Monday, December 1, 2003

Webcast goodies from John Udell John Udell: "Granted I'm new to all this, but the whole streaming situation does seem like a bit of a train wreck." While tinkering with a method to link to a specific point within a webcast, John Udell voices an appropriate bit of frustration with the balkanization of streaming services and protocols. I for one hope he figures it out. One application I can see for the courts is the ability to "cite" to a point in a stream, say, that contains a video deposition or court record. Court record vendors already tout this feature, but it comes at the price of using a vendor's proprietary indexing system while the stream is being rendered and/or stored. Creating SMIL files is tough to do when broadcasting live because timing changes are unpredictable. I've wondered if perhaps a real-time transcript (which would presumably contain an addressable index of some kind) could be tied together with the stream. While he's at it, Udell delivers a short and understandable how-to and requirements list for low-end mobile webcasting (OS X laptop, camera, and Quicktime BroadCaster). Since I have access to such equipment and some time to test over the break, I'd like to debut a quicktime-powered stream for our (heretofore Windows Media-only) argument webcast when Court resumes on January 13, 2004. 5:10:29 PM