Live Coverage of the Xbox Reveal Tomorrow
May 20, 2013 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Just a note: we’ll be covering the Xbox event tomorrow, May 21 starting at 10a Pacific/1p Eastern/1700UTC. Join Brian Brushwood, the gamer priest, Fr. Robert Ballecer, and me on live.twit.tv. See you then!
Read All About TWiT in Monday’s New York Times
December 26, 2010 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Thanks to Jon Kalish for the fantastic article about me and TWiT in the New York Times on Monday. (Page B4 of the December 27, 2010 print edition.)
I especially liked the comments about our community:
During tapings of “This Week in Tech,” as many as 1,500 people are in chat rooms typing away at a furious pace. Fifteen volunteer monitors around the country keep the chat family-friendly. But sometimes the comments can get tough. Although Mr. Laporte is patient with even the most clueless callers, chat room regulars are not as tolerant.
“We’re making comments like, ‘This person needs to have their computer taken away,’ ” said Lillian Banchik, a Long Island surgeon who is known in the chat room as Dr. Mom.
Dr. Banchik, who listens to TWIT programs 20 hours a week, said she once spent an hour in a private chat with someone who helped her solve a problem with her husband’s iMac.
Many other chat room regulars have serious alternative lives, but like to spend time with the show. Amanda W. Peet, a physics professor at the University of Toronto, goes by Kiwi Nerd. Teresa M. Mensing, an associate professor of geology at Ohio State University, uses the handle Darth Emma.
Thanks to Mark McCrery, Dan Hendricks, Lillian Banchik, Amanda Peet, and Terri Mensing for taking the time to talk with Jon. He clearly understood that it’s the community that makes TWiT happen.
Thanks also to Jim Wilson for the very flattering picture (as my daughter puts it). What a great way to launch into 2011!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/technology/27podcast.html?_r=3&src=twr+
TWiT Live Special: Jay Adelson
October 27, 2010 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Former Digg and Revision3 CEO, serial entrepreneur, and network technology expert, Jay Adelson will join Tom Merritt and me this afternoon at 4p Pacific/7p Eastern/2300 UTC on TWiT Live for an interview.
Ask your questions on Twitter by using the hashtag #twitlive or leaving a comment here.
Live Coverage of Apple Event Coming Up
September 1, 2010 by Leo · Leave a Comment
Great news: Apple will be streaming its event today live at apple.com – finally. Unfortunately the stream will only work with Apple products: iOS 3.0 or better devices or Safari. I suspect that’s because Apple wants to show off its new http streaming capability – perhaps related to an announcement they’ll make today.
We’ll do our own breaking coverage and analysis of the event starting at 12:30p Eastern/9:30 Pacific/1630 UTC at http://live.twit.tv with Andy Ihnatko, Alex Lindsay, Tom Merritt and me. Live coverage will be followed by MacBreak Weekly immediately after Steve leaves the stage.
On The Road To Las Vegas
January 5, 2010 by Leo · 1 Comment
We’re off on the road to Las Vegas for the 2010 edition of the Consumer Electronic Show, or as it’s known around here, nerdstock.
I haven’t been to CES since 2004 and I’m sure looking forward to it. This is the premiere technology event of the year with 100,000 visitors, thousands of exhibitors, and dozens of football fields worth of booths. I’m bringing the entire staff down along with most of our gear for the most complete coverage TWiT has ever done for an event.
Dr. Kirsten Sanford will join me as co-host and we’ll be getting visits from many of the TWiT regulars including Paul Thurrott, Dick DeBartolo, Scott Wilkinson, Wil Harris, Ryan Shrout, Tom Merritt, Becky Worley, Patrick Norton, Roger Chang, and on and on. Not to mention interviews with CES keynoter and Ford CEO, Alan Mulally and other luminaries.
We’ll be streaming live from the parties Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from the CES show floor, and doing many of our regular shows including The Tech Guy, The Daily Giz Wiz, Windows Weekly, and TWiT and TWiG. Watch live at http://live.twit.tv as usual, or subscribe to our special CES podcasts at http://twit.tv/ces.
Thanks to SYNC, Citrix, and Audible for sponsoring our trip, and the hard work of the entire team for making it possible. See you in Las Vegas!
UPDATE: Here’s how to follow us in Vegas
Podcasts:
http://twit.tv/ces (click the Subscribe dropdown to add the feed to iTunes, Zune, etc.)
Video:
http://live.twit.tv
http://qik.com/twit
http://youtube.com/twit
Text Updates:
http://twitter.com/leolaporte (watch for the #CES hashtag)
http://foursquare.com/user/leolaporte (I’ve decided to focus on Foursquare for location updates)
http://facebook.com/leolaporte
Blogs:
http://twitlive.posterous.com/
http://inside.twit.tv/
Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leoville/ – I’ve hooked up my camera to autopost to Flicker via Eye-Fi
Everything I do is also piped to my Friendfeed account.
