we like new kit.

alot.

this new box (which btw is tiny) is something that we have been waiting for someone to release for some time because it solves a number of problems with being able to get HD content into our systems because up until now we have been running on an OLD mac pro that really needs to go to the digital junkyard in the sky.  she’s been brilliant (yes a she, because a male would never been this reliable - truth) for the last six years but it’s time to give the old girl something else to do.

so, what’s this new box of tricks do?

well, nothing different from the intensity blackmagic card that i have in the mac pro but that’s the thing, it’s a mobile version of that card.  it means i can upgrade to a new i7 based machine - either a laptop or a mac mini server with thunderbolt technology on it — oh yeah, i forgot to say, this is self powered by the thunderbolt line (no power supplies - awesome for mobility) and means that we don’t have to worry about having another mac pro which we cannot really afford anyway.

it other words - it gives us options.  choices.

we can go mobile now with a macbook pro (cj has a new macbook pro 13” with an i5 and thunderbolt) and record/stream HD from this box without a massive computer requirement.  i’ve even been thinking about making an ammobox or ammobox style backpack with a mac mini server with one of these boxes all self contained with a HD remote camera with some kind of wifi hotshoe on for total free form roving around a venue.  

as long as the conference/location has a segmented wifi block just dedicated to the amount of upstream we would need for a HD feed it should work pretty darn sweet.  oh course we have to think about microphones but we could easily run the centrance micport pro off usb to a decent xlr microphone and use flash media encoder to push it all up to the web.

anyway, all exciting new choices and it means i can look about replacing my aging mac pro to speed up the process of the video work we seem to be doing more and more off - this also helps with fibrecamp two in that build a mobility kit can be very lightweight now and literally be installed in a box, popped open and ready to go in under twenty minutes if we live the lights and have the green wall ready to go.

that’s the next phase.

oh, btw we are looking to raise a small pocket of change soon for some .tv domains we are building/putting together for the local students of the city to get them a blogging archive running alongside their own education over the term of the three years they engage in at the uni. basically so they have a portfolio of content that they OWN rather than final year projects that they do not.

follow our twitter account @fibrecamp for more details! :)

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• rob wilmot interviews nick wright from crowdworks - the second in the entrepreneurs series. (fibrecamp.tv)

http://fibreca.mp/the-intensity-extreme-hdmi-mobility-box-arriv by posted email about we like new kit. alot. this new box (which btw is tiny) is something that we have been waiting for someone to release for some time because it solves a number of problems with being able to get HD content into our systems because up until now we have been running on an OLD mac pro that really needs …

https://img.skitch.com/20120201-p7fm2i473nh629e742xcdtyyha.jpg

quicklink | blast out test on the bike on bambuser

finally had the cash to be able to get this mount.  it’s overpriced but i wanted to move forward on the idea and start the ball rolling with the bandwidth in a box concept for extra bandwidth for mobility for events and conferences.

the idea originally was to install two cameras and some heavy duty wifi connectivity with a stack of external aerials on the roof to drag in the cellular signals so we had a good solid constant stream but with lack of reception from car companies we started with what we have — a bike! :)

if you are a car company, leasin or otherwise we are looking for a smart car sized (electric ideally) motor that will do 10,000 miles in that year driving three times a week a rough total of about 400 miles a week.  you can send me a tweet with hashtag #transport in it to get some information back about what we are doing — just send that to my twitter account @philcampbell

we are happy to rent, lease or something from around £99 up to say £150 per month but we are looking to give it back after the year is out.  i simply have no use for a three year contract on car as i’m happy with using rail and public transport not having a car now for over two years.

anyway, back to the bike! ;) - had a successful first stream out to the jubilee campus and the second fibrecamp premises.  i’m doing a presentation there tomorrow, i did one yesterday with the ntu students (i did it in css3 with impress.js to be flash) and so went to grab an interview with nick gostick on audioboo.

i’m not sure why the stream dropped on the way back maybe i caught something inside the case or something or the camera screen went off.  i need to do more testing to see what the problem was there and i’ve reported it to bambuser because when it dropped the connection after 45 seconds of starting recording (i did’nt noticed till i was nearly back to the studio) it stopped all together so i had no locally recorded video stream on the phone to upload as a complement after which was a bit annoying.

