Storm Chasers who stream live video! [Archive]

kenny_allen

03-30-2008, 05:49 PM

Hello Everyone,
Storms are possible over the next few days and many Storm Chasers are attempting to stream live video this year. This year, SevereStudios.com founders Kory Hartman, Kenny Allen, and new partner Ben Holcomb are proud to introduce www.SevereStreaming.com - a site providing streaming video services to the Storm Chaser community for FREE!

David Drummond, Chris Rice, and Roger Hill have all been streaming video today using this service. Check out their live streams here: http://www.severestudios.com/livechase

How many others in the community plan to stream live video this year? Reply now, I want to know your thoughts and your motivations for streaming video!

Also, Kory Hartman has started a thread discussing our services in the Marketplace. http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=15789

I hope to see all of you streaming video this year.

cstrunk

03-30-2008, 08:09 PM

I'm watching David Drummond now in the field.... very interesting!! For those of us interesting in chasing but don't have the resources to do so very often, this is about as close as it gets! The quality isn't too bad, but I will really be excited when you are able to stream high quality video from the field!

Keep up the great work!

J Kinkaid

03-30-2008, 08:37 PM

Why don't ya'll buy a banner and support stormtrack instead of hijacking threads and spaming ?

Scott Weberpal

03-30-2008, 08:54 PM

Thank you Ashley for posting information about the live streaming. It was great to watch the few chasers who had their cams running tonight.

I'm glad you exercised your freedom to post in a forum you have due right to post in.

Dennis Sherrod

03-30-2008, 09:07 PM

Why don't ya'll buy a banner and support stormtrack instead of hijacking threads and spaming ?

Wow, sounds like someone is having a bad day or wishing they had done that good at getting people together in a way that everyone enjoys.
Good Job Severe Studios!

Joey Ketcham

03-30-2008, 09:15 PM

Thanks Ashley, unfortunately I didn't get to watch the live streams tonight but will look forward to doing so in the future when I'm stuck at home and not able to chase.

Why don't ya'll buy a banner and support stormtrack instead of hijacking threads and spaming ?

J, that is rather harsh. Why don't you buy a banner and support stormtrack instead of spamming us with a link to your weather forum in your signature?

HAltschule

03-30-2008, 10:18 PM

Great job with the streaming, I love it. Been watching David Drummond for awhile now (on the live stream that is) and it is awesome. Currently he is under a tornado warned cell in OK. I am waiting to see what happens.

A great, free service for us stormchasers. Keep up the great work!!

Bill Hark

03-30-2008, 11:01 PM

Thank you very much for posting the link to the streaming video. Great job setting up the streaming website!!! I am enjoying the SevereStudios.com video links as I sit at home in 40 degree weather. Since the title of the thread is "Storm Chasers who stream live video!", I suppose any chaser can post links to their own live streaming video. I always forget who is doing streaming video and would love to see who else is or will be streaming video. Back to watching Dave!!

Bill Hark

Kory Hartman

03-30-2008, 11:46 PM

J Kinkaid:

We supported StormTrack with a donation last year when they needed more RAM or whatever for the server.

We are planning on getting a banner... we JUST launched streaming on Friday.

Thanks!

Laura Duchesne

03-31-2008, 12:03 AM

Wow this is very fascinating, great work Severe Studios (and the chasers who are streaming)! I can see this catching on.... it will be a great tool for NWS folks to use as well so they can get some real ground-truthing!

Ben Prusia

03-31-2008, 03:36 AM

Great service you are offering to storm chasers. Right now, I currently use Ustream.tv but I might look into your service in the near future.

FWIW, if anybody wants to follow me when I go chasing:
http://www.vortexpursuit.com/live.html

Right now I only plan to stream when I have a broadband connection, but may look into deep compression in areas without a broadband connection. If I head out this morning/afternoon, check out my stream!

David Schuttler

03-31-2008, 06:22 AM

I use Ustream.tv also but I did sign up for this new service and will give it a shot once I'm approved.

