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Television Media

Community Wifi Feeds Community Cable in NYC 59

Posted by CmdrTaco from the do-you-see-what-i-stream dept.
akb writes "Manhattan Neighborhood Network has embarked on a project to combine two community networking communities in NYC, the nascent community wifi network on that isle with public access cable TV. The project has successfully conducted a test which involved cablecasting an mpeg4 video stream being transported by the nycwireless.net wireless node in Bryant Park."
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Community Wifi Feeds Community Cable in NYC More

Community Wifi Feeds Community Cable in NYC

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  • OpenFox's newest reality show...

  • Uh oh... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Bisifiniti ( 635115 )
    The newest fad: Warbroadcasting.

  • Never Been to New York ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <[be] [at] [eclec.tk]> on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:32AM (#5264669) Homepage Journal
    But isn't Manhatan a rather wealthy part of New York? For some reason I'm thinking that the story a while back about Laos and their network was more justified than this. And public access cable really sucks.

    Don't believe me ... I'll send you a tape of the "Hallelujia" woman. She sits there sings something in Spanglish ... then screams "Hallelujia" at the top of her lungs, does a chirpy scream ... turns on the guitar distortion ... rocks out to something that resembles a beeat ... and then declares her love to the baby jesus, not the later years of course.

    I don't know if she's doing like story reviews "Obviously baby jesus was more likeable than dying on the cross jesus" ...

    Obviously going off topic here, but who gives a shit? I guess if you don't like it don't read it, but I read it and I just don't see any reason why this gets a spot on slashdot. Compressing a movie to mpeg-4 than transfering it over "wireless" internet has been done before on many occassions.

    If you wanted to impress me, you would have used pigeon carcasses and shoestrings.

    • What, do you need your art spoon-fed to you? what you described seems no more or less valuable than Friends or Fear Factor.

    • If you wanted to impress me, you would have used pigeon carcasses and shoestrings.
      Yeah, MPEG-4 over CP/IP (RFC1149 [faqs.org] would be much more impressive. Not sure how they'd get around the latency and out-of-order delivery issues though...
    • And public access cable really sucks.

      Public access cable in NYC is usually the most interesting thing on TV. It's not really comparable to public access cable in other cities - many of the shows are well-produced. Some are certainly bizarre, but even the worst are better than 90% of commercial TV.

      -Isaac

    • NY Public Access (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lysium ( 644252 )

      There actually is a difference between New York public access and say, Kansas City public access. The public consists of a good seven+ million, many of which came here with artistic ambitions. So the quality of programming, IMHO actually surpasses glossy network television "let the people be the content" shows of the moment. (*Not that there isn't a whole boatload of utter garbage as well, but...diamonds in the rough)

      Also, Bryant Park is in the middle of the business district. The only people who live in/near are homeless people, not wealthy urbanites.
    • the previous postings are correct. Public access Tv is unique in Manhattan. it's well-known that Commercial TV has been influenced by the rampant experimentation of MNN producers over the past 30 years. look at Saturday Night Live. MTV. This Wi-Fi project is just another example of breaking barriers. can you imagine: you can do a live broadcast with people in 5 different countries all through the net. No need for satelites.

  • independence ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by colonel.sys ( 525119 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:35AM (#5264685)
    i wonder if all this community activity will turn into a movement that actually makes all those little subnetworks (wifi and cable connected) into kind of a sub-net culture that will be independend of the big, commercial internet.

    will they be controlled by the world's governments soon? will corporations try to switch them off?

    anyway this is exciting. i think with dmca-legislations hanging over heads of the people in different countries all over the world, this is kind of a light in the darkness.

    am i too naive?

  • I wish more things like this were availible (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:37AM (#5264701) Journal
    I wish more cable systems and PBS stations would open up their studios to local access TV and rebroadcast to the internet. (By the way, to the post below, this is public access TV, not Network being transmitted)

    I think ALL cable systems should be REQUIRED to have a local access channel. It could be a source of revenue for the cable stations, you actually have to buy air time. (Like Wayne's World) - New York and California shouldn't get all the fun. I bet that cooking shows, computer shows, and craft shows would flourish in local markets and help with our cable bills at the same time.

