All you would need to do is connect the camcorder to your computer and have it set up on a tripod somewhere where there’s a good view of the field. Ustream would allow you to choose the camera as your video source and the audio source could be the camera’s microphone or another microphone plugged into your computer.
There are plenty of settings to play with once you’re streaming live - quality of video and audio are the big ones. The higher quality of video, the more bandwidth you’re going to need to stream the video. You want to try and find a happy medium where the quality isn’t too high but isn’t so low that no one can see what’s going on.
If anyone else has had experience with this, post your thoughts!
Is there a min level thats acceptable? We are in schools and sometimes their primary connection is still DSL.
We have a ton of 1.6G Atom netbooks, none that have firewire. Is there a USB camera that will work? What kind of pixel count are do we need? Clearly more is better.
Are there other suppliers like justin.tv that would also work?
I’m still looking for that X pixels needs Y internet rate, starting with low res versions from mars going up to TV rates.
justin.tv would work as well, it’s all just personal preference.
Ustream recommends a minimum upload speed of 320 kbps, 1 MBps would be ideal.
There are cameras that can use USB to stream video as well, such as the Sony DCR-HC38 (http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&productId=11034162&langId=-1) There are high quality webcams now that can produce good resolution as well - It all just depends on the device. Whatever device that you use, it should be able to produce a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels for standard definition video at a minimum. 1280×720 pixel resolution would be equivalent to 720p and would be considered high definition. For higher resolution video, you would probably need in the range of 2 - 3 MBps upload speeds.
But we have two laptops we aren’t using for anything at the moment that both have mini-dv. We also have a spare camcorder. And I could drag a nice mic with me so the audio sounds good.
I think a boxed solution is a great idea. One of my students streamed the “International Bridge Building Competition” from our high school and he had a lot of issues keeping the feed consistent. He is a senior and graduates soon. I will see if I get him on this thread. Maybe we can spend the summer and figure this out.