...the problem is simply this: The bandwidth charges would financially devestate us.
What we're in the process of doing now is finding ways to host these videos much cheaper than we could otherwise do so at the present. Ultimately, a T1 line with our own server would be the best, but in the short term, we need something else to insure that we have the best possible product delivered in the least expensive possible way.
We're almost there! Keep praying!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Stand By...
Barring disaster, Mater Dei Television will begin programming on Feb 17, 2009.
Donations can be accepted through PayPal at this address: donate@mater-dei-television.org
Keep checking back to this blog for programming updates and other pertinent information regarding Mater Dei Television.
I sincerely hope that MDTV will inspire, inform and educate all who view it.
Donations can be accepted through PayPal at this address: donate@mater-dei-television.org
Keep checking back to this blog for programming updates and other pertinent information regarding Mater Dei Television.
I sincerely hope that MDTV will inspire, inform and educate all who view it.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Progress!
OK, I've taken a template that was downloaded from the Open Source Web Design website and am molding it (finally) into something that will be Mater Dei Television's first website.
Well, first usable one anyway.
I have also embedded the JW FLV Player into the website, complete with sample video that came bundled with it, and it worked...to a point. The player I embedded was actually in the place I wanted it to be (seeing that I've had about 3 weeks of coding experience up to this point - remember? I'm using a TEMPLATE), but I need to find out how to get more than one window embedded. When we can figure that much out, we are SO in business!
So, while my Adventures in Coding are put on hold, I wait and I blog.
Stay Tuned!
Well, first usable one anyway.
I have also embedded the JW FLV Player into the website, complete with sample video that came bundled with it, and it worked...to a point. The player I embedded was actually in the place I wanted it to be (seeing that I've had about 3 weeks of coding experience up to this point - remember? I'm using a TEMPLATE), but I need to find out how to get more than one window embedded. When we can figure that much out, we are SO in business!
So, while my Adventures in Coding are put on hold, I wait and I blog.
Stay Tuned!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
JW FLV Player
The JW FLV Player has been uploaded to the website today and Quanta Plus was installed on the Ubuntu box on Tuesday, so now it's just a matter of playing with the latter and learning how to use it well enough to get the former to work with it.
The JW FLV Player seems to work the best, from what I can see anyway, with playing back embedded MP4 files fullscreen. There is a newer version of the software but I'll go ahead and use this first while I'm playing with it.
We shall see what comes up soon. In the meantime, we're sitting on a test pattern...
The JW FLV Player seems to work the best, from what I can see anyway, with playing back embedded MP4 files fullscreen. There is a newer version of the software but I'll go ahead and use this first while I'm playing with it.
We shall see what comes up soon. In the meantime, we're sitting on a test pattern...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
KVM Installed
By and large, this generally isn't that big of a deal to report, but today it is and here's why...
By now, if you follow this blog at all, you no doubt have seen the website for Mater Dei Television. Our test pattern page is a very basic page done on KompoZer that was put up there to let people know that we're going to start broadcasting soon.
I was not, nor I'm still not, impressed with it.
I wanted something with DreamWeaver type quality to it, but I don't have that kind of cash right now (and since we don't have any programming up quite yet, we're not exactly getting donations yet). I decided to look open source and came up with Quanta Plus. It looks nice from the screenshots, but it's only for Mac and Linux.
Enter the KVM.
The KVM will allow me to hook one of my Ubuntu boxes up that I've not had online since we left Indiana. It's downloading right now. I'm trying to set one goal per day at this point, regardless of how big or small, that I can get done that will advance Mater Dei Television and get us on air quicker. My goal was to get the KVM up yesterday, so I briefly fell behind. Now that I'm installing Quanta Plus, I'm back on track.
Goal for tomorrow: Commence work on permanent webpage. ETA to completion: One week.
By now, if you follow this blog at all, you no doubt have seen the website for Mater Dei Television. Our test pattern page is a very basic page done on KompoZer that was put up there to let people know that we're going to start broadcasting soon.
I was not, nor I'm still not, impressed with it.
I wanted something with DreamWeaver type quality to it, but I don't have that kind of cash right now (and since we don't have any programming up quite yet, we're not exactly getting donations yet). I decided to look open source and came up with Quanta Plus. It looks nice from the screenshots, but it's only for Mac and Linux.
Enter the KVM.
The KVM will allow me to hook one of my Ubuntu boxes up that I've not had online since we left Indiana. It's downloading right now. I'm trying to set one goal per day at this point, regardless of how big or small, that I can get done that will advance Mater Dei Television and get us on air quicker. My goal was to get the KVM up yesterday, so I briefly fell behind. Now that I'm installing Quanta Plus, I'm back on track.
Goal for tomorrow: Commence work on permanent webpage. ETA to completion: One week.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Test Pattern
It's up.
Over three months since my last post (I'm horrible in that department), a move from Indiana to Wyoming, and an old DVCAM camcorder later, and we have our website up, complete with the test pattern like you would have seen in the "Golden Age of Television" from the 1950s.
I'm going to start this out by saying this is NOT the way that I wanted to do this. I would still very much like to go IPTV or even consider satellite delivery, whichever turns out to be the best way to do it based on cost and the ability to reach the audience. That said, even if we had all the money we needed to and could feasibly do both, we have a different problem...
We don't have enough programming.
So, while I'm in the process of aquiring more old films on eBay and various other sources, and producing our own new programs, we'll have to deliver our content this way. This solution will get us up and rolling, but it's only temporary. I know my computer stuff, but I'm not a computer guy. I'm a TV man and that's how I think. My opinion is that the great majority of the viewing public, while with the ability to watch TV on their computers, would prefer to sit in their family room and watch it on a TV as opposed to sitting in their office or den and watching it on their PC.