    I, for one, would love to an Apple Computer / Linux Help show.

    • Why don't you make one, upload it on the Internet and it can be submitted to the public access channels, where they exist, by local people or LUGs.
    • I think ALL cable systems should be REQUIRED to have a local access channel.

      Most cities that I have lived in do. I am not sure if the cities force them to when signing a contract allowing the monopoly, or what, but like I said, most cities I have lived in do.

      Now, with that said: The quality of programming on public access TV is almost scary. The majority I have seen is either borderline racist (usually against whites), REALLY bad Karioki (swear to god), drunk 21 year olds with a video camera showing others how drunk they are (in the guise of some form of entertainment)or religion based programming by pastors who have 12 people in their "flock".

      Im not exaggering (God, I wish I were). I would have to be more medicated that I care for in order to find it amusing. Here in central NC (metro area of near 1 million) they advertise for people to use it, because there isn't enough garbage to fill all 24 hours.
      • Public access cable doesn't have to be like that. The station referred to in the article is probably the best in the country, they have amazing programming that is much more interesting than what you can find on the hypercommercialized airwaves. In particular, ethnic communities often use public access cable.

        Public access cable is a unique place for local communities to take advantage of to put programming on that is civil society driven instead of bottom line driven. You can put anything on that you want, why haven't you done so?
      • Remember the real issue here: Don't blame the messenger. Public access TV obviously works since its in your home. The problem is the programming. The programming is created by the people in your town. The problem is the people.
    • I think ALL cable systems should be REQUIRED to have a local access channel. It could be a source of revenue for the cable stations, you actually have to buy air time.

      You are rocketing back to the past.

      Why not just require cable companies to supply symetric internet access and static IPs? They could make money selling internet access that way and anyone could provide any content they felt like, you know like the peer network the internet was supposed to be! They use public land for their silly cables, they have an obligation, no?

      Oh wait, that futre was killed by greedy shit heads. Dreams never die. Those that stand in the way tend to be trampled.

      Golly gee, I'm on TV! Not. Thanks Cox.

    • I think ALL cable systems should be REQUIRED to have a local access channel. It could be a source of revenue for the cable stations, you actually have to buy air time. (Like Wayne's World) - New York and California shouldn't get all the fun. I bet that cooking shows, computer shows, and craft shows would flourish in local markets and help with our cable bills at the same time.

      Most of them do. One type is called public access- no ads or commercial programming, and most of the time it's of a generally poor quality (though has anyone seen Jerkbeast in the Seattle area? That was pretty funny the first couple times I saw it).

      The other kind is leased access, and it's indistuingishable from QVC and other channels filled with constant paid advertisements. The whole concept of leased access was promoted with a fantasy where local small-time video producers would be able to make shows and have ads just like on the networks, spawning a creative video renaissance etc. similar to what you describe.

  • ambitious at best (Score:4, Insightful)

    by myrashka ( 452794 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:41AM (#5264723)
    Perhaps someday soon this will be practical - but for now, WiFi has too many disdvantages:

    1) Bandwidth - even on the newer 54Mbps feed will quickly become saturated
    2) QoS is still a pipe dream
    3) Microwave ovens - still a predominant feature of many people's homes.

    And with HDTV coming out - will we really want to be stuck with 320x200 doubled at 15fps for our TV? Might be a novelty or convenient when you want to watch something important when you're away from home - but seems to me that until WiFi becomes more hardwire-ish, this is a project best left for the novelty that it is. Continue to wokr on giving free ubiquitous wifi on a grand scale (i.e. bigger than just NYC)....

    • Re:ambitious at best (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh, come on. Even Ku band transponders can handle multiple streams of 720p, or a few 1080i mpeg HD streams, and they only operate at a typical bandwith of 27Mhz. 1080i only requires 6Mhz of that bandwith per channel, for a whopping 13.6 Megabits/s. Of course, HDTV boradcasts can use a multitude of sound formats, so it's a bit harder to guestimate how much it's going to typically take.