Currently my live stream can be seen here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/stormdriven-live-chasing

Van DeWald

03-31-2008, 07:20 AM

I think the streaming video will be the next big thing. 3 years ago, it was GR2/3/AE, 1 and 2 years ago it was Spotter Network, and now this year it will be live streaming video. As a warning forecaster, seeing the storm in real-time, when mirrored with the radar imagery is invaluable. A warning forecaster will be able to see the wall cloud develop in real-time, and could make warning decisions (go or no go for a TOR for example) based on the real-time, visual feedback. It's great to see the average joe get in on what has been reserved for TV/media chasers.

Can you use any webcam for this, or do you need a certain level of hardware (i.e. el cheapo webcams won't work?) Also, what do you use to mount the webcam inside your vehicle? I'm sure there are a wide variety of Ram mounts, and also the new Sticky Pod looks intriguing as well. Also, on the Severe Streaming website, you state that you provide the necessary software. Is this a GUI/widget application that you install that uploads the stream? What type of upload speeds do you need to get a reliable, stable stream? What about bandwidth? How much bandwidth is consumed for the upload?

This really opens up the chasing world for a lot of people that can't participate because of other obligations, etc. While it doesn't give you the same thrill or rush as if being there for real, it's certainly closest to the next best thing.

Ben Holcomb

03-31-2008, 07:40 AM

You can use any sort of camera as long as Windows sees it. I personally use a Sony HandyCam through Firewire. I just have a tripod in my pickup truck right behind my seats holding the camera. I use a couple bungee cords to stabilize it so it doesn't fall over when I round corners a bit too fast.

Mike Peregrine

03-31-2008, 07:58 AM

Watching David's streams was way fun. My TV was never even turned on last night. Not bad at all - - - looks like something more chasers should look into to me.

Van DeWald

03-31-2008, 08:01 AM

kenny_allen

03-31-2008, 08:06 AM

[QUOTE=Van DeWald;171778]

Also, on the Severe Streaming website, you state that you provide the necessary software. Is this a GUI/widget application that you install that uploads the stream? What type of upload speeds do you need to get a reliable, stable stream? What about bandwidth? How much bandwidth is consumed for the upload?
[QUOTE]

Bandwidth depends on which file you choose (we have multiple options for various data connections). There is more information in our member's section of www.SevereStreaming.com

We also give you multiple options for embeding the video on your site and we never resell your video. This is all about helping out our fellow storm chasers. This service is for CHASERS built by CHASERS.

We hope you will decide to stream with us.

Thanks to everyone who watched last night. David's stream had over 225 viewers (unique players) launched at one time last night. That is only a preview of things to come.

cedwards

03-31-2008, 09:14 AM

I will have to try it out. I am currently sending live images with our location overlayed on googlemaps.

Marc Austin

03-31-2008, 09:38 AM

I watched some of Roger's live stream last night. What a great feature for people who live in Florida and can only chase 2 weeks out of the year! Our team will certainly sign up assuming we can get a decent internet connection while chasing. Excellent job guys! Welcome to the newest development in virtual chasing!

David Drummond

03-31-2008, 10:20 AM

Chasers that also participate in the Spotter Network program should add a tag in the "Note" section whether you're streaming or not and where at. That way, we can view the Spotter Network icon, and get a feel for who "are" or "are not" streaming cams.

Good idea, I will do that today! I too was using a Sony Handicam over a Sprint data card. Encoded the stream in such a way it was a working decent even over Sprint 1xRTT. Not sure how effective it was after dark, but there was constant cloud to cloud lightning and lots of chasers on the road, so I let it run.

Maggie Kahman

03-31-2008, 10:38 AM

I wanna say that i was watching Drummonds' chase cam last night (as was most of #stormchase) and i was impressed with the quality of his vid!!

Marc Rémillard

03-31-2008, 11:30 AM

Good idea, I will do that today! I too was using a Sony Handicam over a Sprint data card. Encoded the stream in such a way it was a working decent even over Sprint 1xRTT. Not sure how effective it was after dark, but there was constant cloud to cloud lightning and lots of chasers on the road, so I let it run.

I was watching you near midnight, and it was very clear. Nice CGs, no lag. Thanks a lot for sharing!

kenny_allen

03-31-2008, 12:24 PM

David - We got a lot of positive comments today about the lightning footage after dark from your feed and Roger Hill's feed.