State of the TWiT 2009
August 17, 2009 by Leo · 80 Comments
Here’s the latest from the TWiT Cottage. We’ve been pretty busy!
First, Colleen has done it again! Introducing Streamasaurus…
Streamasaurus is a worthy successor to Skypesaurus, and in a similar vein. Skypeasaurus is the four-machine Skype setup I described here last March. This time we’ve created a six-computer setup to support our streaming video. Each computer will serve one stream: BitGravity high and low quality streams (right now that 1mbps and 350kbps), Stickam, Ustream desktop and Ustream iPhone, and a sixth (we’re looking at providers now – your input is welcome).
Streamasaurus consists of six Mac mini computers, two running OS X for our Bit Gravity streams, and the rest running Windows and Flash Media Encoder for our other providers. We use three analog-to-digital converters to convert the S-Video output from our video switcher and analog audio from our mixer (well it’s analog for a few more days – more about that in a minute) into the Firewire audio and video our Macs require. We’re using Canopus ADVC converters: one ADVC 700 and two ADVC 110, each with dual outputs for a total of six streams. The Macs are connected to our symmetric 9Mbps Ethernet-in-the-First-Mile (EFM) broadband connection from Sonic.net.
We built Streamasaurus to give us more — and more consistent — streams. For the first year TWiT Live was streamed on Stickam alone using a Dell laptop and an ADVC 300. In February we expanded to stream on Ustream.tv and Bit Gravity. More providers give you more choices, and provide us with more reliability. But they also require a more sophisticated set of streaming computers. Hence, Streamasaurus.
We are using Streamasaurus to take advantage of a special feature offered by BitGravity. When you watch the stream at live.twit.tv the player will automatically adapt to your bandwidth, giving you our highest quality stream (a whopping 1Mbps) if you can handle it, or a 400Kbps stream if you can’t. If you use VLC you can choose to play either high,
http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high, or low
http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/low, stream directly. You’ll really see the benefit of this when we upgrade our cameras and switcher to HD. We’re waiting for Newtek to release the Tricaster HD, and as soon as it does we’ll go hi-def. Expect that later this year.
And that leads me to item two: We are making a major upgrade to the studio this week. On Thursday, after Paul and I finish Windows Weekly, Colleen and a crew from Telos Systems will pull out our all our analog audio cables and lovely Onyx mixer and replace them with CAT-5 and an Axia system from Telos. This is an all-digital system consisting of a honking big dedicated computer system called the PowerStation and a control surface that looks like a mixer. All the audio comes and goes over Ethernet, though. The only analog devices remaining in the studio will be the mics, but their output will be quickly turned into bits and passed along into the PowerStation via CAN-bus. This all-digital system will sound cleaner and be much easier for us to use. We’re very grateful to Telos, and Kirk Harnack, Telos’s Executive Director for International Development for making this possible. It’s a major upgrade to the audio for all our shows.
Finally, I would like to welcome two new employees to the TWiT family. Erik Lanigan is a 2009 Florida State graduate who converted the Student Broadcast Center into a podcast production studio, edited some hilarious student videos, and has worked part-time as the IT guy for his dad’s law practice since the age of 13. He has interned for the Colbert Report, is a fantastic audio and video editor, and a great fellow all-around. Erik will be working with Tony Wang on audio and video editing, but like all the TWiT staff he’ll be pitching in everywhere, and you can expect to see him on the air from time to time, as well. We’re thrilled that he survived the arduous TWiT interview process.
We’ve also hired a business manager. Lisa Kentzell started a year ago as our part-time bookkeeper and has proven so invaluable that we’ve asked her to officially come on board. She built her previous business from five people to 150 and has already put TWiT on a much more sound financial footing. Lisa will help us manage our growth as we continue our march to become the CNN for geeks. We’re so glad to have her expertise and twisted sense of humor.
Frankly, running the business was beginning to take its toll on Dane. He’s off this week taking a well-deserved vacation. When he comes back, and dries out, he’ll be taking a larger role in content production and show development.
Thanks to all of you for making this possible. TWiT wouldn’t exist without our incredible community. Remember, before there was Twitter, there was TWiT. And before there was TWiT, there was you. Thanks for all your support!
(Incidentally – take a look at our cool new comment system, Echo from JS-Kit – let me know what you think!)
TWiT TV for Windows 1.10
April 15, 2009 by Leo · 40 Comments
Thanks so much to Graphics Point Engineering LLC for writing an amazing Windows app for watching TWiT Live. You can choose from the Bit Gravity, Ustream, and Stickam feeds, chat in the IRC or Ustream chat rooms, visit other TWiT sites, and even listen to Geoff Smith’s anthemic “I’m A TWiT” song.
Download a copy for any version of Windows here.
For Peter Elst’s Adobe AIR app that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, read on!
TWiT Live Desktop 2.0
April 15, 2009 by Leo · 23 Comments
The great Peter Elst has done it again.
