DECS gently downs ustream

Last night, a bunch of tragics from 3 states attempted an Australian first: To stream a volleyball match live over the internet. Sadly, their noble attempts were foiled by archaic IT principles. This is their story

My experience in volleyball has told me that if you put three tragics in a room they would struggle to even agree on the colour of an orange.

Which meant the idea from Vic volleyballer “Jason” on Devo’s blog to stream Saturday’s Mt. Lofty v Heidelberg blockbuster live on the internet with a free service must have been damn good for it to be met with such unanimity. I got prodded to read the discussion and thought it would be a great idea to be part of the first Australian volleyball match to be streamed live over the internet.

Seeing games in their untimed entirety on any television broadcast system is unlikely. But if we can get this to work on the web, it would be amazing. It could create some real interest in the game and energise the tragics out there to spread the great gospel of our game.

I’d love to see the kids I coach play national juniors in Queensland and U16s in NSW. I’d love to see the players I used to coach play for the Australian junior and youth teams and AVL. I’m sure their parents who foot the bill would like to see these games too. Could we set up a camera in the coach’s lounge pointed at the two showcourts at AVSC with live streams? Screw it. Let’s set up a FEW cameras, invest in a video splitter, find some uni media students that know how to mix and make it a bit better.

The site Jason suggested was “ustream.tv”, which after a quick on my macbook webcam  proved to a pretty neat tool (I’m sure that like YouTube, these ustream guys are hemorrhaging $$$ from the data charges). You can even add text to the live video stream, which would have been handy for keeping scores. You can have it linked in to twitter and facebook and use it to reach your existing networks. Alexis Lebedew and Chau Le were mostly concerned with the upload limits and firewalls at the Mt Lofty venue so Murph and I met with Stuart Scott and Eldo up at Mt Lofty to do another test.

Sadly, we couldn’t get it to work. The Mt Lofty Rec centre shared the adjoining high school’s internet infrastructure and the firewall just wouldn’t let ustream detect the cameras plugged in. Even plugging an Ethernet cable to my laptop and pointing the webcam toward the court wouldn’t have worked. It was a problem that went well above our heads and the authority of the school’s IT guy. It was standard Department of Education and Childrens Services (DECS) IT policy.

A tool like ustream has so many possibilities. It’s got at least a dozen applications for teaching media. How much could you teach kids about media with this and encourage them to engage with the outside world? Yes there are privacy and security issues, but we should really be trying to embrace this technology rather than blanket banning it because it’s too hard to make it safe.

Although we couldn’t get it to work, I’d have to say the passion of, and cooperation between all the people involved who wanted to see this happen was fantastic. It was one of those few indescribably enjoyable experiences that remind you why  you put up with all that other nonsense that comes with being involved with the sport.

Mt Lofty v Heidelberg tomorrow night @ Mt Lofty. Video files of the game will be uploaded to the net straight after the set is finished. Keep your eyes peeled on Devo!

And live streaming will only be a matter of time!