Video Brick

Years ago I was introduced to a fellow tech that was trying to send “live” video over the cellular and wireless network. He had some ideas however the process he developed was basic. He was looking for an investor and was talking to a CV group I know. He had a laptop with a Cellular network card in it and a USB video camera. He used windows media to build a video “stream” from the laptop to a receiving computer. This was clunky and all software based encoding and compression.

After talking to them I suggested using hardware based compression and mini-itx (this was new at the time and hard to get a hold of) hardware. I built a prototype unit and it was encased in a 8″x8″x4″ plastic box. This box had one button, a few lights a fan and a few external IO ports for audio and video. This was a single purpose box running Linux and a few open source packages. I linked a few of them together with some of my own code. Compresses the video and audio using hardware and software, connect to a 4 node Wireless WAN (built for this demo)

It was not possible to have a live broadcast from a place called “4th street Live” here in Louisville KY. It is basically in the heart of down town and getting a “standard” video delivery processes like a remote truck. The remote trucks are very expensive.  This marked the first time any LIVE news cast was produced from this location.

I created the Sending Device and the Receiving that was used at the TV station. The live stream delay was .5MS Below you will see some pictures of the “brick”, wireless radio and a Video Camera. The brick is on a short street lamp. It’s a Grey box 8″x8″x4″ between the parabolic antenna and the camera.

Below you can see the actual live news cast that was performed using the “brick” I developed as a prototype for a local company. They have since made great steps further reducing the footprint and it’s ease of use.

[hana-flv-player video=”http;//10.0.0.21video/brick2.flv” width=”400″ height=”330″ description=”” player=”3″ autoload=”false” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” /][hana-flv-player video=”http;//10.0.0.21video/brick1.flv” width=”400″ height=”330″ description=”” player=”3″ autoload=”false” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” /]

Well, I have managed to not take pictures of this project and all I have is the end result.