Please view this
Article for details on how it was done last year - and to read about
the experience of our remote attendees.
How much will
it cost?
You will appreciate
that we all have to pay for "bandwidth" wherever we are in
the world. For us to put on this enhanced video streaming we must charge
a fee to cover the costs.
For just $39 you
will get full access to the conference across all 3 days.
Just think about
the possibilities - If you are part of an astronomy club in Europe through
to Russia, from Malaysia through to Australia - you can pay for just
one stream and put on your own local AstroImage conference for your
members.
What about the
time difference?
The conference will
be "broadcast" mostly during the day in Pacific Time (7 hours
behind UT). That will result in most other parts of the world needing
to view the conference late at night and into the early morning. However
- we are all Astronomers right? The nighttime is OUR TIME anyway right?
Instead of spending the night looking through an eyepiece, or working
on our next CCD Image or astrophoto, you will be spending the night
doing something even more productive, learning how to improve your imaging
techniques from some of the best known Astrophotographers out there.
We have scheduled the conference to be running at the time of the month
that most of us would not be imaging anyway (very close to the Full
Moon).... so you won't miss any valuable observing or imaging time anyway!
What do I need
to view the video?
The most basic item
you will need is a computer - and a connection to the Internet. The
ideal connection to the Internet will be high-speed via a cable modem
or other such connection. However you will still be able to view the
video with just a dial-up modem as long as you have a 56K version. You
do need some software to view the video - but we are using the most
popular video formats on the web called RealVideo - and the software
for viewing is FREE!
UPDATE:
How do I access the live-chat system?
The live chat facility
will be a critical part of your experience of the event as it will allow
the conference streaming team to keep in touch with you and also allow
you to ask questions of the speakers and also communicate together.
We will be using
the Yahoogroups system to do this.
Please visit the
following page and join the group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroImage2002/
In order to access
the chat system you will need to setup a profile on Yahoo - as you must
login to the system via the web to participate.
It is really important
that you sign-up for this group and that you can access the chat system
while you are watching the video stream. Last year this facility was
crucial to allow remote participants to stay in contact with us and
to give us feedback on the video quality of the stream.
Access
to speaker materials/presentations
I am in the process
of loading the speaker materials we have been receiving onto a web-site.
When I have completed doing this I will send an email out to every registered
video stream attendee.
How fast will
the stream be encoded?
For those of you
who will be interested in this we intend to stream the video at approximately
100KBits/Second. This is a reasonable compromise in video / audio quality
while still not using too much bandwidth. The video last year was streamed
at 80KB/s - so we are making an improvement on last years arrangement.
What have you
got to lose?
If you want to view
the stream you will need to register
at Eyecentric.com for this
event. Once you have registered you will then be able to enter credit
card details for payment of the $39 fee.
There will still
be a limit to the number of remote viewers allowed - however we can
cope with a much larger group this year than last. Reserve early!
I hope to "see"
you there!
Liam Kennedy
OCA President and Video Streaming coordinator
For an overview
of the conference materials and speakers visit the
Conference Outline.
