnt strong for years which makes it a good success. The best part of the presentation was that the presenter was not a tech person trying to sell an idea, but a person, comfortable with the technology, having a pleasant conversation. Felt great.
Building a Blogging/Wiki-ing/Podcasting culture:If this has to be done, high-need groups need to be recognized and then showcased. For the podcasting culture to grow as an academic phenomenon, the experts should, as a group produce one podcast from each department - updated 1-2 times a week. OK, maybe I am asking for too much, but that's whats cool - our own little public health radio, that michiganradio and npr can solicit as an expert source. The richmedia we have is totally instructional in the central sense of it.
Bottom line: Content is King
More...
Two different blog indexes on the web:
Blogdex: Ranks posts by their 'contagiousness', a term about which we were not quite sure about.
Technorati: Which plainly indexes blog and calculated their popularity from the inbound links.
Other interesting websites that came up:
Collective Blogging by Experts
http://www.crookedtimber.org/
Young Academician's Blog Allegedly* Costs him Tenure
http://www.danieldrezner.com/*Alleged by the blogging community, denied by the academician himself
The success of the blog lies in its transparency and authority. Today, anyone can start a blog... and let it die. But Juan's blog-flame has burnt strong for years which makes it a good success. The best part of the presentation was that the presenter was not a tech person trying to sell an idea, but a person, comfortable with the technology, having a pleasant conversation. Felt great.
Building a Blogging/Wiki-ing/Podcasting culture:If this has to be done, high-need groups need to be recognized and then showcased. For the podcasting culture to grow as an academic phenomenon, the experts should, as a group produce one podcast from each department - updated 1-2 times a week. OK, maybe I am asking for too much, but that's whats cool - our own little public health radio, that michiganradio and npr can solicit as an expert source. The richmedia we have is totally instructional in the central sense of it.
Bottom line: Content is King
More...
Two different blog indexes on the web:
Blogdex: Ranks posts by their 'contagiousness', a term about which we were not quite sure about.
Technorati: Which plainly indexes blog and calculated their popularity from the inbound links.
Other interesting websites that came up:
Collective Blogging by Experts
http://www.crookedtimber.org/
Young Academician's Blog Allegedly* Costs him Tenure
http://www.danieldrezner.com/*Alleged by the blogging community, denied by the academician himself
DAMS preview coming up in 1 day
DAMS update is on the way... lets see what we have Tommorow!
DAMS Showcase & Campus Report
January 26, 3:00p-4:30p
Forum Hall
Fourth Floor, Palmer Commons
DAMS Showcase & Campus Report
January 26, 3:00p-4:30p
Forum Hall
Fourth Floor, Palmer Commons
DAMS Showcase & Campus Report
January 26, 3:00p-4:30p
Forum Hall
Fourth Floor, Palmer Commons
DAMS Showcase & Campus Report
January 26, 3:00p-4:30p
Forum Hall
Fourth Floor, Palmer Commons
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Conference XP: Feet Wet
The day at the lab belongs to conference XP. The 4 missing cameras arrived from Just deals.com, which were ordered for Conf XP.
Also, Tom Bray was in the studio and we met Bob Riddle on a Conference XP meeting. Although we were on Unicast here at SPH, using the reflector set up at Internet2 on S. State St, the videos looked good. There were 4 windows on screen: New York, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico and Ann Arbor. All streaming the media quite well. The latency did not appear as a bother.
Also, Tom Bray was in the studio and we met Bob Riddle on a Conference XP meeting. Although we were on Unicast here at SPH, using the reflector set up at Internet2 on S. State St, the videos looked good. There were 4 windows on screen: New York, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico and Ann Arbor. All streaming the media quite well. The latency did not appear as a bother.
Monday, January 23, 2006
CES Show Review
Tom Bray was at CES and shared his experience. Especially, of interest to librarians would be the auto-page-turner scanner www.atiz.com
Tom's Report
Tom's Report
Public Health Podcasts
This was long awaited. How to find Public Health podcasts. Dentistry has taken the much anticipated step in putting together a way to look for good podcasts.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/dentlib/resources/guides/podcast.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/dentlib/resources/guides/podcast.html
Absenteeism in UC Berkley
Prof finds attendance down to 20% after a compbination of media was made available for download. This is a undergraduate course in computers. The media available were: podcasts, videos, handouts and detailed notes.
http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-noshow17jan17,0,6775200.story?coll=ktla-news-1
http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-noshow17jan17,0,6775200.story?coll=ktla-news-1
Boston U
This is a little different application of Podcasting compared to your usual story about a lecture being podcast. This is about podcasting meetings at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts (CDIA) at Boston University. They are podcasting meetings of thier Production Practicum project. Cooler, we get.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060119/bs_prweb/prweb334820_2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060119/bs_prweb/prweb334820_2
Podcasting Products
The first personal suite to be released in M-Audio's Podcast factory which we acquired this semester. The harwarde interface is quite useful as it converts XLR & phone input to USB signal for a PC/Mac. So this interface acts like a high quality external soundcard, which is useful in applications which cannot afford the interference noise in the audio signal.
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