      2. You don't need QoS if you're ethernet multicasting. That's the whole freakin' point.

      3. You're not operating your reciever inside or neraby your microwave, hopefully. 802.11a operates at 5Ghz. Pretty far out of the frequency range of microwave ovens (about 2.5Ghz) Even if your antannea was close to the microwave, interference would not be a concern. Watch out for mil radar, though.

      Pull your head out of your arse, before you throw around numbers you have absolutely no idea about. It can work, and these people probably will get it to work. All the better for New York.

      If you cared so much about this phonemonon happening outside of NYC, perhaps you could put your money where your mouth is, and provide some internet bandwith to get these transmissions to other areas? It's easy to talk the talk, buddy.
      • And to follow up on the implicit 1),

        The 19.2 Mbps of bandwidth allocated per channel was the requirement for 1920x1080 60i MPEG-2. WIth modern codecs, we can get a LOT better bang for the bit. In my testing, 1920x1080 60i @ 7Mbps with MPEG-4 Advanced Simple works great. And with the forthcoming H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10, we'll be able to get that lower yet.

        For point of reference, when MPEG-2 was originally defined, 7 Mbps was considered about the minimum you'd ever use for standard definition (720x480). The number of bits required per pixel have dropped to about 1/8th in the last decade.

        And as long as Moore's law keeps letting us up the MIPS per pixel rapidly, we've still got headroom to design better codecs yet.

        • Re:ambitious at best (Score:2, Interesting)

          by myrashka ( 452794 )
          Agreed, we can squash a lot...but consider:

          802.11b - 5.5 Mbps - if you're lucky (turn on a microwave within 150 feet of the receiver and that drops to about 3.2 Mbps) (remember 802.11b is 11mbps half duplex....)

          802.11a - 54 Mbps (is it full duplex? I have to check)
          802.11g - 22 Mbps (not sure - recalling from memory)

          Most you could support is about 10 channels on a 802.11a perhaps....this is assuming no interference, priority on the channel (meaning no interference plus no one else transmitting), no retransmits, 0 error rate, etc.

          Do your math as well - sure, you could probably get the 20fps, 320x200 stream down to 56-100kbps range - but that's raw. Add the overhead and latency of tcp/ip and then that of wifi...let's say you're lucky and that with 192 kbps of bandwidth you get a solid channel. That's at best 20-30 streams of data (802.11b - the most popular right now)....ah - but wait....wifi has a colision space - so you'll probably top out at 15-20 (unless you've manage to synchronize your transmissions so they never collide - qos might help here)...

          Come on folks...I'm not questioning our ability to stream video over wireless in a perfect world - but _WIFI_ at best is a one or two channel option for now - even with massive compression (at which point, I'm not sure it works for mainstream viewing).

          Also note that technically - wifi applies to 802.11b...I'm allowing for the other less mature technologies - but they still face a lot of the same hurdles for any wireless broadcast system that's unregulated with more than a few channels.
          • Indeed. You'd never use WiFi as a multichannel solution, for the reasons you describe.

            The article was about doing one local channel. Assuming you got multicast working correctly (no idea what the story with WiFi and multicasting is), multiple viewers can watch the same packets to watch the same stream. This would be more like a local pirate radio solution for video.

            As for data rates, I think with the leading codecs today, you could do "good enough" quality (as good as digital cable) for TV display at about 1 Mbps, maybe a little less with some content.
            • (no idea what the story with WiFi and multicasting is)

              Well, multicast indeed has nothing to do with QoS, except in a negative sense. As I read 802.11* is a lockstep protocol, the traffic between the host (end-point) and the access point is acknowledging (fragments) of packets synchronously, so it can quickly retransmit lost/errored parts of the transmission, at least quicker than TCP/IP's error recovery, which is not quite designed on arbitrarily lossy links.

              Now compare what happens when you send to multiple hosts via multicast; you cannot expect them to acknowledge every bit, if there's an error, all hope is lost to recover the missing part if you don't send much *more* duplicated data than you usually would need on a normal network. What's more, there could be ranges on a wireless network which normally back down to 5.5/2/1 mbps (from the normal 11 mbps), and if you'd just send 11 mbps to everyone, quite a few host would simply miss it completely... What's more, I seem to remember that multicast normally is limited to 2 mbps, the old standard bandwidth of 802.11.. That would be really not a great way to broadcast video... If you can do it, it's almost down to DSL speed, the old dream of the telcos to sell VoD over your phone line.. :)

        • And as long as Moore's law keeps letting us up the MIPS per pixel rapidly, we've still got headroom to design better codecs yet.