that said, i discovered a bunch of new tagging features on the website when i got back to the desktop that allow for timed comments on the video (see top picture) so that means you can jump to certain sections.  i have a plan about grabbing streamed event video and piping that to another service to do all kinds of things.  i’ve been wanting to get streaming again.  

expect more of this stuff now that i have the mount.  next is to build a decent lightweight mini bandwidth in a box (bag?) to see if we can improve on the speed and quality of the connection (wifi via cellular router with more redudancy involved) as we had it set on medium today — i’m also thinking that the new iphone4s with the new sony based camera will handle the low light better so i’m looking to source one of those badboys too.

a happy first test run thou.

quicklink | the nottingham cleantech centre launches!

The GreenTech Business Network would like to announce the launch of the Nottingham CleanTech Centre (NCTC), the first incubator in the region dedicated to accommodating and supporting start-ups and small companies involved in clean technologies.

exciting!

something very close to my heart is the merging together of social media, ethics, technology and enviromental issues.  we have the ability to make our voices heard, the ability to do the right thing by the products and services we offer and the technology processes advancing and superlative speeds that we can make subtle changes to the way we engage with our enviroment.

my whole ark project is focused around what a single person can do not only to live more sustainable but redefine what a new fresh life looks like whilst still utilizing technology to improve the relations and contacts around us to be able to live in a digitally connected world with those assets around us with the internet doing the heavy lifting between it.

indeed the ark will use a lot of technology but in an optimized way, it will look at power and need over want, utilizing elements of the cloud to interact with at a glance without too much thought of taking time out to focus on the creation of the content but more of a virtual intergrated element of my day to day life — taking social media and using it as a barometer or social ping to the people that lie between the studio and the off the grid enviroment. 

so it fills me with great pleasure to be in a potential hub of startups who are using clean, green technology focus to build out products, systems and ideas.  for me, it feels like a bit of a nirvana space and makes the last year of rounding out ideas with fibrecamp one the catalyst leading up to this new space.

what makes 2012 more exciting is the possibility quite quickly of fibrecamp III located in ghent in belgium as a european headquarters and makes spreading the idea of hyperlocal media based studios servicing the five or six blocks around it’s area a real interesting hot pot of digital outreach with the businesses being more than just a partner graphic on a website.

it sparks regular interaction bringing down the potential ‘head down desk’ mode i see from so many companies when it comes to building out services.  sharing, in the business space is as much a requirement as it is for the social realtime world we live in.

i have a really good feeling about the cleantech centre in nottingham, we are going in at ground level, at the rebirth of a space and a refresh for a building that is already bought, it’s owned — it’s not rented or has potential of being problematic — it’s a blank canvas of sorts with the potential to foster some fantastic green tech stars of nottingham and the midland arena.

best of all we get to help them understand the world of social media and create media around some of the exciting concepts and processes these green tech companies have which will obviously feed a foundation of topics for the ark project in 2012.

it’s a perfect fit.  we can’t wait to get started! :)

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• Invest in Nottingham train officially unveiled (rail.co)

that’s the new cellar54 logo from james random.  nice right?

to say that the last few months have been busy would be an understandment but i’m back now from the final mission of the year into europe (ghent, belgium) that went extremely well and actually threw up some really interesting future plans in terms of what fibrecamp spaces are all about and how they will be formed in the future.

i’ve always had this dream that empty spaces can be re-engized and utilized for a number of things when it comes to social media.  that the empty space can be filled with some ‘popup’ media making equipment now that things are super nano sized and portable.  taking a space, adding some fast connectivity and putting together a schedule of local startups and interesting businesses that are doing things in the new landscape of the realtime on demand world of business has been a really interesting project so far.  and it’s about to get even more interesting.

our rent is up on the fibrecamp space at lace market house at the end of this month and we are busy working on the digital advent calendar for the whole of december for my digital advocacy for watchdottv (watch.tv) which is a brand advocate project funded by verisign for eight advocates from american and the uk, i’m the only european member i believe right now (which is awesome btw) - having the studio space has been brilliant to be able to vanish and record the content and have some quiet from the world to do my blogging.

