Large Scale Central

LIVE remote garden rr tours

General Discussion
#1

Heh guy’s I want to make you aware of something that is going on that alot of you may not know is in progress! Bob Grosh who lives in Florida has a live type of remote set up from his house and his backyard. This is just in the infant stage, but is really NEAT he broadcasts some live, and some taped videos everyday, you can watch his trains running in his backyard, and converse with him either by chat, or he has his phone number on there so you can call him too. J.C. and I and NoelW and Del Tapparo of critter control, and decals of Ft. Collins are already on board, in chat, If you have a laptop, or other and a webcam, Bob is going to set up virtual tours meaning you can broadcast your rr right over the internet live on a like virtual video tour LIVE from YOUR backyard. Bob can explain further, just tune in and ask questions. He is planning on featuring several railroads each saturday live, you just have to be there to answer questions, and tell interested folks about what they are viewing or if they ask questions. NEATO huh! Link up to Bob’s website on Mogulius. I’ll try to provide the link here. Give it a try very interesting, informational, and eventually he wants to set up a kind of swap and shop feature too. So click the link, and join in on chat, and the FUN! Think of the possibilities. He is on there live certain times of the day with your permission he plays your videos when he is not on live. Myself, and J.C. haave some on there now. The Regal

http://www.mogulus.com/theally in Florida That’s the link to fun, information, come on in and join in on the fun, be sure to thank Bob for his efforts!

http://www.mogulus.com/crazytrainguyschannel This is the link to The Regal’s channel in West. Nebraska

http://www.mogulus.com/riogram Here’s J.C’s channel in Kansas

#2

That’s the plan with the IP-cams for our layout, too. Two of them are in the test phase

http://rhbgrischun.ath.cx:8030/guest/view.cgi?profile=2 (UID=guest, PW=guest; may require a java applet for your browser)
http://rhbgrischun.ath.cx:8040/guest/view.cgi?profile=2

the rest of them will be installed when the trains are ready to roll. No, there won’t be live chat. :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile:

Just as soon as I get time to figure out how to do the CGI interface the pictures will be integrated on the http:// site.

#3

Work session this morning on the Ally. Come on over (virtually) and help me get ready for an open house.

I’ll run a couple trains, pull weeds, clean up, re-install a passenger platform, and whatever else you guys notice or hear. (Yesterday Del notices some squeaky wheels on my ore cars. )

And, Yes, it is live, anything can happen.

The channel is not always live, it shows repeats, and other garden railroads too.
If you want to participate in a live tour, just contact me. All you really need is tome video and you MUST be on line at the time you schedule to answer questions via chat. A USB web cam is a plus, but not a requirement.

Please post here if you have problems. I’ll try to address any issues after todays session, however many older computers may not work or get slow frame rates.

B0B

#4

purty neat!

the kids and I are on now!

cale

#5

Thanks to all those who visited the ALLY via the Mogulus channel today.
Sorry about the technical difficulties. I have done several “live show” dry runs, and this was the first where the live up-link gave me fits for half an hour.

You are welcome to peek in and see the behind the scene preparations.
This has been a learning experience.

Here’s the deal. I thought it would be nice is we could get together, chat and see each others garden railroads.

I know, that is what forums do! I enjoy the forums. But todays technologies are about let us add LIVE video, sound and several levels of interactivity to our forum experience.

Several of us garden railroaders, scattered around the country are working to put together a live video plug-in for the forums or your personal web page. We will hold open houses, Garden Railroad tours, ( a series of open houses all on the same day), work sessions, repair sessions, reviews, trade shows, or just about anything you want to produce a live (or pre-recorded) segment for.

You can host a work session, open house or other live event just by being on the chat in the viewer at the scheduled time for your event. You will need at least some video, which you can record and upload to youTube or direct to the ALLY.

You can, in addition to chat, call in the audio commentary during the live show just using your phone. Your commentary, sort of like a interview will go out live. viewers will ask questions and comment in real time .

The ultimate way to host a live show is with a USB web cam. Contact me via the chat window on “the ALLY”. I’ll send you an email. It will log you into the control panel for the ALLY and make your camera available. You don’t need to install any software on your computer other than the drivers that came with the camera. The control panel lets me select any camera, on any participating garden railroad and include them in a tour. If you have a USB camera, and want to try it out just for fun then catch me on the “the ALLY” chat window any evening and we’ll give it a try.

Please!
Don’t get the idea that you have to make a big production. This is NOT commercial TV. It’s just Garden railroaders getting together. Most of the “SHOWS” are more like just dropping in to say hi. We might be running train, raking leaves, or planning our new garden railroad. Everyone is welcome to participate, just like a forum, you don’t need to have any track down, or a perfect railroad empire featured in the Magazines.

