This is a chat environment that allows fans to congregate around their favorite part of the Xena television show. This interface differes from movie SpaceTime Chat because the clip is broken down into segments which are depicted by the bars of the bar chart. The height of the bar maps to the number of comments for that segment. Comments are distributed synchnonously to other people logged on concurrently and also stored for future users. The software works for all types of streaming media. Special moderators can log on and edit chat. Chat is automatically censored for profanity. There is also a sniffer which detects the appropriate version of this clip to play for the user’s connection speed. I worked with Sharleen Smith, Yaron Ben-Zvi at Oxygen.
A Series of experiments in combining television and internet technologies.
1) Roaming Close Up
This is a client for viewing streaming video. First a high resolution still image of the studio background is displayed. A small rectangle of full motion streaming video of a zoomed in shot from the studio camera is then superimposed on the wide shot. The rectangle of video moves around on the client’s machine depending on what the camera in the studio is aimed at. Another version had the video leave a trail so that the background would always be updated by the video passing over it.
2) Video Cursor
This is a software system for broadcasting video commentary about very precise part of web pages. This software allows one person to stream an image of themsleves talking in a small window that floats above the web pages of a large audience. The software allows the speaker to move this small video window to a particular area of the web page and have it move to over that same part of the web page of everyone in the audience. It is a little bit like a video cursor.
3) Real Person, Virtual Background
This is a glove that senses hand movement and controls a puppet over a live Internet broadcast. A microphone input is also used to control the puppet. The puppet control information is delayed and synchronized with the live video stream.
This was inspired by the work of Sarah Teitler & Jade Jossen.
Technical Notes: I used flex sensors connected to a Basic stamp to sense the hand movements and Geoff Smith’s Director Xtra for sensing the microphone volume. I programmed both the broadcasting module and the client module in Macromedia Director/Lingo outputting to Shockwave. I used the Multi-User Server for synchronous networking and the Sorenson Broadcaster for the live streaming video.
Description: This is a system for television producers to synchronize events on Web pages with events on television. The tests of this system were very successful and are being developed to accompany DoubleDare which is a game show on Nickelodeon.
This was a collaboration with Shannon Rednour, Ray Cha, Evan Baily and Jason Root at Nickelodeon, Viacom Interactive Services
Technical Notes: I wrote the software in Macromedia Director/Lingo outputting to Shockwave. I used the “Multi-user Server” for the synchronous networking.
Project Description: This system allows television producers to easily create games for the Web that compliment their on-air programming. The system is comprised of several modules. The first is a web interface for writers to create questions for the Web audience. The second module is a web interface for producers to arrange questions into a timeline for a show and to schedule the question playback on the web. There is also a centralized SQL database for storing all the questions and shows. The third module, or web interface, is for the producer to play back the show on the web and keep score. There is also a bot in the playback engine that will automatically choose the best question within a range set by the producer, so the system can run shows continuously. Finally, the last module contains an interface for the end-user that displays the questions, the scores, and the chat of other contestants and relays the users’ answers to the playback engine.
I worked with Ethan Adelman at Oxygen media.
Technical Notes: I wrote all the interfaces in Macromedia Director/Lingo outputting to Shockwave, the middleware in Perl and the database is in MS-SQL.
This project allows Web users to control elements in a live television broadcast. In this case, the Web audience can activate a catapult that hurls actual objects on to television studio stage.
On the home television we see a young man sitting in a dunk tank reading poetry. When a web user successfully aims at the dunk lever, he is dunked. This is a segment in a late night circus called UTV.
This was a collaboration with Sharleen Smith Yaron Ben-Zvi, Jed Ela, Ruel Espejo and Wayne Chang of Oxygen Media, Convergence Lab
Technical Notes: I wrote both the Web and producers’ interface for picking contestants in Macromedia Director/Lingo outputting to Shockwave. I used the Multi-User Server for the networking. I built the electronics and programmed in Basic the microcontroller that senses the motors in the catapult.
This is a prototype for an interactive television show where the interaction is on the scale of a building or an entire neighborhood. For instance, the Upper West Side could play the Upper East Side in a game of volley ball by placing a camera on Central Park South can be aimed northward to include a view of Central Park West on the left of the screen and 5th Avenue on the right of the screen. People living within view of the camera can turn on and off their lights to register with the software. The image from the camera is overlaid with a virtual object and shown live on television. People in their homes can push the object back and forth across the park by simply turning on and off their light switches.
Technical Notes: For the installation I used a poster of some buildings and a wall full of light switches. I wrote this software using Macromedia Director/Lingo and Danny Rozin’s Track Them Colors Xtra.
Project Description: I served as the Chief technical architect in the design and implementation of a simultaneous live television and web-based broadcast of a game-show format program utilizing telephony as a controller. I developed a real-time synthetic virtual studio that was controlled by various motion sensors attached to actors. I participated in the concept development and collaborated with 3D designers, actors, writers, and television producers to create this prototype.
This was a collaboration with Der Hong Yang, Matt Ledderman, Sharleen Smith, Jamie Biggar, Leo Villareal and Tracy White.
Technical Notes: The main game control was written in Macromedia Director. The face tracking was done using Danny Rozin’s Xtra for Macromedia Director and custom headgear. The DTMF decoding and call progress were done using pci cards. The virtual world was done created and rendered in Cosmo as VRML. The control of the VRML was done as a Java Applet. All networking was done using TCP/IP socket connections.
Project Description: We constructed a booth that was transported to high schools all over the country. In the booth students viewed rehearsals of a television episode. The video paused occasionally to ask the students questions and record video of their replies. Eventually the replies were incorporated into fully produced show that aired on NBC.
I collaborated with Karen Cooper and Tracy Johnson.
Technical Notes: This was written in Macromedia Director/Lingo connected to a video capture card and controlling a Pioneer laserdisc player using a serial Xtra as well as an 8mm Video Camera using a control-l Xtra.