The SRL Austin show featured a microwave wireless network link from a 60 foot tower over a distance of 6 miles. This allowed internet conductivity to the show site, Longhorn Speedway, from which live video and audio was streamed. A great amount of effort went into the physical tower construction and numerous networking details. Overall it was a great success and attached is a transcript from an individual watching the broadcast from New York as well as an article from the May 12, 1997 issue of WebWeek about the Internet broadcast. SRL thanks the following individuals for their help with the setup and execution of the internet portion of the Austin SRL Show.
Alphabetically:
Also a special thanks to Monsterbit, Onramp Technologies, and Real Networks for equipment and support.
Here's the play by play message I received after the show from Stephan Bugaj who watched the network broadcast video and audio from New York.
From Stephan:
Getting some video now... looks pretty good when it comes in and the contrast is right... the guy hanging from the frame looks really cool, and the contrast is right so that I can see something of it... I'm clocking an average of .2/fps and 17300kbps transfer rate, so it's hard to thell if he's being flamed or just well illumniated in a smoky area by a searchlight... i'll assume the former... the video has no coupled audio, and I can't get the audio alone to come up on this other machine... but the video is much better now, though a couple of the cameras have such bad contrast it's hard to see much of anything but a big bright spot and a bigger black field... the air launcher camera is kind of washed-out - too little contrast in that case... aha the audio's back... the 4th camera on the 4-frame split seemed to be dead, just got scan lines... well, that's how it looked from here... Thought you might like another running text record of how the live video has been going for me tongiht (if not... delete now). Looks much better than the last one Eric and I did... (guess that earlier just not much was happening, either the show started late or it's been running 2 hours and I just missed most of the first...) Getting better video now... the status display on the air launcher video is a nice touch, and the contrast in its frame is a little better now... the frame is still coming through the best... the tent just got flamed... either flames near the camera or signal problems are making frames go totally white with some frequency... something is now messing with the signal, getting overscan and banding, on and off not too frequently (maybe the pulses from the V1 are disturbing the signal)... all in all it looks pretty dang good for .2 fps video now that it's coming through (been getting it on and off for about an hour now)... nice shot of the audience with a flame erupting right in front of them... the video is gone but the audio is still here, actually looks like the camera went dead... woo hoo! color! very nice feed of the building on fire and now it's all dead again... back and still in color. the flames are causing the entire frame to hafve a cool red-orange overtone (possibly partially because of the real lighting quality and partially beacause of the encoding algorithm using some statistial methods)... very nice shots of things burning... can't tell what all of them are... dead again... nice shot of the fire behind the "steak" sign... alright... the tesla coil... very nice shots of the coil discharging... still .2fps but the color frames are much higher resolution than the B&W, whatever you guys did that made the improvement worked... column of smoke erupts next to the tesla coil, discharge, cut to flames... jet kart (really nice in-frame shot)... the last 10 minutes or so have been the best so far in terms of image quality... flame balls... giant morning star... nice erupting fire shot... wish i were there... steak becomes teak (do not eat!)... nice flaming twisted metal wreckage of some kind of scaffolding/framework... back to the coil... even at .2fps the show looks great from here... little arm (i think)... flaming wreckage... wires or tethers on fire... long shots of flaming ground... some bearded guy in the audience... smoke erupting near the coil... audience shots... (looks like a big crowd...)... flaming wreckage... smoky orange shot of the thing hanging from the frame (man, meat?)... longshots of the slaming set... more teak... zoom past some artwork on to the coil... i wish i were getting a higher framerate so i could see some arcs and flames as they erupt instead of just once the eruption has taken place... longshots of the set... rebuffering due to congestion (usually takes a while, has happened about a half dozen times so far...is it life or is it buffered?)... long shot, something just blew, red and white flame, it keeps popping out eruptions whatever it is (fireworks?)... fire... flaming metal framework wreckage (some very nice shots of it)... coil... smoke fills the screen, the coil discharges... fire... the soundtrack stops (i think, it's pretty quiet)... air horn blares... long shot of flaming wreckage... audience cheering... explosion sounds (can't see what the result is...)... people talking/cheering over a shot of the set... explosion sound... puff of smoke enters the screen... a workbench or somthing... a hand... some weird dark object that has filled the netire screen except for the bottom right corner which has what looks like a shirt, people cheering... signal dies... won't reconnect (is it over?)... well, i don't know... but it's over for me, I can't get back to the stream server... God job, though... high quality frames (though a lowish rate) for a full half-hour with few real problems in getting the transmissions.!! it's back (took about 5 minutes or so)... slow rumbling noise, audience, shots of the field, fire beneath the frame with the hanging meatman... pops... engine revving up... nice flame eruptions... excellent huge flame eruption all over the frame... must be the big flame blower... yeah, it is i can see it better now... another excellent huge cloud of fire... engine revvs down... cloes up of the top of the frame (but the picture is a bit washed out)... metallic crashing/banging sounds... smoke blowning by the frame... smoke fills the screen... people shouting... a down the barrel shot of something mounted on a frame (a shockwave cannon?)... ah yes it is... that must be what is making the moise.. (looks like a really big show... big crew??... bigger than the Doom show?)... shot of the frame... fire under it... not much sound except for some talking... a really bad audience shot, black screen... people whoopin' and a' hollerin'... still black screen... long shots of the field... flames under the twisted metal wreckage have died down... someone getting in a silly looking white van with red and blue stripes... somoene shouting "I know you maaan"... still the van, shot through the twisted framework... not much sound now, just background chatter and a very dull engine sound... twisted wreckage... either the show is over or this is the special "boring part" (or that van's gonna blow up any second now...)... engine... a low popping noise... people shouting and talking... long shot of the audience... some blurry shots of somthing... back to the twisted framework... more blurry shots... total blackness... audio is gone... video back, no audio... people congregating (I think I can make out Fogarty and Paulos)... a spotlight or something on fire... wreckage and fire... people doing the usual post-show wandering about... teak... the frame (it still hangs!)... was that the famous Mark Pauline walking through this shot???... fire.. blurry van... very long still shot of people congregating near the van, motion returns, blurry, back to the twisted frame (it is indeed cool looking)... people... someone with a silly hat on (it's green and yellow and blue -yech)... the frame... video's down again... been sitting here for 3 hours watching what i could, listening when i could... i don't think i'll try to log back on to the stream server to watch people wander around and drink and have a post show party... (unless you can ftp me some drinks)... well, it looked good from here... what i saw... and was more stable than the last video... jolly good... see ya guys next time I'm out in CA, unless you come to NY for something in which case give me a call...