Roger is already streaming today. The service is working great. Thanks to everyone for checking it out.

Mike Peregrine

03-31-2008, 12:26 PM

Yeah - you could make out a decent amount of detail in the cloud base, even after dark. Particularly through the lightning strokes. It was pretty cool - I almost felt like I chased in Oklahoma last night myself. This is going to be like crack for cyber chasers.

kenny_allen

04-04-2008, 04:12 PM

I hope everyone will continue to support our efforts. Any feedback can be sent to info@severestudios.com

Peter Wharton

04-04-2008, 05:47 PM

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but everytime I try to link to the Live ChaseCam Network, my browser simply locks up and I have to exit the browser which is "not responding". I have no trouble accessing your Home page, but no luck with the link to the ChaseCams. I'm using IE7 on XP with Windows Media Player with a decent broadband connection (well reasonably fast for New Zealand :)) but I've had no success logging on several attempts over the past few weeks. Any suggestions? I'm coming over chasing in May/June and would like to be able to get some access now to build my anticipation for the season. :) Thanks, Peter

BKDPhillips

04-06-2008, 01:13 PM

I agree with Peter. I was thrilled about being able to watch the chase from my home. Unfortunately, after many attempts using Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, all the latest versions for MAC OSX 10.4, I finally had to give up because each of the streams from SevereStudios were causing my browsers to crash. Even after having my husband updating Window Media plug-ins for my computer, I still couldn't get them to stay connected for more than two or three minutes before crashing.

My excitement about using the streaming videos was so my student(s) at school could see it also. So I tried to use it again and I couldn't get it to stay connected using our Windows XP loaded computers at school either.

I hope you can get this resolved or give me some hints on how to fix my situation so I can excite young people about the weather.

Thanks again for offering this service and for all those chasers who will share their experience with us at home (and school). :) Between the video streams, stormtrack forum, and many chasers websites, I have had more fun the past several years learning about the weather and sharing it with students. :)

Belinda

Dennis Sherrod

04-06-2008, 01:56 PM

Severe Studios will probably be able to answer this better than I, but I would think the Processor and Memory of your computer has a lot to do with it.
Try a: Ctrl-ALT-Delete function to pull up your Windows Task Manager and look at your CPU usage. When you are trying to run it and if you see the CPU usage maxing out, then close the program and see how much CPU usage you are using then. I have seen that this usage is pretty CPU intensive. When running mine, I am idling along about 65-75%. If I close it, then it drops down to near nothing.
Try it and see. It may help or others may have a more accurate or better answer than mine.

BKDPhillips

04-06-2008, 04:41 PM

Thanks Dennis, I will check it out on my various machines at school and ask my husband about that at home on the MAC. :)

Belinda

Ben Holcomb

04-06-2008, 06:56 PM

We will be doing some updates to our portal pages here in the very near future. Unfortunately we haven't had a chance to do it this weekend as we were in the middle of moving to better hardware. I'll be posting a bit on that later in the SevereStudios blog!

Bill Tabor

04-06-2008, 10:57 PM

I'm signed up and yesterday tested my ability to stream. Everything seems to be working well. Keep an eye out for my feed on the SevereStreaming.com site. I will likely set up an embed on my website as well, but may not have it up by the next severe event time.

I'll likely have it hooked to my dashcam at my current 1xrtt rate. I even tested it with Verizon's 14.4 Quick 2 Net speed and it worked but there was lag where you would have to hit stop in Media Player and then hit play again to get it to stop buffering. I may switch providers (likely Alltel or Sprint) and go EVDO soon.

John J. Holt

04-07-2008, 06:22 AM

I have been looking at my options for streaming video and I will be signing up in the near future.

kenny_allen

04-07-2008, 07:03 PM

For anyone that has yet to make a decision on services for their streaming video, we have created a side by side comparison on our website. www.SevereStreaming.com

As you will see, SevereStreaming is far superior to Ustream and other technologies. We hope you will join our service. Designed for Storm Chasers.