fibrecamp was never really intended to be a full on business, it was an idea — a project based around using the social networking reach of people being able to look in and see how we work, what we talk about, where technology is going, see what we do ‘ontheground’ when we cover events and how that amplification can start to engage companies and brands that need constant conversation or engagement with a handful or worldwide stage.

we still want to support small business, not for profit and one person bands as before but we want to pick and choose who we work with, to make solid social connections with the people we get along with before we even do business.  some businesses do not gel with our approach, i guess you could say we are selective about working with people that understand the value of paying it forward and not just looking at what we do as a way to create a onesided legup opportunity.  

creating social media is not a bolt on product that you just do to look like your up on the times with technology, it’s not playing with toys either, it’s structured partners that are injecting a sense of passion into what they work on, when it becomes like this the work simply falls away and it becomes something you love to do rather than have to do.

money may talk in business, but voices talk louder in this social aware and connected digital landscape we are are rapidly adopting more and more each day.

it’s still relatively a new concept to most people because most business runs on real tangible definable outcomes.  being social within a business appears to come with a requirement to measure on it.  being social with media for me does not.

so how do you balance out the expectations of the host body? (in this case the space) i’ve noticed interesting ways that people just want to turn what the studio space is into a proper studio just so it can create wealth, the fibrecamp idea is more than just money, it’s adding to the five blocks around the area the building sits in, reconnecting the bakers, the eateries and the office workers with hyperlocal information to raise up the connectivity of the conversation in a locality.

for me, fibrecamp is a definable emitter space of reconnecting the local community through visual engagement with conversation, chat and open platforms for people to share the good and the bad - not mask or pretend that everything is ok when things are not.  we have a real time notification platform in the form of the internet that not everybody wants to engage the same way with each other, the job and your life (and the lives of others) can get in the way of ‘finding’ out about things and nobody has really nailed that condensed window on your local world view yet.

i’m very keen to spread out the fibrecamp concept to different destinations in the hope that in some ways we can connect them all together to show the power of local, remote and worldwide.  i’m not just talking about webcams and streaming shows — i’m talking true location twinning with interviews and conferences happening over the internet and interchanging with the different places and cultures.

so, i’m pretty excited to tell you where fibrecamp and the plan of ‘reactivating spaces’ is going to.  we are looking at another location in nottingham near the university on friday this week and will be pursueing another location in ghent, belgium in early 2012.  that will probably be a once a month week long journey staying in an airbnb with lots of local startups talking us through their products and services.

on the products side we are busy playing with the new cradlepoint mbr1400 for the mobility internet solution we always promised so we can do mobile fibrecamp setups on the go and we are building the second ammobox over the christmas period and in the sales.

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http://fibreca.mp/promised-you-an-update-about-all-things-fibre by posted email about that’s the new cellar54 logo from james random .  nice right? to say that the last few months have been busy would be an understandment but i’m back now from the final mission of the year into europe ( ghent, belgium ) that went extremely well and actually threw up some really interesting future pla …

what a week.

this week has been absolutely nuts and i’ve not really been able to get adjusted to the jet lag from flying back from sxsweco last week which was great but i’ve not really had time to decompress from and i have media still yet to post which is frustrating.

more frustrating is not checking the keying of the video for this week so we have some ugly artifacts so we decided to rip the audio instead and give you some pictures to look at because the video was pretty poor with the green screen bleeding through - i’ll be more on point for fibrecamp activity next week as i gel back into things and regular gym attendance.

http://fibreca.mp/podcast-pcmupdate-for-week2-of-october-from-f by posted email about pcmupdate weekly catch up - week 2 of october (mp3) what a week. this week has been absolutely nuts and i’ve not really been able to get adjusted to the jet lag from flying back from sxsweco last week which was great but i’ve not really had time to decompress from and i have media still yet to post …

a good show this week - and we think we fixed the frame rate problem. all we need to do now is get a better camera that we can white balance properly because our aging canon hv20 is really on it’s last legs. we will still use it as a second camera because it’s 1080i hdmi signal but we really have to get something new now. i’ve had it five years. that’s good in video camera technology let me tell you! :)

