Video Stream of Bald Eagle Nest, Hornby Island

A live stream of a Bald Eagles nest was posted recently on the Internet, care of David Hancock/Doug Carrick and Hancock House Publishing Ltd.

• wma stream at 384 Kbps

There are two eggs as we speak, otherwise it's currently a bit boring while the Eagle sits calmly on the eggs, but wait a few days/weeks and it will be sure to get more interesting?

A great stream for the bird lovers and watchers of the feathered variety!

Note: Live stream will only be available during the daylight hours of Vancouver BC (GMT -8)

Works very well streamed directly to my TV via the TVersity UPnP Server and my SL300i UPnP Media Player.

Interrelated sites:-

• Tree climbing with the eagles on Hornby Island
• Hornby Island Diving
• Wikipedia
• Dugg at Digg
  

Terra, Nature in our World

Terra, is a BlogSpot devoted to nature. There are some very interesting downloadable movies in .m4v format. Unfortunately this particular format is problematic and as yet I have not found a way to watch these items on my TV via my UPnP Media Player using TVersity as my UPnP Media Server.

I am very hopeful that a future release of TVersity will address the issue with .m4v playback on my Philips SL300i. In the meantime downloading and watching these items on my PC is an option worth taking.

Quote from Terra:-

TERRA is much more than your typical wildlife show; it is a chance to experience a uniquely cutting-edge vision of the natural world through the eyes of passionate student & independent filmmakers who are discovering the next frontiers of research, re-vitalizing compelling issues, and celebrating the diversity of our natural environment like you’ve never seen it before.

Open your ears to Jamendo

At jamendo, artists distribute their music under the Creative Commons license.

This means that we the general public can download, discover and share albums and tracks freely. We can rate and review Albums and where we particularly like an Artist we can support the individual or group by making a donation.

jamendo is based in Belgium, the majority of the available music is from French Artists, but do not let this dissuade you as there is a good selection of genre available and the site appears to be increasing in popularity!

• Tags
• Albums by Popularity
  

I have only become a member of jamendo today although I have been watching the site for a few weeks now, it's a good way to be introduced to new music. The site is currently available in English, French and Spanish.

Cliptip & Docopenhagen, Music Video Blogs

Cliptip & Docopenhagen are alternative music video blogs, which showcase and provide links to some very interesting music videos. The vast majority of the videos are in Real and QT formats.

• Cliptip
• Docopenhagen

These two blogs are frequently updated!

Oh how a wish TVersity was already able to accept the streams and transcode these video formats directly off the Internet like it does so famously already for WMV formats.

GeekBrief TV

GeekBrief TV is a Technology Video Podcast show hosted by Cali Lewis and available approximately 2 to 3 times a week, 3 to 5 minutes in length and dedicated to Gadget News.

Cali Lewis aka Luria Petrucci, is described as a witty, charming and knowledgeable host. The show is in .mov format.

• RSS Feed
  

Daily Planet TV, streamed in wmv

Daily Planet TV, is a show about technology trends that appears to have been Vodcasting since July 2005 in .mp4 (20-30 minutes per show approx)

What's very interesting to myself (and others?) is that the most recent episodes of Daily Planet TV have now being made available to mainstream Windows users as a .wmv stream:-

• Episode 137
• Episode 136
• Episode 135
  

This means I(we?) can now easily watch Daily Planet TV .wmv streams on our TV's without any need to first "download" to our PC's. The TVersity Media Server will intelligently and magically transcode from .wmv to .mpg "On the fly" for UPnP Media Players that require it.

Streaming without the need to first download the increasing number of freely available Podcast/Vodcast(s) is a very liberating experience.

TVersity Transcodes many formats, and has specific profiles for different UPnP Hardware A/V Players read more in TVersity FAQ

ClipUpload, Share Video Clips.

ClipUpload.com enables individuals to share video clips with friends and family. Many of the clips that are currently available are .wmv so can be easily added via TVersities GUI to TVersities URL Media Share for later playback on our UPnP A/V Media players.

ClipUpload is currently in early beta, it's a free service hoping to be purely funded by users visiting websites sponsors and via donations. I have already gone for an account because it appears it will allow me to upload approx 25Mb of Video material for free, with methods to tag, restrict access. etc.

Below are links to a few interesting clips (Webpages) and the RRS 2.0 feed at ClipUpload.com

• Parachute Check (Cartoon Animation)
• Hard drive Speed (Technical demonstration)
• Quick Escape (Crazy Stunt?)
• The Real Life Simpsons (Actors in Simpsons intro)
• RSS Reader Feed (Of recently added clips)
  

ClipUpload seems an interesting start up with a small current userbase.

Granky Geeks, Hosted by John C Dvorak

New show from "DL.TV / Ziff Davis" stable called Cranky Geeks. The first wmv streamable pilot was shot on the 2nd of March and is available via this Link

John's the host where three additional GrankyGeeks will be invited to debate the technology of the moment on each show. Like DL.TV the GrankyGeeks show needs to find its feet, but it is so very refreshing that more and more streamed shows like these are becoming available to stream over the Internet.

