MyShowroom.TV

New features are out! Download the latest Studio!

It has taken some time as we focused on many other things, but today the upgrades are out officially. What it means? What kind of new functions we've implemented in the past weeks? Of course we did lot of code quality stuff and we stabilized the service. There are many things behind the scenes what we've updated and not visible, but these are the functions what you all will see for sure on your next visit.

Statistics
We've added in a new statistics page to overview your broadcast events. You need to log on to the site to visit this page: http://myshowroom.tv/pages/profile.aspx?tab=mystats

With many interesting numbers like your total broadcast, chat comments, max viewers etc. You also can sort by a specific date to check how your shows performed.
You will see on your program list that how much live visitors you had vs how much on demand. Will be easy to keep track if your live events doing better then your archived shows.

Video - Archived Shows - Embed function
Earlier the only way was to embed the player to any other sites, to use the embed code under the live player on your profile page. Now you will be able to embed your past events too one by one. Just click on one your your past events to go to its detail page. You will see there the embed button next to the player.

No overlay chat. Chat progress indicator implemented.
We've removed the overlay chat from the player as this confused many people. At the same time we've added in a function which flash the chat button on a profile page if the chat session is active for that specific show. See the screenshot how the chat button flashes.

Video marker
With the new studio application you will be able to send text markers in your live broadcast. The marker will be displayed in the player with the same amount of delay what we have with the live streams (few seconds). The markers also will be there on your archived/uploaded shows. So now you can easily add any text you want to your live streams.

New audio options in the Studio
Whenever you do a show now with the new Studio, you can use audio files under your videos. For example you do a webcam show you can decide to use your favorite music rather than your webcam audio device. Would broadcast a video? Not a problem the question is to use the original audio or listen any music with that? This is a very useful function especially if you would like to give some background music at a live event breaks etc.

Studio dynamic messages
You will see different messages when you will open the studio from now. If a new upgrade, a maintenance or anything else happens you will see that in the Studio.

Studio marker function
Type in any text you want to the regular chat field in the MyShowroom.TV Studio application and press the "Add Marker" button. This will add in a text marker to your live stream.

Upload functionality improvement
We've updated the Studio upload function. Changed the way it worked and this new function will solve many uploading issues. By the way did you know that the Studio starts uploading your show when you stop broadcast? (If the archive is enabled). You do not need to wait for this upload to complete. You can click on abort and do the upload later when you have time with the "Upload Archived Content" from the Control drop down on the top.

Many other things are coming too like:

• The MyShowroom.TV Studio 64Bits Windows version Installers. As some of you missed this earlier. If you need one before the official launch, please send us an email.
• Spanish and Italian local versions are out shortly now in progress.
• Better way to overview the archived contents

We hope you will enjoy the new functions and will see you shortly on MyShowroom.TV!

Please do not forget to install the new Studio application. In the Studio application select "Check for Upgrades" in the Help menu or use the following link: http://myshowroom.tv/installer/upgrade.exe

Using WebcamMax or ManyCam with MyShowroom.TV

For those who are a fan of these programs i have a good news. They both work with MyShowroom.TV. So what you need to do to make sure they will work smoothly?

A couple things to keep in mind:

1. Use the same webcam with only one modifier or without that

You can have both installed on your computer, but you will be able to use only one of them on the broadcast. This is a technical issue. But once the encoder got the signal from a device (webcam) that webcam is not usable with another modifier or without that as the device will be in a "busy" state. So if you want to use it please use ONLY WebcamMax or ManyCam or the Default Webcam without any modifier. Please do not set the regular webcam as "Channel 1" and the Modified Virtual Cam as "Channel 2" for example. If you launch with the regular you can not switch to the other devices. But if you only use the cam with a modifier and other webcams next to that, that will work fine.

WebcamMax Setting:

Select WebcamMax Capture as a Video Device on the configuration panel.

ManyCam Setting:

Select ManyCam Virtual Webcam as a Video Device on the configuration panel.

2. If the channel is not usable and the broadcast not start. Your device is busy!

Once you set up a channel with the specific virtual device, select that and start the broadcast. If the source is not selectable it means the device is busy and not usable. Please close the modifier tools (WebcamMax or ManyCam), the studio application too. Then restart the studio application select the source and start broadcast. When the broadcasting started you will be able to launch the modifier tool to apply any effect to your show.

If you did everything correctly both the Studio and the Website player will work correctly and you will be able to use all the features from these programs. Like text titling, color effect, PIP etc. One thing i noticed. Some effect makes your system and broadcast slower and using these tools adds a few seconds delay to your normal broadcast delay time.

Studio with WebcamMax Live Stream in it:

All effects appear correctly on the website too:

If you have any questions or you have other tools to check please send it to us. We will check it to make sure that works with the Studio too.

