Amazing New Software Turns Any Computer into A TV Station
It's been tough keeping up with the blogs this summer because of a heavy summer teaching assignment. However, I had to get the word out on Alluvium, the amazing new software that turns any Internet-connected computer into a TV station.
Alluvium was developed by a team of students at the University of Texas at Austin. It allows anyone with any type of Internet connection, even the slow dial-up kind, to stream video to multiple computers anywhere in the world. The developers of Alluvium see all sorts of practical uses by ordinary Americans. Say you were to record your kids' softball game with your camcorder. Go ahead and stream it their grandparents' computers and the computers of all the other kids' parents. It's just like showing the game on TV. Anyone who wants to "tune in" to watch the game can do so.
Think for a minute about the applications to teaching and learning. Students could broadcast the trial run of an oral presentation to their instructor and others to get feedback before the actual presentation in class. Instructors could broadcast a review session prior to an exam. For that matter, a student with a camcorder could record classes and then broadcast them from his or her home computer. Once the word gets out about Alluvium, I'm sure others will come up with new and better ideas than the ones I've just identified.
In the course of a little over a year, Podcasting has caught on big in the world of higher ed (and among the general public). Will Alluvium be the next iPod? I'll let the rest of the story, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, speak for itself:
In fact, Mr. Lopez [Joseph T. Lopez, one of the project's leaders]sees the program as a tool for independent artists to disseminate their work without turning to the entertainment industry for help. "The distribution system for music and movies is broken right now, and it's going to take the RIAA and the MPAA two or three years to figure it out," says Mr. Lopez, referring to the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. "I think our model could help change the way films are distributed."
Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley [Brandon Wiley, another team leader] will present their vision of a personal Internet-TV station in July, when their ACTLab TV station makes its debut on the Web. The station will have plenty of content to offer. It will broadcast more than a thousand videos, including experimental films and documentaries, created by students for the university's ACTLab, an art- and technology-based program for which both Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley serve as teaching assistants.
To keep their station running 24 hours a day, Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley are already accepting submissions from outside sources -- including, Mr. Lopez says, "animation, puppet shows, and some really unique content."
But before the station goes live (on the project's Web site), Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley say they still have plenty of work to do. Along with a staff of four, they have been pulling nearly sleepless nights archiving video footage and testing their software.
No one is getting paid for the work, and neither Mr. Lopez nor Mr. Wiley views the project as a business venture. But the project's shoestring budget is part of the point, according to Mr. Lopez. "We're just sitting here with machines that we had lying around, and we threw this together," he says. "Our whole idea was that it doesn't take $20,000 worth of electronics to run a TV station online."
Alluvium was developed by a team of students at the University of Texas at Austin. It allows anyone with any type of Internet connection, even the slow dial-up kind, to stream video to multiple computers anywhere in the world. The developers of Alluvium see all sorts of practical uses by ordinary Americans. Say you were to record your kids' softball game with your camcorder. Go ahead and stream it their grandparents' computers and the computers of all the other kids' parents. It's just like showing the game on TV. Anyone who wants to "tune in" to watch the game can do so.
Think for a minute about the applications to teaching and learning. Students could broadcast the trial run of an oral presentation to their instructor and others to get feedback before the actual presentation in class. Instructors could broadcast a review session prior to an exam. For that matter, a student with a camcorder could record classes and then broadcast them from his or her home computer. Once the word gets out about Alluvium, I'm sure others will come up with new and better ideas than the ones I've just identified.
In the course of a little over a year, Podcasting has caught on big in the world of higher ed (and among the general public). Will Alluvium be the next iPod? I'll let the rest of the story, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, speak for itself:
In fact, Mr. Lopez [Joseph T. Lopez, one of the project's leaders]sees the program as a tool for independent artists to disseminate their work without turning to the entertainment industry for help. "The distribution system for music and movies is broken right now, and it's going to take the RIAA and the MPAA two or three years to figure it out," says Mr. Lopez, referring to the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. "I think our model could help change the way films are distributed."
Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley [Brandon Wiley, another team leader] will present their vision of a personal Internet-TV station in July, when their ACTLab TV station makes its debut on the Web. The station will have plenty of content to offer. It will broadcast more than a thousand videos, including experimental films and documentaries, created by students for the university's ACTLab, an art- and technology-based program for which both Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley serve as teaching assistants.
To keep their station running 24 hours a day, Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley are already accepting submissions from outside sources -- including, Mr. Lopez says, "animation, puppet shows, and some really unique content."
But before the station goes live (on the project's Web site), Mr. Lopez and Mr. Wiley say they still have plenty of work to do. Along with a staff of four, they have been pulling nearly sleepless nights archiving video footage and testing their software.
No one is getting paid for the work, and neither Mr. Lopez nor Mr. Wiley views the project as a business venture. But the project's shoestring budget is part of the point, according to Mr. Lopez. "We're just sitting here with machines that we had lying around, and we threw this together," he says. "Our whole idea was that it doesn't take $20,000 worth of electronics to run a TV station online."
posted by Ronald M. Ayers at 4:06 AM
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