so from this week, the shownotes. . - ontheground at sxsweco
- ipad2 for using the video camera on the ground for interviews (keek) 
- awesome week in the lacemarkethouse lunch club (food by @yorkshiregirl)
- the ark project starts to look like start of 2012 
- sxsweco planning and preprep
- wordpress .tv domain setup for nottingham
- tech on trial at the gallery of justice friday morning
- city bikes in nottingham needed
- cj is engaged with the audiences europe JOLT
- sutherland & barnett and brainstorming
- lucylocket ramp up their social media output
- using real names on google+http://fibreca.mp/pcmupdate-for-week-4-of-september-2011-nottin by posted email about a good show this week - and we think we fixed the frame rate problem. all we need to do now is get a better camera that we can white balance properly because our aging canon hv20 is really on it’s last legs. we will still use it as a second camera because it’s 1080i hdmi signal but we really have to …

quicklink | fibrecamp hangout

seeing as google+ is now going open to the general public it seemed about the right time to make a fixed fibrecamp studio google+ hangout virtual space.

so basically all i’ve done is taken the fixed url link for the google hangout and made it a bit.ly pro link (i have a custom domain linked to my bitly account) which means i can give out a quick link for people to come and hangout in our virtual fibrecamp. i’m trying to come up with a way to get other camera shots appearing in the room but at the moment i’ve just got one of the logitech cameras hooked in.

will dropped in via android phone as well after scanning the qr code but he had to select joining the room in a certain way - i had no idea that you could join a hangout on a mobile device and thought it was on the huddle you could do that so i’m looking forward to seeing how that will work with iOS enabled devices soon as i currently use the ipod 4th gen for all my tweets.

i’m thinking that some kind of combined bambuser stream captured event broadcast into the room could make for an interesting experience.

so seeing as i have a chunk of dead time and i’m reasonably awake this morning (i’m on a train) i thought i’d give you a bit of a catchup on all things studio.

the whiteboard paint from muraspec
so we have not managed to apply the paint yet, after much going back and forth with ideas of how to prep the wall and ventilation of the space we have decided on making panels that we can retrofit onto the wall. that way we can paint them all in a location that has plenty of air and do a nice clean job.

prepping the cabling v2
i’ve just purchased a bunch of new cables and connectors for the studio in preparation for getting a mixer unit for the studio. currently we have a twin XLR mixer that works ok but it could be better. the mixer we want to get even has a compressor so that should tidy up the quality a lot.

the carpenter is visiting soon
as part of the wall area where the white erase paint will be we are having a custom one piece wooden slim desk that will wrap around the side wall and allow for three booth style areas.

we got given three machines the other day for this but we might revert back to a single headless system that runs a cybercafe software that can feed these three machines (to keep the power requirements down)

g4 tower, hdmi and new hd screen
we are really chuffed in that we got given a free g4 tower the other day for the studio space. i’ve actually wanted to take it home to use as a blogging machine but it maybe used as a vnc terminal to start and stop wirecast remotely - we also got a new hd ready 21” monitor for the main desk which has an hdmi input.

oh and talking about using VNC.
if you have upgraded to LION OSX then you will need to provide your username and password instead of just the screen share password as in leopard.

testing out boxee box finally
as the new screen has a hdmi input it means we will finally be able to give the hardware boxee box a spin and ultimately give us time to decided how our boxee application is going to look. i’m very keen to get an app running as soon as possible for fibrecamp.

still in the process of redesign
i did start on redesigning the main site but i’m still not happy with certain elements and i’ve had some clashing with jquerytools and posterous so i’m having to revisit those - also very keen to get our fibrecamp.tv domain up so a new design is being styled for that.

an outside interest in fibrecamp
more major news for fibrecamp is that we have a proposition of a business partner for the space. this would mean making fibrecamp a limited company and allow us to bring in other companies clients - the money input is welcomed to go to the next level - we are very keen on maintaining the ethos of the space however so are embracing it slowly.

more news soon! :)

http://fibreca.mp/the-recent-updates-in-the-fibrecamp-studio-sp by posted email about so seeing as i have a chunk of dead time and i’m reasonably awake this morning (i’m on a train) i thought i’d give you a bit of a catchup on all things studio. the whiteboard paint from muraspec so we have not managed to apply the paint yet, after much going back and forth with ideas of how to prep …