Mark Blue

04-07-2008, 07:23 PM

I watched the streaming today and had some of the same issues as mentioned in prior posts. I have an almost new laptop with an Intel Dual Core processor, running Vista Ultimate, so I know the issue isn't with my hardware setup. I could view any particular stream for anywhere from a few seconds to at the most 2 minutes then it would drop. I watched Roger Hill, David Drummond, both Steve Miller's (OK an TX), and Bill Tabor today.

I copied the URL shortcuts from Severe Studios, entered "Control U" for "Open URL", then pasted the web link into the dialogue box of Windows Media player in an attempt to view them in full screen mode outside of Internet Explorer. Most streams would play okay, but not for very long. This is really a cool technology you guys have developed - I just wish it would play longer. I wonder if some of the technical issues aren't with the cellular connections out in the field versus issues with the www.SevereStreaming.com (http://www.SevereStreaming.com) servers? Keep up the good work, it can only get better from here on out!

Mark

kenny_allen

04-07-2008, 07:51 PM

Most of the dropouts are from cellular connectivity issues. We have had the streamers use a smaller upload profile to fix some of the "dropout" issues. Think about this, you have a beautiful stream, but go down into a valley, down to 1 bar. All of the sudden you are no longer able to send packets of data across the network. The feed will skip or drop at that point.

It seems to be working better when they are on major roads (near towers).

On last Monday, Kory and I streamed the SD snowstorm using our home networks. We had no drop outs and little buffering problems. This test was very successful. Prior to that, we had six streamers on home networks connected at the same time with hundreds of players launched. That test was also very successful. The weak point in all of this is the cellular connectivity.

We have also updated some code and added a new server over the weekend. This should help minimize the data drop out problems -- but will not completely eliminate them.

Just today, when a feed would drop, we watched the streams go from 0 to over 400 in less than two minutes after the feed became active again. So the portal is working, and people are refreshing to get the latest video. The major problem is keeping the SevereStreamers connected to the cellular internet connections out in the field.

We are working with all the SevereStreamers to help them maximize their data connections and optimize their feeds.

Even with the dropouts and restarts, we hope you feel our service is still superior to StreamWebTown, Ustream, and others.

Ben Holcomb

04-07-2008, 08:03 PM

I would like to add, our new server is barely breaking a sweat now. It's had absolutely NO problems tonight. The problems have been related to cellular connectivity. We're going to be suggesting that SevereStreamers lower their bitrates to 25k or so in places where there isn't good Cellular networks in hopes of providing more stable service.

With that said, when sitting in 1 spot, the streams today looked awesome and stayed up for 15-30 minutes easily.

Paul Knightley

04-08-2008, 07:50 AM

Watched various feeds from the comfort of my sofa in the UK - Steves Miller (TX) and (OK) both had some great feed activity - it was almost like being there!

mark humpage

04-08-2008, 10:11 AM

Watched various feeds from the comfort of my sofa in the UK - Steves Miller (TX) and (OK) both had some great feed activity - it was almost like being there!

Here here and likewise. It is a fantastic tool addition to the chase armoury. Btw Steve a new windscreen would sure help us ;) Kept thinking that crack was a needle funnel!

M

Jay McCoy

04-08-2008, 11:24 AM

Here here and likewise. It is a fantastic tool addition to the chase armoury. Btw Steve a new windscreen would sure help us ;) Kept thinking that crack was a needle funnel!

M

Steve (tx) and I have been chasing together this year so the windshield you have seen is mine. It is being replaced as I type this and will be nice and clear for the next chase and on until some more hail decides to ruin it. We are glad people are enjoying the video. Steve is working hard to get our connecitons as good as possible. we are testing a number of different cards (Sprint, Cingular< AutoNet). So far Sprint is by far the best in all areas. Autonet works well along bigger roads and Cingular is anybodys guess.

mark humpage

04-08-2008, 01:30 PM

Steve (tx) and I have been chasing together this year so the windshield you have seen is mine. It is being replaced as I type this and will be nice and clear for the next chase and on until some more hail decides to ruin it. We are glad people are enjoying the video. Steve is working hard to get our connecitons as good as possible. we are testing a number of different cards (Sprint, Cingular< AutoNet). So far Sprint is by far the best in all areas. Autonet works well along bigger roads and Cingular is anybodys guess.