          I agree, but it's a bit tiring to replace all PC's, all set-top boxes we don't have yet, DVD players, sat tuners every other year... Except the 802.11b Prism card?

          This consumer "centric" box selling is kinda let down; if Hollywood wouldn't insist on everything encrypted, we would just have one video decoder box with a standard input (firewire, ethernet(!) whatever), and if the standards change, we don't throw out all those black devices on the HiFi set, but upgrade, maybe sometimes really replace that single box that doesn't keep up with the standards... And don't frighten me with a Microsoft box centric view again... I want simple parts cooperating via simple protocols on ethernet just like I can plug all my household devices to the power grid.

          Hold on a sec.. Bryant Park?
          "Bryant, huh?"
          "Lófaszt, nehogy már, te vagy a Brade.. Brade Runner!"
          BTW, there's one more semi-Hungarian sentence there that noone seemed to hear, check it: "Azonnal kövessen engem, bitte!"

          • Yep, the problem with convergance is that the home electronics start becoming more like computers as well as the computers becoming more like home electronics. A couple of years ago, I got a Dish Network box that ran a version of WinCE, and even had Doom installed (nearly impossible to play with a remote...). Which was all well and good, except that the box would crash randomly, need to download upgrades regularly, and the HD was loud, and eventually failed! The non-MS replacement unit is still working fine, but still.

            Meanwhile, all the other electronics just keep on trucking, NEVER doing anything weird. I'm sure I'll still be using my five year old Pioneer amp for years to come, although it'll be depricated from the home theater soon (it only routes S-Video).

            A 50-year old TV can watch a broadcast today, and today's TV could have watched a broadcast of 50 years ago. As convergance hits, that cycle will probably drop to 5 years, maybe less.

            But, of course, it'll be nice to get 20 channels into the bandwidth where once we could have one.

      • Re:ambitious at best (Score:4, Interesting)

        by myrashka ( 452794 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @02:40PM (#5265795)
        Okay - wait...we're talking WiFi here....not Ku Band or anything else. I limited my discussion to the scope of the article - IN WIFI. Thus, by your example, 1080i would be too much for your typical 802.11b wifi setup. And at best, you'd get a few hdtv channels on 802.11a (course, you'd be limited to a few city blocks).

        With the newer technologies (we're talking general wifi here - 802.11(put your favorite variant here)), you'd still be lucky to get a dozen streams or so - even with multicast.

        2. Since when does multicast have priority on a network? Fact of the matter is only one person can transmit at a time...this includes interference. So if the band is clogged, multicast won't improve anything here. QoS is required even for the mulitcasters to get the right priority. Course, this matters not for point 3 (interference).

        3. Typical wifi today is 802.11b...802.11a still has to pan out and 802.11g seems like a better alternative for most. While I agree neither gets knocked out by your average Microwave - both get reduced bandwidth due to the wideband interference. And you point out other points of interference to bandwidth - which really is the whole point here.

        So buddy- if you had a modicum of reading comprehension, you'd note that my point is the bandwidth/reliability isn't there for something more than a channel.

        And I simply pointed out the area I'd rather people invest first....I'd gladly (and have in the past) contribute to such fine efforts simliar to NYC wireless.

        Btw - talking is what we do here at slashdot (well writing and reading). And don't go calling the kettle black if you don't have the courage to post with a registered account.

  • Won't they have to pay royalties to Acacia for the bogus "transmit compressed video over (insert any form of transmission here)" patent? The claim doesn't even seem to describe any actual invention!

