Episode: 786
Title: HPR0786: Streaming sporting events
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0786/hpr0786.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 02:30:08

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Hey everyone, this is Hacker Public Radio and this is Drupes.
And I don't listen to instructions very well and apparently you have to hit the pound key.
So I just called in and recorded an episode and did not hit the pound key,
so I don't know where that went.
You know how I learned this a long time ago that just talking about a technical problem,
even if no one's listening or if thousands of people are listening on Hacker Public Radio,
really helps you see the problem better, maybe come up with a solution.
So if there is a previous recording of me, please delete it and let's listen to this one.
So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to stream sporting events over the internet and it's me recording them with some camcorders
and I want to stream it live.
And what I have figured out can work is I have a little box that I plug into my Mac that allows me to take RCA in and then I can send it to like you stream.
So that's not the technical problem.
The technical problem is how to attach the cameras to this thing.
And I'm trying to do this on the cheap.
So I have a couple of like old Sony camcorders that have an RCA out.
And let's say I'm starting with two cameras.
I have camera one and a camera two and they're plugged in via RCA cables to a splitter so that I'm allowed to,
or I'm able to hook a really crappy old TV up to each one and see what's on camera one and camera two.
And then I have a cable go into a video switch like you would hook up your Wii and your DVD player to your television.
And I'm pressing the button, camera one, camera two, and there's a moment of hesitation in the stream but then it switches to the camera.
And that kind of worked and that's all fine and good.
And I haven't really sat down with the solder and iron and tried to figure out all this stuff.
But I'm wondering if like all that video switch is doing is making a physical connection probably using maybe like a relay.
So I was wondering if I could do that with my Arduino.
I think I'm going to try to do that so that I can have a little bitty button and maybe make the switch a lot faster.
Between one camera and the next. I'm going to try that.
I'm also using the Arduino as a video pass-through to put a score up on the stream so that we can say we're winning whatever.
But I'm trying to figure out how to send video wirelessly so I can have one camera maybe like on the press box and one camera somewhere else around the field.
So that maybe I could have multiple more more than just two cameras going and I don't know how to properly send wireless video like that.
There's wireless internet at the area or at the field but I don't really want to have a bunch of laptops running around communicating.
Maybe there's like a wireless way we can send just plug our C-A cables in and then I can have like a battery underneath the tripod the camera's sitting on that's powering in and murder to power these things.
I don't know.
If anyone has any like knowledge about such things, please tell me it's droops of Gmail or even better the hack and media comment or hack and media.
The hack and media comment on the website have a little discussion.
And the first time I recorded this episode I hadn't even thought about using the Arduino to switch between the video.
Now I'm thinking about it.
I think I can just use relays and that wouldn't screw up my signal coming through my RCA cables.
I wonder how that would work or if that's a really bad idea and I just never took any electronics classes and I don't know.
So if anyone has any thoughts or ideas or examples of how they've done this, that would be super awesome.
And if I didn't have to use my Mac and a fancy little box and I could have some sort of old video card that took our C-A-N and used Linux to stream this, that would even be cooler because then I wouldn't have to have my Mac sitting out in the press box or whatever.
And you know Linux is awesome too, not just my computer is expensive and I can't afford to replace it.
So anyway, hey I ramble a little bit. Did you notice?
Anyway, this has been Drupes.
See how the community can help me out with this to be awesome.
And this has been Hacker Paul the Grady.
Gotta hit the pound key.
Thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio. For more information on the show and how to contribute your own shows, visit HackerPublicRadio.org.
