Best way to webcast an event for my elderly relatives?

December 1, 2010 8:02 AM

I'm defending my dissertation (in the EU) next week and my grandparents and elderly uncles/aunts (in the US) won't be able to attend. They would, however, like to have a little party in their own homes at the same time and experience the event simultaneously.

My first thought is to broadcast it on Skype, but the image isn't always great. Is Google-Video better? Maybe.

But there must be some ideal platform which is really user-friendly. Maybe the best idea would be to film it with a video camera and upload it to youtube a couple hours later (any tips on this?). The benefit here is that I get a copy to keep, plus with a video camera, you can zoom in/out.

The important thing is that it is reliable, if the connection breaks midway through (which seems to happen with skype?) , there'll be no one around to fix it.

Anyway, I'd sure appreciate your creative ideas, especially those that are not to technologically complex on the receiving end.

Thanks!

posted by mateuslee to Technology (5 answers total)

Could you use http://www.justin.tv/ ? You can password protect it so only your relatives can see it, and it seems to be quite robust. In addition, you could use two computers (if available), so they aren't crouched around the one screen, with the bonus of extra reliability if one of them crashes.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 8:18 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

You could check out this advice for broadcasting a wedding on the web.
posted by neushoorn at 8:43 AM on December 1, 2010

YAWCAM fits the bill nicely and darn simple to use. It has multiple streaming modes, you can set it up so people connect to the broadcast computer at watch on any computer live.
posted by token-ring at 8:43 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was at a conference last spring where many speakers from Europe weren't able to attend due to the Iceland volcano, and the conference used WebEx for their presentations. With WebEx, the main focus is the slides and your voice (I don't remember seeing much video of any of the speakers), but in a Skype-like-situation I would think it would be difficult to see your slides. So that is something you will have to consider - slides clarity versus video of you. A friend of mine doing her candidacy exam tomorrow is having a prof Skype in, but he may have the slides on his own PC to follow along. Good luck with the setup and the defense!!
posted by sararah at 10:38 AM on December 1, 2010

Ustream.tv has worked for me in the past, with great success.
posted by lhall at 2:44 PM on December 1, 2010