The TWiT Live Desktop 2.0 is out. It’s written in Adobe AIR so it will work on Windows or OS X…
If you don’t have AIR already installed the installer will download and install it first, then install the app.
A couple of things you need to know about using it. Double-click on the video to go full-screen. Right-click (or control-click) on the window to get the pop-up menu. From there you can open the Interactive window which has links to chat, the Army, the calendar, and more.
A really nice, minimum screen real estate, maximum functionality app from Peter. Thanks!!!!
The Skypesaurus Story
March 16, 2009 by Leo · 37 Comments
We’re still working on incorporating Skypesaurus into the work flow at TWiT Live. For those who haven’t seen the beast, Colleen has combined four independent Windows PCs to run four instances of Skype into one monster beast: The Skypesaurus. Rawr!
We had to do this because Skype only allows one video-caller at a time and some of our shows have as many as four online panelists. We tried software solutions like Oovoo and iChat but they didn’t give us good enough audio and video – Skype really is the king for that.
Here are the specs for each PC (with the Newegg SKU numbers and price):
- 11-234-020 Case: WINSIS|WI-01 RT $43.99
- 13-121-359 Motherboard: INTEL BOXD945GCLF2 945GC ATOM330 $79.99
- 20-145-098 RAM: 1Gx2|CORSAIR VS2GBKIT667D2 R $24.99
- 22-148-231 Hard Drive: 80G|SEAGATE 7K 8M SATA2 ST380815AS $34.99
That’s about $175 per computer. Add four Acer V173B 17″ LCD monitors for $107 each. and a $285 Ergotron Quad-Monitor desk stand and the total rig cost just under $1500, minus Colleen’s time and miscellaneous cabling.
On shows with multiple hosts (like TWiT, MacBreak Weekly, and the Gillmor Gang) we use Skypesaurus to call as many as four participants and put their audio and video on the air. This requires some hairy routing, and those of you who have tuned in in the past couple of weeks have probably noticed an hour of sweating, crawling under the desk, and general gnashing of teeth before each show. I start by setting up the audio. Each machine’s output has to be routed into our mixer, and a mix-minus has to be sent back to it (that’s the full audio mix minus the audio from the particular Skype we’re feeding it back to, so there’s no echo). Our Mackie Onyx 1620 mixer only has four AUX busses so we have to repatch audio each time we want to use Skypesaurus. Something similar happens with video. The Tricaster Studio switcher we use only has six inputs, all of which are used by cameras now. I disconnect four of those cameras and connect the four Skype boxes each time I want to use Skypesaurus. But we’ve come up with a solution. Today Colleen is installing a new mixer: a $1300 Mackie Onyx 1640. It’s a bit bigger but it has six AUX busses and four sub-mixer channels so we won’t have to repatch audio each time we use Skypesaurus. I wish I had bought this mixer three years ago – it’s a beauty. We’ll keep the 1620 for roadshows, but the 1640 is going to be our day-to-day mixer. For a while.
I say “for a while” because Telos called last week after hearing about our issues with Skypesaurus audio and offered to lend us one of their new Axia IP-mixers which automatically does mix-minus to every channel! An IP mixer uses Ethernet to route audio and is fully digital. There’s really no mixer at all, just two IP head units in a rack and a control surface that only looks like a mixer. All-digital production means we don’t have to do the noisy digital->analog->digital conversion we’re doing for all our Skype audio right now. We’ll just take digital audio from the PCs and pump it directly into the Axia. Putting in this puppy is going to require major reengineering for our entire audio chain. Instead of the Firewire audio we’re passing from the mixer into Audition, for instance, the Axia just sends packets to Audition which uses a custom driver to see all the channels. I think a fully digital production workflow will really improve the overall quality of all our audio, but it’s a big change and might take a while. In the meantime, I’m very happy with the Onyx 1640.
I also want to stop crawling under the desk to switch the video cables, so we’re going to buy an Matrix Video Router. I’m about to order a $1000 Knox Video Technologies 8×8 Matrix Switcher. This takes eight video inputs and switches them to any eight video outputs so I can just push buttons and switch-in the Skype output for a camera (and out again on the fly if I need more shots). In effect this gives us four more cameras. If there are any TV broadcast engineers who have some suggestions here I’d love to hear them. Everything is S-Video so this seems like the best way to do it but we’re babes in the woods when it comes to this stuff.
So there you have it. Problem: how to get four hosts’ audio and video on the air at once via Skype. Solution: Skypesaurus, a $3500 monster designed and built by the amazing Colleen. We’re pretty excited about it – it’s not the CNBC Octobox, but it’s pretty close and for a heck of a lot less money.
Movie Night with Mostly Lisa
February 21, 2009 by Leo · 5 Comments
We’re trying something new tomorrow night. Join Lisa Bettany for an Oscar night party. Watch her and watch the Oscars, starting at 5p Pacific, only on TWiT Live!