Producing these programs will be an ongoing task, but ultimately a labor of love. The next step is to incorporate in the State of Wyoming with the intention of filing as a non-profit. We will also be doing everything we can to get to the ultimate goal of satellite or IPTV delivery as quickly as possible, while providing the best quality viewing experience that we are able to in the meantime.
Things are rolling! Thanks for the prayers, but by all means, keep them up!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Over three months since my last post (I'm horrible in that department), a move from Indiana to Wyoming, and an old DVCAM camcorder later, and we have our website up, complete with the test pattern like you would have seen in the "Golden Age of Television" from the 1950s.
I'm going to start this out by saying this is NOT the way that I wanted to do this. I would still very much like to go IPTV or even consider satellite delivery, whichever turns out to be the best way to do it based on cost and the ability to reach the audience. That said, even if we had all the money we needed to and could feasibly do both, we have a different problem...
We don't have enough programming.
So, while I'm in the process of aquiring more old films on eBay and various other sources, and producing our own new programs, we'll have to deliver our content this way. This solution will get us up and rolling, but it's only temporary. I know my computer stuff, but I'm not a computer guy. I'm a TV man and that's how I think. My opinion is that the great majority of the viewing public, while with the ability to watch TV on their computers, would prefer to sit in their family room and watch it on a TV as opposed to sitting in their office or den and watching it on their PC.
Producing these programs will be an ongoing task, but ultimately a labor of love. The next step is to incorporate in the State of Wyoming with the intention of filing as a non-profit. We will also be doing everything we can to get to the ultimate goal of satellite or IPTV delivery as quickly as possible, while providing the best quality viewing experience that we are able to in the meantime.
Things are rolling! Thanks for the prayers, but by all means, keep them up!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Monday, October 6, 2008
Another Three Months...
I've got to do better in the "updating the blog" department. Three months is just a wee bit too long, but it's been a busy three months, although, not busy for Mater Dei Television. Well, not too busy...
I've come to a crossroads at the fledgling TV apostolate. I needed to have this up like last year, and it's not up yet. I know the direction with VoD is the right way to go, at least for now and probably in some form in the future as well. I just don't have the bandwidth to use the streaming servers like I'd like to. If I want to have more than three or four viewers at a time, that bandwidth is going to need to be somewhere around, well, T3 speed. At least two T1s, which is not one less than a T3 (for those non-techs reading this, a T3 actually has the same bandwidth as 27 T1 lines).
I figured maybe embedding video is going to be the best option, at least for now, but I don't want YouTube. I'm not thrilled with the quality of flash video in general and YouTube's quality in particular. If I could get an MP4 to play back, especially one with the H.264 compression, that wouldn't be bad...as long as the player could go full screen without that annoying navigation bar.
Well, after consulting with a friend who does webhosting and web development, I found out that embedding MP4 video is, in fact, possible. I had to find a good player, though, and I may have. The JW FLV Media Player plays MP4 format with the H.264 compression. If you follow the link and look at the quality full screen, you'll notice it's fantastic quality for embedded video, and I believe that's because when you look at that demo clip, that is AVC/AAC that you're looking at. When you choose full screen, the navigation bar comes up, but disappears with a slick fade after a few seconds. That wouldn't be bad, because it looks cheap when it stays up there. Having it up there initially and then letting it fade out would be the best of both words. It also does playlists too, so I can actually have some clips on a loop on the menu screen that people could be watching while looking over the programs.
By the way, if you download this player and try to use it without embedding it, it's not going to work. It's written to be uploaded to a website and then coded to use on a website. It IS a slick player though. I can wait to try it out.
It's not so much that I'm admitting defeat by using embedded video; I'm just starting out a little more within my means. Perhaps someday we'll have the IPTV VoD setup, but let's learn to crawl before we run.
Stay Tuned!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
I've come to a crossroads at the fledgling TV apostolate. I needed to have this up like last year, and it's not up yet. I know the direction with VoD is the right way to go, at least for now and probably in some form in the future as well. I just don't have the bandwidth to use the streaming servers like I'd like to. If I want to have more than three or four viewers at a time, that bandwidth is going to need to be somewhere around, well, T3 speed. At least two T1s, which is not one less than a T3 (for those non-techs reading this, a T3 actually has the same bandwidth as 27 T1 lines).
I figured maybe embedding video is going to be the best option, at least for now, but I don't want YouTube. I'm not thrilled with the quality of flash video in general and YouTube's quality in particular. If I could get an MP4 to play back, especially one with the H.264 compression, that wouldn't be bad...as long as the player could go full screen without that annoying navigation bar.
Well, after consulting with a friend who does webhosting and web development, I found out that embedding MP4 video is, in fact, possible. I had to find a good player, though, and I may have. The JW FLV Media Player plays MP4 format with the H.264 compression. If you follow the link and look at the quality full screen, you'll notice it's fantastic quality for embedded video, and I believe that's because when you look at that demo clip, that is AVC/AAC that you're looking at. When you choose full screen, the navigation bar comes up, but disappears with a slick fade after a few seconds. That wouldn't be bad, because it looks cheap when it stays up there. Having it up there initially and then letting it fade out would be the best of both words. It also does playlists too, so I can actually have some clips on a loop on the menu screen that people could be watching while looking over the programs.
By the way, if you download this player and try to use it without embedding it, it's not going to work. It's written to be uploaded to a website and then coded to use on a website. It IS a slick player though. I can wait to try it out.
It's not so much that I'm admitting defeat by using embedded video; I'm just starting out a little more within my means. Perhaps someday we'll have the IPTV VoD setup, but let's learn to crawl before we run.
Stay Tuned!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
