HD live Stream or looping DVD

[GreenReefer77]

I'm not sure which forum section is the best for this, but I figured I'd try here since this is a fairly general question.

I've kept reef tanks most of my life but I now have 5 kids and travel a decent amount and just couldn't stay on top of the reef requirements so I sold my setups a couple of years ago and have been missing them ever since.

I'd like to setup a virtual aquarium in my office with a HD TV and either a live stream or a looping dvd. I haven't had any luck finding a high quality live stream and most of the dvds out there contain lots of footage other than of the actual reefs. Ideally I'd like a constant view of a reef tank or of an actual reef. Do you guys know of a good video source?

[Devaji108]

yeah I would be nice if a few folks with nice tanks did a HD live stream of there tanks.
think if we could choose channels like TV...humm today I would like to "watch" so and so big tank with lots of tangs....and another day a butterfly tank....
that would be really cool.
so anyway bump...

[Breadman03]

I've browsed ustream with limited success. There are a few channels, but they don't seem to be live often.

[Devaji108]

hum never heard of them... I'll look in to it.

[Jeff000]

I might not have the nicest set up, but it looks good. I want to stream it for myself, but not sure how, HD web cams are expensive. And seems like you would need to have it a distance away from the tank so you would see me walk through it or in front of it at least at times.

[Hamsternuts]

I have a cheap IP camera set up to watch my tank and sump when i'm at work out of simple curiosity. it works, but the resolution isn't all that great.

But, I think the reason you don't see much streaming HD stuff, is because of the bandwidth requirements, equipment and cost. An "HD" stream can run at anywhere from 4 to about 16 megabits.

Consider that most people with ordinary cable or DSL connections can only marginally handle that amount of data and most normal home connections are asymetrical, meaning that upload and download speeds are vastly different and you'll begin to understand the technical aspects of such a large stream.

I know a lot, if not most corporate IT departments restrict streaming traffic because it bogs down the network. I know you mentioned that you want to watch it at work.

I'm sure there must be something out there like what you want. But, I don't know of any.

[GreenReefer77]

HD streaming is expensive but I thought maybe one of the big budget hobbyists might have something like this setup

A look in on a public aquarium or alive reef would be awesome too. Actually I'd love to see one of the artificial reef (replanting the ocean) offer the ability for a hobbyists to custom plant a section and then offer them a 1 hour hd video periodically. I hadn't thought of that before but that might be an interesting way for one of these projects to be funded.

In the mean time, do any of you know of a decent hd video/dvd to loop?

[BigCountry74]

yeah you will have to find a facility with a lot of bandwidth (upstream) and a video/tank setup. the problem with most of us streaming video of our own tanks, is it would eat up all of our bandwidth. Most of us have residential broadband, so we get plenty of downstream but are capped horrible on upstream. so if i hooked up a camera to my tank and streamed it 247, especially HD, I would have no bandwidth for anything else pretty much - it would consume literally all of my allowed upstream

[BigCountry74]

this one is not bad

http://www.neaq.org/education_and_ac...bcam/index.php

[BigCountry74]

you can also try justin.tv

http://www.justin.tv/search?utf8=%E2...&commit=Search

[GreenReefer77]

thanks big country

[ajcanale]

I stream occasionally on JTV: http://justin.tv/ajcanale

It's in HD, and when I'm not streaming there are plenty of prior broadcasts to watch.