Sawdust session, again

[Bruce]

I have a desktop G4 and use Firefox and download the Mpeg4 and play in my Quicktime 7

All works well. I wish the resolution was higher but not all have a high speed fiber optic connection like myself. So don't make the viewing too large on screen.

Bob

How do you download a live broadcast? We're talking about a streaming video broadcast, not viewing it after it has happened. I wonder if there is some firewall setting that is preventing me from viewing it. I checked my router security log and there are a lot of "UDP connection denied messages" at the time that I try to view the video. Anyone know how to set up my Belkin router to allow the broadcast?

[Nick]

We don't offer an option of recording live or on-demand streams. We webcast them free for two weeks as an educational service to our owners and other woodworkers. Thereafter, we ask that you pay a small amount per view to help support this service. We may, sometime in the future, offer these as DVDs and podcasts.

As far as viewing problems arising from a specific configuration of computer equipment and software, we have neither the manpower nor the expertise on staff to help everyone. The best we can do is put together a troubleshooting guide and hope that some among you will be kind and helpful enough to contribute new solutions to the guide as you find them.

With all good wishes,

[rkh2]

Was anyone able to get anywhere with the Sawdust Session for today (Sep 15)?? I had signed up for the showing at 9 am Mountain time and was never to get anywhere other than reading a few comments about things being slow and Drew & Nick mentioned that they were having difficulties and were trying to work them out. It seemed that only Shopsmith related web pages were slow, besides the sawdust session itself, as I was able to go anywhere else on the internet without any problems. Guess I will watch the session in archive form if they are able to get it produced. I usually work on Saturdays, so this would have been a real treat to take part in the live event. Oh well, life must go on.

[Bruce]

The page would never completely load for me, either. It seems they have serious problems to work out with their ISP to get some more bandwidth. A move to Quicktime would be beneficial to all, also, since it works well with all platforms, not just Windows.

[scottss]

I too was unable to view any picture or sound. Nick said that there was a problem with the bandwidth. I guess I will have to go to work today early. Has anybody watched any of the pay for view sessions?

[burnsrk]

I too was unable to get any picture or sound.

Kevin

[dusty]

was a bust. I was really up for this. I spent nearly two hours trying to make my computer work before I decided it wasn't something I could fix. Stubborn or stupid?

Next time will be better.

[Nick]

First of all, I want to thank those of you who tried to attend this Satuday's (September 15, 2007) Sawdust Session for being so decent and understanding about our failure to deliver. It was extremely embarrasing for me, and I do appreciate your interest and your understanding. The fact that we unintentionally wasted your good time and you have refrained from complaining about it and making us feel worse is much appreciated

Because you did invest some time, I feel I owe you an explaination. This is all I know at this juncture:

Drew and I came in early on Saturday morning to set up the web shop. Drew turned on the computers and pinged a service called "Speakeasy." This company sends a signal to several servers across America, these servers ping our encoding coputer, and our computer pings them back. The servers compare the time codes on the pings, calculate our upload and download speeds, and Speakeasy reports them to us. At 8:00 am, 8:30 am, and 8:50 am EST, the speeds looked good -- 1400 KB/s down, 400 kb/s up. The number we worry about the most is the upload speed. We need a minimum of 108 Kb/s to get you a low-resolution video stream, over 300 Kb/s for a medium-resolution stream.

You should also know that we don't have the bandwidth or the equipment to send a video stream directly to all of you. Instead, we send a single stream to a streaming service (Upstream), and they duplicate it and distribute it to multiple viewers.

With 5 minutes to go, we pinged Upstream to open the connection between our server and theirs. We got no answer. We tried again several times, then did a quick speed check. Our upload speed had dropped below 7 Kb/s. (Dial-up modems crawl along at 54 Kb/s.) This situation continued for the entire morning and well into the afternoon. At one time, around 11:00 am EST, when were supposed to begin our second webcast, the upload speed dropped to 1 Kb/s.

At this point, Drew and I decided to call the game. We taped the presentations we had planned and when we left around 3:00 pm, we did a final speed check. The upload speed had climbed to 11 Kb/s -- the highest we had seen since 8:50 am.

Currrently, Drew is adding the intro, outro, and watermark to the presentations, and I will post them on the Sawdust Sessions page (http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm) as soon as he's finished. In the meantime, Dave (ADMIN) and I are trying to discover what caused this problem. We have contacted our Internet Service Provider and they are looking into this from their end.

What this all boils down to is that at present we don't know for sure what's going on. For those of you who speak technobabble, my suspicion is that the ISP connection that Times Warner advertises as being "as good as" a T1 line really isn't. The up/down numbers from Speakeasy indicate that it is instead an ADSL -- an Assymetric Digital Service Line in which the equipment used favors the download signal over the upload signal. At the very least we may have to upgrade to an SDSL (Symetric Digital Service Line) or open a second connection to be able to webcast live content on schedule.

All of this is guesswork at this point, and I'm taking the time to explain what little I know because I value your interest and your friendship.

Drew, Dave, and I will work as hard as we can to solve this problem before the next scheduled Sawdust Session (September 29), and I'll keep you informed of our progress.

With all good wishes,

[scottss]

Thanks Nick. Drew and Dave for trying and don't give up. This is a great platform that just needs some tweeking. My one question I have though is if we do a pay for view session like say Fundamentals of Woodworking
or toy making or whatever will it come through ok?
Again thanks

[Nick]

Obviously, Scott, we cannot offer a service if we cannot provide it reliably. Shopsmith has a reputation of providing quality tools and education, and we would be foolish to do anything to detract from it. We will notify the students that we have that classes are suspended and refrain from accepting new students until we are sure we've solved this problem. My guess is that the fix is simple -- upgrade our current ISP service or open a second. Either one should allow us to continue with our plans and grow as a "content provider" to the woodworking community. We'll lick this in short order; it isn't rocket surgery, after all.

With all good wishes,