Friday, February 14, 2003

Updates, new relay provider, some specs Earlier this week, in the hour before oral arguments were to begin on Tuesday, I switched over the relay provider we use for the Court's webcast. The switchover had little to do with quality of service, and more to do with proper documentation and invoicing. The downside of this problem for me is that I haven't had any access to server logs for some time. Other than referrers on the webcast entry page, it's difficult to tell how many users are tuning in with accuracy. Speaking of webcast entry pages, I did encounter one technical hitch in the switchover. The new relay provider asked me to put the .asx file in the root level of our web site, and point users to that URL to launch the stream. (The .asx file is an XML file that contains information about the media stream, like its location on media servers, and any banners or links that go with it.) Well this did not work in IE on either Windows or Mac. The screen came up blank. After several attempts to fiddle with the .asx file, I simply used the URL of the media server as the URL for users on the launch page. This approach worked fine. In case anyone is curious, here's some details on our webcast system. We're using Windows Media Encoder 8, running on a dedicated Pentium 3, Windows 98 machine with an Osprey 1000 video card for video input and a Crytal SoundFusion card for audio input. When in Charleston, the encoder sits in a protected area of our network, with direct fiber access straight to the Internet. When we go on the road, we take the encoder with us, and access the Internet at the host location (county courthouses and the law school). This is a fairly rugged setup, if you don't mind lugging a desktop PC around. Mine's been working under this configuration for over two years, which includes 8 load-outs at remote locations. I know that better all-in-one-mobile and rack-mount systems exist, but those systems are substantially more expensive. To run a succesful webcast in this fashion, it's critical to keep in contact with network administrators on both ends. Firewall port numbers and IP addresses need to be exchanged between the encoder and the relay provider. We broadcast live only, so there's only one chance to get it right. Having ready access to technicians at both ends is crucial. 2:38:21 PM