By the way, the ALLY channel is on line 24-7. I’m adding both live and pre-recorded videos every day. There is also a video “ON-DEMAND” button. If you want to include your videos to the “on demand” button, just say so in the chat.

Again, Thanks to all those who stopped in. Hopefully the weather, and the WebGods will let me web-cast again tomorrow.

B0B
The ALLY can be found here:theALLY
My blog about this project can be found here: :World Wide Garden Train Tour

#6

Bob -

Very cool idea. I’ll have to check it out.

This reminds me of Amateur TV that a few friends and I used to do. We had a repeater in the 440MHz band and local hams could uplink a video signal with sound. We used 144MHz FM as a talk-back channel. The video was one-way, but by adding the FM audio talk-back channel it became a two way chat. We would take turns transmitting video. My friends and I burned many a winter night away chatting about nothing.

Taking the idea of a video chat, and bringing it together with the connectivity of the internet is something that’s been going on for a while. I’ve never really had an interest, until now. Video chat about railroads and modeling could be a whole lot of fun.

I need a computer in the train room :smiley: :smiley:

#7
Jon Radder said:
Bob -

Very cool idea. I’ll have to check it out.

This reminds me of Amateur TV that a few friends and I used to do…
…
Taking the idea of a video chat, and bringing it together with the connectivity of the internet is something that’s been going on for a while. I’ve never really had an interest, until now. Video chat about railroads and modeling could be a whole lot of fun.

I need a computer in the train room :smiley: :smiley:


ThanksJon
Yes, it is a whole lot like amateur TV.
This is a lot of experimenting at this stage.
We are trying to avoid two way video chat. It restricts to many visitors who don’t have fast computers, good Internet, or the patience to configure them and KEEP them working.

We tried a six way video conference. A disaster. The latency, poor audio, etc is just to much. and it limits us to six people.

Here is what we came up with.
It’s a lot like a call in show, sort of a talk radio but with video.

The difference is, we can have dozens of studios. Those who have live cameras, or can pre-record video and upload it to places like YouTube or here at LargeScaleCentral each act like a studio.

During a show, which we will call a “Garden Railroad Tour” we will shift from one studio to the next. Just like when CNN calls on reporters or interviews people all around the world.

Just like the big news networks, sometime the interview mix recorded video with live audio that live in via an ordinary phone.

There is a chat window, everyone can type in the chat. Those with live cameras will then come on line and answer the questions. The viewers get immediate answers to their questions, and we can go directly to the host (studio) anywhere and let different garden railroaders offer their answers. Once we have five or six “studios” on line with live broadcast capabilities we will start the real fun.

We are combining text type chat, call in phone lines, web-cast video, rss feeds and even twitter or text messaging into the mix, so everyone can participate.

As soon as we have enough studios set up, so that we can cover a few hours of live programming and always have someone running a show, we’ll post a schedule. To set up a studio, all you need is a fairly modern PC (XP or Vista) , and any USB camera. You probably should already have uploaded a video to the web, otherwise, you learning curve is going to be steep. That’s it, you don’t even have to install software. While you can set up your own Modulus channel, I think all of us who have done it will tell you it is a long complicated process. To help get things started, contact one of us and we will generate all the graphics, configure a channel for you, and load the studio with your youtube videos. It will take one of us about a day to do it and then we can walk you through the actual broadcast and other features in less than an hour. We can also assist you during a broadcast, much like a buddy throttle when flying RC planes. You will not only be able to broadcast live and pre-recorded video, but also include live cameras for other garden railroaders.

Stay tuned. There is a blog where you can follow our progress, get all the details, or join in the fun at wwgtt.blogspot.com

Catch me live after dark on www.mogulus.com/theALLY and as for a demo, I’ll show you how it works, LIVE!

B0B

#8

Heh guy’s I know some of you have checked this out and told us it is really neat, we are refining our channels everyday so be sure to stop in frequently to check out what is going on. You won’t be dissapointed, J.C. from witchita, and myself have now added channels to Bob’s. I provided the three links above in the original post. Come on over and take a gander. J.C. and I will be adding cameras in the next few days, or weeks, and you will be able to see live sessions, Bob’s is already LIVE (in real time) at times during the day. We will also at times be LIVE(in real time) once we have our cameras and have set up. The Regal

p.s. Go check out the sites above, there is always live chat there and we are glad to chat with fellow model rr’s when we are on. Leave a message that you were there, or pop in and chat. I’m trying to be on live chat at approx 8-11pm every nite schedule providing. So come on in and “lets talk train’s”

#9

Seems like a nice ideal.
I just signed up. It would not let me use Firefox to sigh up. I had to use my IE. now off to see if it will let me sign in on firefox.