Category Archives: Culture
Livestreaming Report: Belgian Beer Weekend
Three days and 26 hours in the can. I’m writing this on the train to my last day live streaming the Belgian Beer Weekend Tokyo event at Roppongi Hills Arena. Just 8 hours left!
Had a very fun trial run this week with my gypsy Internet TV studio. I think I’m liking the name “Studio@stevenagata” for this monster of mismatched parts from my closet, computers and electrical tape. So far no major hiccups, but a few minor technical glitches I’ll have to work on.
The biggest problem so far has been errors on the Roland VR-5 mixer causing some of the saved streams to corrupt on closing. I lost a few bits I had meant to save including a music act that I thought went pretty well. Since we are not archiving online the video, I’m afraid, is lost forever. Will have to run some endurance tests to try and nail down the problem. Otherwise I might look into on off board video recorder like an Atmos Ninja.
It’s been fun to see so many friends stop by the event. Hoping a few more might make it by today. Keeping the stream up can be pretty draining so I wasn’t able to chat much, but hope that today will be a bit lighter as I starting together the hang of things.
The event itself has been super cool. Great bands, good food, 62 types of beer and a crowd expected to top 20,000 for the four days. Early metrics showing we’ll beat that number decisively with online viewers. Super thanks to Akoni KK, Rob Van Nylen and Dean Fujii for bringing me on board for this event. Hope to do more like it in the future (I hear talk of a possible fashion show! (^_^) ). Also big props to ace Cameraman and super geek Joseph Tame for putting in 4x hours over the agreed work and covering all the concerts like a pro.
Definitely stop by if you have time today. It’s really a great atmosphere. Or tune in on the livestream at http://bit.ly/bbw2011. More detailed reports on my studio later *I hope*
Studio Steve
Ok, first of all I need to come up with a better name than that.
Some work recently has given me the chance to play around with higher level AV gear and in typical fashion I kinda got a bit carried away. A couple of years ago, comrade Danny Choo convinced me to give live streaming a shot, Ustream had just published their iPhone app and I had great fun running around Akihabara streaming micro tours.
I’ll be honest. Personally I watch very little on Ustream, and I NEVER watch my own stuff. The jarring motion when I move the iPhone around makes me carsick in about three seconds. But I do see a strong value there if things are done well, and simply put, I love the gadgets.
In the world of content, the combination of real time and video is the tip of the sword, and combining valuable content, modern technology, and logistical planning can create a new level of communication never before seen. Yeah, it’s basically cable access tv spliced onto the Internet, but think about it. Cable access tv spliced to the Internet. The potential to waste time in vain pursuits shared equally with the power to topple governments.
But I digress. What I am really talking about is the opportunity for Steve to play with gear. And Steve likey the toys.
New workdesk, or is it playdesk?
{EAV_BLOG_VER:412c9bcfdbf06652}
Oooo So many toys!
Made some updates to my desk so I thought I would throw down a quick post.
First of all, I found this great flexible arm for iPads at the Rare Mono shop in Akihabara. I’m not entirely sold on the positioning right now. it’s a bit high and I don’t have quite the range of motion I would like, but it does work pretty well. It’s particularly nice when using it to stream media (like old Firefly episodes) while I am typing away. As an added bonus I can slave the screen and use it for a second monitor. It’s also a pretty good setup for using the iPad with facetime and Skype for videoconferencing. Would be perfect for Google+ hangouts, but no support on iOS yet.
Also added a lamp, mainly to help or videoconferencing. Unfortunately monitor light alone makes me look even more zombielike than usual so the added light should help keep The Walking Dead references to a minimum.
The desk is getting pretty crowded with all the gear loaded up on it. I’m sure I get more than my recommended daily allowance of EM radiation from all of this. But what would I do without my toys?
Anyone care to try to identify the rest of the gear in the shot?
A Question?
Today has been a very surreal day. Online, I have been following continued scandals in Media with the #notw, Japan has seen quite a few developments in recovery efforts from the earthquake, food contamination and continued problems with the nuclear reactors, and a major story development with the sentencing of Lindsey Hawker’s killer. Not to mention a major OS upgrade for Apple computers, 2 new models, both in my potential upgrade path.
In the real world, it’s been a normal, very pleasant day. Had lunch with a good friend, met another later on for a quick chat and update. Not to mention phenomenal weather. Starting to feel a split between my real and online persona and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. Online I feel tied to a world much larger than myself and follow events that have little to do with me personally, yet when I look at the real world around me, I feel like I could turn it all off and lose nothing.
Or maybe I just need some caffeine
A Proposal: Steve 2.0
So it’s been a pretty interesting week. A bit of a perfect storm in terms of my meta-life, with mini-crashes, new data influx, changing environment and my typical neurotic breakdown. The result being that I have decided that I need a good cleanse/redesign/rebuild of my information otherself.
Trying to attack this a piece at a time has not yielded any good results, so I dusted off my Project Manager cap and am going to attempt to deal with this the old fashioned way. When in doubt, reboot, reformat, reinstall.
Warning. This is super dorky technical junk.