I think this is great for those who love to add other things, effects too above the set of features what MyShowroom Studio offers. Also there's a decent number of people who love these applications. So no worry we all love you too ;-)

Now go ahead as we're waiting to see what you can came up with! ;-)

MyShowroom.TV is on the Silverlight Showcase website

Who hoo! Just checked and seen that MyShowroom.TV is there on the official Silverlight website in the Showcase section. Check this out here. We're very proud because MyShowroom.TV is the first free Live Streaming service which uses Silverlight Technology. The way its appears in the Showcase is really nice! Check the screenshot below.

Thanks to all of you who posted many great review about our service. Watch out for the upcoming weeks we're launching some nice new features.

Link to the Silverlight Showcase page: http://silverlight.net/showcase/

Tips Round 2: For a better show

Based on the past experiences we would like to give you some help, how to do the best possible show on MyShowroom.TV. It's more of a technical guide in this round, but if you use it you will produce better shows and the overall quality of the show will be more enjoyable for all the users.

Tip1: Camera placement

When you do a one man show this is less important maybe since the only thing you need to consider to have a face closeup or a full body view depend on the type of show you're broadcasting. But what happens when you have more people in a same room let's say on an interview or you're broadcasting an event. These are all requires different camera placement of course.

When you do an interview, but you have more people in the room. You can do this with a web cam on a camera tripod, a DV Cam which works as web cam too sometimes or you can use a prof camera too attached to a digitizer card which Studio can handle. Depend on your cam angle you need to place the cam around 1-1.5 meter from the person. If you have a longer distance the person will be too small on the video. The current web cams however offers the zoom capability but its not quite that quality what we're looking for. When you do a DV Cam this is different of course as there you can use the full range of zoom capability. So you can shoot from a longer distance too. Unless you have a camera man we prefer to have multiple cam set on the show. Each one shot the other person. So the reporter and the interviewed person is also a cam target. You can set up the Studio to switch between them automatically after a time. Let's say in every 10 seconds. With this you do not need to switch manually between the cam sources and you do not need a camera man.

On event broadcast probably the web cam is not an option. You can, but without real zoom functions you need to put the web cam closer to the event presenter or have a general overview from a longer distance. Each will have its own disadvantages. Close web cams usually not works as the presenter is walking around the desk. Far view is good but not gives that detail. For this reason we prefer to use a DV Cam or Prof cams to broadcast from events. There you can put the cameras 5-10 meters from the presenter giving a better overview on the overall presentation. You will be able to use the zoom functions to make a closeup on the presenter whenever it's needed. On a tripod you can rotate the cam safely without the shaking effect.

If you do not have an encoding card, you still can use a DV Cam. Some of those offers a web cam mode where the camera uses its zoom capability, white balance so they are better to shoot from a cam tripod. With a digitizer card like the Osprey series you can use any kind of camera, in this case the Studio need to be installed on the machine where the encoder card was built-in.

Tip2: Audio

Studio offers full flexibility on the Audio source usage. For this reason whether you do an interview or an event broadcast we prefer to have the microphone the closest to the speaker. Does not matter you're using more video input sources you can use the same audio for all. So when you switch between the video sources, the audio will be recorded from the same place all the time. Use a regular microphone or the camera built-in ones just have that close enough to give a great audio quality at the end.

Tip3: Switching between the video sources

The easiest when someone uses the studio to do this. But sometimes you just do not have time and can't focus on this, or you do not have an assistant to do the job. For this reason we  have an auto switcher in the Studio. Auto switcher gives you the possibility to skip to another video source automatically after a time. If you're looking for a loop thing you just need to set this up to all video sources. And have the circle closed. For example: Source 1 to Source 2 > Source 2 to Source 3 > Source 3 to Source 1. If you have the auto switcher set for all of them, (the timing could be different in every source) the Studio will switch between the sources automatically and you do not need to worry about that when you broadcast.

Hopefully this helps you. We will come back with more tips later like web cam tools, encoder card tips, mobile broadcast or how you can get more attention to your shows.

In the meantime we hope we will see you shortly again on MyShowroom.TV

New functions coming in the next few weeks

Thanks to all of you we passed the first public month on MyShowroom.TV! We've received many registrants from all over the world which makes us very proud and happy. We've also got many blog posts about the service and these were nice ones. Thanks to all of you!

We have a tons of plan for the upcoming autumn and winter season so check out the news and the blog where we will post things.

New features! Well we've done several feature improvements which we're testing currently but these functions will be available for everyone shortly. We will tell you all details when we will launch these.Shortly the Studio will get feature updates which gives you more control over your shows. The website will show more statistical data from your broadcast and many more!

In the meantime we hope we will see you soon on MyShowroom.TV!

Hungarian devPortal launch in September

We're proud to announce that a new development community portal will launch in September. This is the devPortal (currently in beta) which is supported by Microsoft Hungary. The portal will support the development community who is interested about Microsoft technologies. Many articles, interviews, reviews real life examples will be posted there. Microsoft chosen MyShowroom.TV as a Silverlight backed live broadcast solution, to support the weekly live interviews. Additionally to the live interviews, of course many other events will be broadcasted too here. And all of the past broadcasts will be accessible from an archive too.

Great website! We're looking forward to this!

Original post from Zsolt Batori from Microsoft Hungary