Great first show to my mind which covers various topics including Myspace, New MAC Mini, WirelessN, HDTV media streaming etc. GrankyGeek's is a good title, I will be keeping and eye out for future shows!

PS. The show has been also been dug at Digg where I have added a comment.

BBC Newsnight stream available.

BBC Newsnight is broadcast over the UK terrestrial airways every weekday at 10:30pm on BBC Two. They also broadcast their latest nightly programme over the Internet for 24 Hours after each programme. Here is the link to the low quality .wmv stream

• Newsnight

Newsnights general mission is to make sense of the days news from a UK perspective, explaining details behind current events etc.

There are also watch again features, visit Newsnight website for more details.

BBC Short Films, from British Filmmakers

The BBC's short film Network is a really great place to find interesting media to stream and watch on our TV's via the use of the TVersity UPnP Media Server and a UPnP Media Player.

Here are some examples, which can be fed directly into TVersities GUI:-

• Astronauts an animation by by Matthew Walker.
• The Clap a comedy by Geoff Lindsey.
  

There are many more available over at the BBC Short Film Network which is a showcase and community for up-and-coming UK filmmakers. The following genre range is:-

• animation
• comedy
• documentary
• drama
• experimental
• music.

Democracy, Free and Open Source

Here is an interesting piece of new software which like Veoh provides a method to access Video Streams of interest from your PC, downloading them were necessary for later viewing. (Perhaps using TVersity?) I am going to download Democracy and try it out as it looks to compliment the current version of TVersity very well.

Anything, which assists in the finding, downloading and/or streaming of Internet Video to My TV via TVersity and my SL300i, gets my vote. I particularly like the fact that democracy is opensource software. I will explain how I get on with Democracy in a future post!

BFM TV 24/7 News in French (Watch Now)

BFM TV is a 24/7 French news channel broadcasting at 448 Kbps in Windows Media Video format.

This is a good quality 4:3 aspect video stream, which works perfectly via the TVersity UPnP Media Server. TVersity transcodes the stream to mpeg1 so that my Philips SL300i UPnP Media player is able to provide the stream on my TV and not my PC.

BFM TV est un canal de nouvelles français 24 heures sur 24 qui est émis à 448 Kbps dans le format de Windows media Video.

C'est un jet visuel de bonne qualité 4:3, qui fonctionne parfaitement par l'intermédiaire du UPnP Media serveur TVersity. TVersity transcode le jet à mpeg1 de sorte que mon Philips SL300i UPnP Media Player puisse fournir le jet sur ma TV et non mon PC.

BFM TV Home web site

Mobuzz , the European Version of RocketBoom?

Mobuzz is an interesting website providing access to daily Videoblogs in either English or Spanish.

Mobuzz Videoblogs appear to be specifically targeted at the mobile phone, but I also believe that they are something that can be equally and perhaps even more enjoyed, watching at home in a comfortable armchair, when were able.

Karina Stenquist (Above) is the current presenter of the English version and Iria Gallardo (Below) is the current presenter of Spanish version of the show respectively.

The format of these shows are very similar to Rocketboom, where each show is approx 3 minutes in length.

I am really looking forward to the next release of a UPnP Media Server TVersity, as this is going to make it easier to add Videoblog RSS feeds to the Philips SL300i Streamium interface, then to browse and watch these shows on my normal TV, off the Internet.

I have added the shows feeds to my RSS Feed section for my own convenience. You can read more about Mobuzz on their about page

Songbird 0.1 Proof-of-Concept has been released!

Quote from Songbird.....Songbird is a Web player built from Firefox's browser engine. Songbird is open source, will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and supports user contributed, cross-platform extensions.

Hmm, seems interesting with it's integration with the web and Media services such as Webjay. Think I might just download it and compare with other media manager/players I have tried out etc.

Gradually learning how to Add Media RSS Feeds to my Blog.

Currently trying to work out the best way to add Media RSS Feeds for different categories, formats, etc. It’s taking time to understand and develop how I should approach and do this, however I will get there eventually.

VideoBomb

Video Bomb filters up the hottest videos on the internet: people submit links to the 'Incoming!' page and you bomb the best ones. If a video gets a lot of bombs quickly, it makes it to the front page.

BBC, Technology, Locking down our digital future

Well, it looks like the power of the people may just be awaking the sleeping giants to their predicament? What is worrying is the reaction; It seems that those in the know and with money want an Internet lock down!

First post to my own blog

I am going to use this blog to record those things that are of interest to me in the freely available Audio/Visual Internet world.

I therefore believe that a large portion of this blog will be dedicated to those Audio/Video URL's which I can stream via my PC to my Television and Hi-Fi using a simple small and compact UPnP Media Render. (URL’s that worked well and were of interest on the day I posted in my blog.)

As the months pass in 2006 and beyond and blog develops, who knows where it will lead both myself and those who may wish to follow my own somewhat personal journey?

My current A/V UPnP Renderer is a Philips SL300i which I generally utilise with the Tversity UPnP Media Server running on my Internet connected Win XP PC. This combination enables me to watch Internet TV not on My PC, but My TV.