Thanks Jay. For the chasers across the pond you (and other web cam users) are sure providing a super service here. I know plenty of UK chasers are checking in on the new cams. For me I had an almost constant stream last night, it was fantastic to watch. This technology can only improve. Whilst network reliant I'm sure it won't be long before the geeks get a satellite system running and 100% coverage. I wonder if Baron are on the case ;)

Btw how does the autonet solution perform? I know a number of UK chasers coming over (incl myself) are considering this option, as it is now utilised by some car hire companies. Contract cellphone solutions are not an option for us.

Thanks.

Mark

J Kinkaid

04-08-2008, 01:51 PM

I still think that we are a few years away from being able to make this work with out the buffering and reconnects and look forward to testing it out very soon with 7 watts and 39 inch magmount 9b antenna . The problem with cell phones is when they handoff to the next tower your data rates will drop then go back up and even EVDO upload speed are to slow to make this work . I am trying some other options now and I hope that they will be more reliable than windows media encoder that I really don't like .

Ryan McGinnis

04-08-2008, 02:07 PM

This is a game changer for the chase community, I feel -- I'll definitely be trying to stream this year. There is strong demand for this kind of thing.

One thing I'd mention -- can you tell us how robust your servers and bandwidth are at peak traffic? That is -- I can virtually assure you that at some point, probably on a big chase day, your service is going to get noticed by Fark, Digg, or Reddit, which is going to mean around a half million visitors to your service, with at least 20,000 people trying to watch streams at once. If your service can't handle that, you might want to plan in advance how you'll handle that situation when it arises. :)

Steve Miller TX

04-08-2008, 02:32 PM

I wanted to extend my thanks to those offering constructive feedback concerning the streaming video. In the field, it is impossible to determine how it is being viewed via the internet across different platforms, browsers, monitor settings, etc. So, this is very helpful. I'm still new at this, so I hope to continually make some improvements.

I'm glad ya'll got to ride along with us yesterday. :-) Kudos to SevereStudios.com for doing an outstanding job on support and the high quality streaming. As a side note, while I was on the phone live with Rick Smith with the NWS in Norman, he was able to watch the streaming video of the rotating wall cloud, funnels and brief tornado near Electra. I believe the NWS in Fort Worth was watching as well. Hopefully this will be embraced as a new tool to augment the overall warning process.

For anybody interested, I've put together my live chase page with the streaming video as well as a GoogleMaps interface with NWS radar overlay and my map position on top (updated every 10-20 seconds). It's still in beta as I continue to make improvements and add additional capabilities. With any luck, I'll be out there again tomorrow.

http://texastailchaser.com/livechase

Bill Tabor

04-08-2008, 02:41 PM

Yesterday, was my first time to stream. Let me know how my feed looked. I apologize I couldn't get it up earlier (due to cell phone connectivity issues) until I was right next to Wichita Falls. When I did get set up on the last good wallcloud cycle of the storm that produced Steve's tornado I couldn't get the video to initialize. I ended up having to reboot my computer and restart everything. So by the time mine came up and started streaming there were only remnants of the wallcloud left. I did get it up later, for a wallcloud / funnel / and likely tornado WSW of Wichita near / after sunset. Unfortunately just as the storm was producing a tornado I switched my camcorder to off inadvertently when trying to switch it from automatic to manual. By the time it started the tornado cycle was over. I believe I did record that part on my dashcam though. I will review.

Anyway, let me know how it all looked when it was working, for whatever most of you saw of my feed. I may be upgrading to Sprint EVDO later today for better future feeds.

Oh, and PS: I Steve mentioned - my thanks to SevereStudios for all their hard work and the wonderful product they have provided us all. I concur with Steve that sure it will be a great tool for NWS ground truth verification and take desk chasing to a new level.

Bill Tabor

04-08-2008, 02:50 PM

Question: Does SevereStudios keep a copy of their lives feeds (an archive) for later review?

Tony Perkins

04-08-2008, 04:36 PM

A weather indifferent friend mentioned that he came across it on metafilter.com yesterday. So it's happening already, and it's just a matter of time before it gets posted during an outbreak on one of the major hitting sites.