  • Does anyone watch Community Access TV? (Score:4, Informative)

    by papasui ( 567265 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:57AM (#5264809) Homepage
    This is just a netcam broadcasted over CATV, the quality is 1/2 as good as a standard CATV feed too. I can see the advantages of this from a cost perspective, but personally I think the quality of community access is bad to begin with, not to mention the shows actually broadcasted.
    • the quality is 1/2 as good as a standard CATV feed too

      What's the problem? With MPEG4, you can have (near) DVD quality at about 900kb/s. I would say 802.11b MIGHT not be able to handle that much (eg. over long distances, or whatever the interference), but with 802.11a/g, that' absolutely no problem at all.
  • Anyone else catch this on public access in Austin, TX? I don't remember the actual title, but that was the content: leather, spankings and dumplings.

    Disturbing and entertaining at the same time!

  • screw cablecasting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lo_fye ( 303245 )
    bah! cablecasting!
    you wanna be a media-consumer, that's fine... but there will be commercials involved.
    I suggest you download something like andromeda [turnstyle.com] and stream your own content to yourself!
    It can stream video and audio files that you have to any PC on your LAN. My setup is that I have a 300GB server in my bedroom which has TV-out. This is hooked up to a cheap wireless audio/video transmitter (2Ghz)(available at x10.com) [x10.com] which sends the signal clearly to my TV & Surround system in the living room. Even the crappiest DivX looks unbelievably crisp at TV resolution!
    • This is for public access cable where you don't have to just passively consume, anyone can submit a show and have it get put on. The point of the project is to make it technically easier for people to submit programming as well as do live remotes.

      Don't scoff at the benefits of cablecasting, in Manhattan there's a potential audience in the millions. On the 'net to reaching anywhere over a handful with video is financially out of reach for most people.

  • Press Release (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Some rich kids produced some TV shows instead of working. They did a WiFi broadcast of it in Bryant Park. Meanwhile, no guests at the Bryant Park Hotel could be reached for comment, although a burly man wearing all black was overheard saying "can I see your pass?". Everyone else near Bryant Park was either homeless, not interested or a pigeon."

    When there's a WiFi network in Washington Heights, Inwood and the "other" parts of Manhattan, let me know so I can tune in.
    • When there's a WiFi network in Washington Heights, Inwood and the "other" parts of Manhattan, let me know so I can tune in.

      Yeah! Now there's a community that's underserved! But, of course, the WiFi network is a grassroots network. It only expands when someone new decides to build a node.

      So i guess the real question is: why haven't you done anything to build a node in your neighborhood yet?
      • Believe it or not, there's actually somewhat if a decent community up there. There's a private university (Yeshiva University), and housed on their uptown campus is an undergraduate school of 1200+, and two graduate schools.

    • Re:Press Release (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Technik~ ( 87292 )
      When there's a WiFi network in Washington Heights, Inwood and the "other" parts of Manhattan, let me know so I can tune in.

      There is, at least when you're within the few block, line-of-sight range:

      Hudson Heights [nodedb.com].

      It's generated a fair amount of interest among residents even though there isn't a decent place to sit within range. It happens to cover the local public school (CSD6M287) but from the logs I'm not seeing any regular use and no one has contacted me from the school.
      It would, in my estimate, be a great thing for the co-ops to get together and set up cheap co-operative internet perhaps with wireless access as a public service possibly gain enough groundswell to start a community freenet and even a freebox program. When I have a bit more time (I already volunteer) I might bring it up again but I don't see it getting beyond us hobbyists I don't see anyone stepping forward to take on this second (and third) full-time job as neighborhood ISP and technical mentor.

  • The other way round (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @04:03PM (#5266297) Journal
    It would be better if it were the otherway around. The internet already liberates Computers, you can get any kind of information from millions of sources on the internet.

    What would be cool (imho) if Television and Radio were "broadcast" as IP-based 'channels'.

    If we could build a AP that was both a Broadcast Node (if you chose to create a stream) AND a 'listening node' (so you could tune-in digital TV & Radio' AND a Repeater Node (so you could extend the service range of others who are "Broadcasting".

    This kind of Radio/Television liberation could broadcast all kinds of Independant tv, 'pirate tv', etc etc etc , open up a radio/television kind of "internet" where anything/anyone can participate.

    Does this make much sense?
  • How many times can you say community in once sentance and still make sense?

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