Category Archives: Movie

RetroTV broadcasting project part 2

Okey, i’ve updated and improved the RetroTV project with a few additions.

  1. Added the sourcecode to github
  2. Started a wiki
  3. Built communication between VLC and php
  4. Added date-support for shows, making weird schedules possible
  5. Defined what to do for this release (V1.0)

Github and Wiki

RetroTV is now a project on GitHub, they offer free hosting to open-source projects. The address for browsing the code, and the accompanied wiki, is:

The wiki explains what is going on in the code, and tries to show the projects intentions. It will be the first place for user-oriented documentation. Technical documentation is a little bit more different, preferably only design decisions are listed. Check it out: http://wiki.github.com/stitch/RetroTV/

When popularity increases, the github wiki will be replaced with a real one.

Built communication with VLC

VLC has a telnet interface, and something called VLM; VideoLan Manager, which is a scheduler. Both suffer from pretty poor documentation, but its done. When running VLC in telnet mode, PHP can create schedules and playlists based upon the programming specified by users.

Running the SHOW command, after RetroTV has finished, looks something like this:

Added date support in programming

Creating a schedule has now more flexibility. In the previous, unreleased version, programming was a daily cycle. When the day ended, we would start over from the start. With the current date support, its possible to make complex programming. Adding a date is mandatory, and as such a looping programming isn’t possible. Maybe, when only programming for a single day is specified, looping might become a feature.

Creating a new set of playlists currently looks like this:

Roadmap

The first release will be out before/on August 1st. What has to be done is this:

VLC Streaming Support

The largest blocking issue is VLC’s streaming support. There is a prominent bug in broadcasting M4v content in simple setups. Basically we need to stream any kind of movie file to two different setups. A HTTP setup and a multicast setup. Both experimenting and debugging VLC has proven to be tedious, so this is a risk.

Announcements

Announcements are nearing good-enough-state for version 1.0. Only a few transitions and faster processing are among the desires. I’ve already shown announcements work in a proof of concept.

Logo while Streaming

What’s a TV station without a logo in one of the corners of the video? Well… nothing. It doesn’t seem hard to do, but with VLC you’ll never know. I suspect it will be pretty smooth to do this. The logo has been designed, it was at the top of this article.

Code cleanup

Removing redundant / incorrect comments, renaming some stuff and giving the right place for parts of code. This is a continuous process, which affects every update untill 1.0 is ready.

Further reading

  • http://elgerjonker.nl/2010/05/retrotv-broadcasting-project-part-1/
  • http://wiki.github.com/stitch/RetroTV/

Thunderbirds Trip

On 14-08-2009 Aequitas and I held the Super Awesome Cartoon Quizz 2009 at har2009.

We put a lot of time in creating and re-arranging content for the quizz. One of the jewels is the Thunderbirds Trip.

This video was made in a few hours (max 2) and contains 5 pictures and 3 audio tracks mashed up into a tune.

More on the quizz will follow when all har2009 media is available.

Total playing time: 1:10

Thanks to: Aequitas, thunderbirds wallpapers, The beatsquad, iMovie 09 (or 08), Apple (workflows++), Sony Acid Pro 7.  No thanks to Parallels Desktop, v4 was a bad update.

De pinautomaat

Datum: 27 September 2003

Locatie: Venlo

Hamvraag: Kan ik een filmpje maken met 27 foto’s?

YES I CAN!
  
 

Met dank aan: MrGr33n & Mol (zie high-res film voor de 1 frame credits). Gemaakt met iMovie, een digitale camera en amadeus II (iets wat lijkt op cooledit).

Download de high-res quicktime (m4v) versie van 14 meg.