I can virtually assure you that at some point, probably on a big chase day, your service is going to get noticed by Fark, Digg, or Reddit, which is going to mean around a half million visitors to your service, with at least 20,000 people trying to watch streams at once.

Kory Hartman

04-08-2008, 06:07 PM

Question: Does SevereStudios keep a copy of their lives feeds (an archive) for later review?

We do!

But only for use by the individual chasers, if they ask, to watch their feeds, and see what they looked like. They can have them for their site for a small fee (every little bit in or out of the streaming server costs us)...

We also may, from time to time, post an archived video on our site for people to watch, but that's turning into more hassle than it's worth right now.

kenny_allen

04-08-2008, 07:26 PM

Thanks Jay. For the chasers across the pond you (and other web cam users) are sure providing a super service here. I know plenty of UK chasers are checking in on the new cams. For me I had an almost constant stream last night, it was fantastic to watch. This technology can only improve. Whilst network reliant I'm sure it won't be long before the geeks get a satellite system running and 100% coverage. I wonder if Baron are on the case ;)

Btw how does the autonet solution perform? I know a number of UK chasers coming over (incl myself) are considering this option, as it is now utilised by some car hire companies. Contract cellphone solutions are not an option for us.

Thanks.

Mark

Satellite internet will take a long time before it will have the upload speed that cellular internet will. While download speeds and nationwide access to satellite internet may be here soon, the upload speeds will be horrible, and not very effective for streaming video.

And to answer the question, or Server Technical Lead, Ben Holcomb, works for a major server house. We are ready to add more servers and up our bandwidth to a gigabit switch with a moments notice.

Last night we had over 3000 unique IP addresses and were pushing 20 Mbps data traffic. The server only hit 5% usage. We are ready to see what kind of results we will have on a big chase day!

Keep signing up! We are over 60 streamers at SevereStreaming.com! Just imagine 60 different feeds to choose from on a big chase day.

I want to add to Kelly's comments above. While we chose to archive the streamed footage, it will not be released to the public or used by SevereStudios.com without prior approval from the SevereStreamer. As we have said before, we do not resell your video, we do not claim any copyright, we will not put a logo over it. We will provide the archived footage to the chaser upon request. (For example, if Steve Miller TX wants the video from his chase to place on his website, we will provide that to him.) Now, some chasers may agree to allow us to provide archived footage on our website. If some agree to that, we will place the video on our site for viewing. I just want to make sure that people understand that we will only do this with approval from the copyright holder.

Unlike Ustream and Streamwebtown and others, we do not take your video and resell it. We do not violate your copyright.

Thanks!

Ben Holcomb

04-08-2008, 07:54 PM

As for the server question, if we took a million visitors we would probably be dead in the water for a few hours until I could get more servers up. At our current capacity, we can handle somewhere between 5000 and 7500 streams. With a little work, we can upgrade to a gigabit switch port and up that to somewhere between 25 and 50 thousand viewers (I really do not know how much it'd be able to handle). I can add more servers as well if need be - Everything is done through ActiveDirectory, so it's as simple to add a server now as just installing Windows server, joining AD and setting up DNS for the new server.

As for our website, we are addressing ways to make it handle thousands of requests a minute. Our current implementation is high on the PHP/MySQL usage, so we are looking to build a static HTML page that can easily be switched to if need be. I hope that is not the case, but it may be over the next few days as it's looking to be a very active second half of the week!

I also plan on getting some changes to the portal done tonight. I would rather create pop up windows so that you can click which streams you would like to view instead of having them all auto-start and crash your browser. I was hoping I'd have a little more development time to fix our portal before a big chase, but I can't turn down having Thursday and Friday off from work and NOT going after a 45% hatched Day 3! :)

We eventually want to add GPS trackers. We are working on making that happen soon!

There's a lot of cool stuff to happen in the future. We've got a list of about 20 things we want to do. It just will take us some time!

Stuart Robinson

04-09-2008, 05:19 PM

I got on better watching the streams on my XP workstaion ~ I needed to increase the number of internet streams that mybrowser could handle (default is just 2) - this is a registry tweak
http://improbulus.googlepages.com/tweak11.reg

tweak11.reg----------------
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Internet Settings]
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000032
"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:00000032
--------------------------