Webcam streaming and voice

/120/1d/37458/1.html mentions something along the lines of streaming video. This would be cool and all for those who actually had a clue in the world on how to stream quicktime video or had a server. Not everyone can do this. I would like to suggest webcam option where the script could pick up a webcam with a special downloadable software. The image could then be put on a "tv" inside the avie's home. I do think the streaming video is nice, but not everyone will know how to do it live or will have the ability with lack of server.

Another thing I would like to suggest is voice. I think with voice (even good or need tweaking) would help improve. Although I do enjoy typing, I sometimes find it better to just talk instead of type when a lazy mood hits.

I basically just wanna suggest special webcam feature for tv's and voice for avies.

Voice chat has been a hot topic of ages. Last word from Linden Lab is that they'll do it when voice masking can be done that doesn't sound like crap. Many players fear it as a possible change for the worse, the most often cited senario being that of the haves and the have-nots forming two separate cliques. Other people think it will have little effect on the community and would be a boon in many situations, like classes or group projects. For now, the closest you can come is to use a third-party program like Teamspeak for group speach, or do a radio stream into a plot for one-way voice.

With the streaming video, what you suggest may be possible for the sort of webcam that takes a picture once a minute and uploads it to a server location. But if you mean like video chat (like Apple's iChatAV) with fluid motion and sound, you will need to have a special server to handle it.

To test the streaming video in the preview, I activated a streaming server on my Dreamhost account and uploaded a video I made and "hinted" to make it streamable. I successfully had it playing on a prim this morning. Dreamhost is a fairly cheap hosting option that DOES support this technology.

As the streaming in Second Life uses Apple Quicktime, it should support MANY formats of media, from video to still images, to even text (though that may not work as you'd expect). I know of free software for the Mac that will use a webcam to take occasional pictures and upload them to a server. Back in the day, I did that to a free geocities server. SL's streaming video should be able to display those. (Though Geocities may no longer allow outside linking to images, preventing it from working in this case.)

But... This is all beta preview stuff, and likely to change at any time. Don't count chickens.

I'm a newb at SL but I am amazed there's no integrated webcam system.

I'm not a software writer etc... so I don't know how hard it would be... but surely something akin to Yahoo Messenger or MSN could be opened in a window in SL like a chat window?

(yes I appreciate some people don't want any RL interuption to their SL world, but it's all a matter of choice)

Also... i have seen how to record snapshots - but does SL have a way to record video of what's going on? Or does anyone know of third party software which might do this??

greg

Yes. I think it's in file. Start/Stop moving record or something like that.

As for 3rd party software, hell yes there is. There's a billion of them, Fraps is the most well known.

Also, I'm adamantly opposed to webcam, just as I was with voice.