# LIVE Video Fishing Report – 6/22/09



## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

Do any of you remember when tom_in_orl shared his SPOT GPS page so we could track his Flamingo fishing trip live over the web? Well, that was pretty darn cool, I thought. So cool in fact, that over the past week I’ve been experimenting with streaming live video from my Blackberry directly to a web server on the internet. For the most part, it works pretty well. I’ve done several short clips and the quality isn’t too bad, although it can get a bit choppy when the signal strength is low.

Tomorrow _(Monday 6/22)_ I’m going fishing and thought I might experiment a bit more and see how feasible this is on the water. For those of you with desk jobs who sit in front of a PC all day, I’ve included a link below. This will open a page to my live video “channel”. If the camera isn’t on, you’ll just see a black video frame. If you leave that window open, it’ll automatically “go live” anytime I turn on the camera. You won’t have to refresh or anything. Maybe you’ll get a few minutes of entertainment out of it, if it works.

If you choose to try and tune in, just remember that I’m not promising anything. I’ll probably only be able to film for a few minutes here and there, and I’m certainly not going to have much in the way of witty or entertaining commentary. Also, since I’ll be alone I’ve gotta figure out the logistics of filming while fishing or operating the boat, in such a way that the camera/cell phone won’t get wet. This may be the single most prohibiting factor.

Despite the challenges, the idea of actual live video from a fishing trip makes it worth fooling around with, so here’s the link. Let me know how it works, as I can’t recall ever seeing this done for fishing/boating before. 

Live Video Stream


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

I just watched a bunch of Bill Dance bloopers, so my expectations are high. Don't let us down. ;D


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## Brett (Jul 16, 2008)

Are there gonna be smilies?



If not, how can we be sure it's you?

;D


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Interesting. I will keep a window up to see what happens.


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## iMacattack (Dec 11, 2006)

Live NOW! I see rod holders


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

ended pretty quick, maybe he dropped the blackberry in the water...


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## Brett (Jul 16, 2008)

He's still at it....

http://farscape1.dyndns.org:8080/HaMm3r.html


But it's way too hot out there for sane people!


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Caught an update a few minutes ago. Something about a trout and then running the boat. That was kind of cool.


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

> Caught an update a few minutes ago. Something about a trout and then running the boat. That was kind of cool.


Yep, I saw the same thing, bu then I saw that the US open was on. Sorry Jeff.


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## mark_gardner (Mar 18, 2009)

that was different, cool but different i do miss the witty commentary though : a little fine tunning and you'll be ready for the tv network after all, bill dance wont be around forever ya know


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

Hey guys, thanks for playing along!  It looks like a total of 5 of my video updates were streamed live, before my cell battery got too low. Did anyone actually see any of them as a live stream rather than having to hit the play button? If so, how did they look? (I know the first one froze at 17% until I reset the cell radio)

Obviously, there were some technical "challenges" to figure out and the fish were apparently camera shy.  I'll write up more about the videos and the fishing tomorrow, after I've slept.


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## mark_gardner (Mar 18, 2009)

> Hey guys, thanks for playing along!  It looks like a total of 5 of my video updates were streamed live, before my cell battery got too low. Did anyone actually see any of them as a live stream rather than having to hit the play button? If so, how did they look? (I know the first one froze at 17% until I reset the cell radio)
> 
> Obviously, there were some technical "challenges" to figure out and the fish were apparently camera shy.  I'll write up more about the videos and the fishing tomorrow, after I've slept.


i had to hit the play button everytime


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Hey Hammer,

I saw 4 of the 5 live. They were choppy. I also installed qik on my berry and saw the same issues. After playing with it I found that you have much better success if you use the berry to record video and then use qik to upload it a minute or two later. The end result is about a 5 minute delay. I know the concept of live is cool but I don't think its buying you anything. The video is already low quality so anything you can do to make it more appealing is worth it. 

Overall I would say that it was a successful test and leads to a few great ideas. It would fun if we had several people do videos on weekends. Regular updates are a must if you want people to tune in. At least every hour. It would also make a great morning report for fishing conditions.


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## iMacattack (Dec 11, 2006)

That was very cool! Maybe we can start a LIVE section for these kinds of reports... I think it would be a hit. Might need to get a few techies to work this one out. ;D


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## paint it black (Nov 3, 2007)

> That was very cool! Maybe we can start a LIVE section for these kinds of reports... I think it would be a hit. Might need to get a few techies to work this one out.  ;D



Somehow assign one angler a month to fish a targeted species in their area. They can maybe assign a small crew amongst friends, and get it done. I think that would be pretty cool.


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

Well, as you already know, yesterday I tested the concept of doing a live video fishing report and I’m pretty glad I did because it gave me something interesting to do in between not catching anything. :

The morning started out beautifully, not too hot, with a slight breeze from the west. The sunrise was top notch, as a slight haze on the eastern horizon set the whole sky aglow. [smiley=bravo.gif]









I soon pulled onto a flat and set about trying to catch something. It was still a bit early for a video update, so I thought I’d fish for a while first, and I began chucking a Spook Jr. into the slight chop brought on by the wind.









During the next twenty-five minutes, I had three huge blowups by redfish. [smiley=thumbsupsmileyanim.gif] They wanted it bad, and when I landed a nice four spot 19”er, I just knew it was going to be a great day! [smiley=woot.gif] Man was I wrong…[smiley=frustrate2.gif]

















After releasing that first red, I figured it was time to try out the live video. I actually thought about holding on to the fish and trying to film with it, but with the water being so hot, I didn’t want to risk killing it. At that point, I figured there’d be plenty more caught anyway. :'( Here’s the first video. In the initial few seconds I was trying to get the camera to sit in the rod holders so I didn’t have to hold it, but just scrapped that idea until another time.
http://qik.com/video/1934674

Once I put the camera away, I went back to casting, alternating between the topwater and a natural Gulp shrimp. The gulp was completely ignored while the plug was hit two or three more times by trout. [smiley=thumbsup3.gif] Nothing stayed stuck, so I decided to move and make another video update while underway. [smiley=wink.gif]
http://qik.com/video/1935171

When I stopped recording, I noticed that the first video hadn’t ever finished uploading so I reset the cellular radio and it took off. After that initial problem, the next three videos seemed to stream without issue. Most of the time when I’d stop recording, I’d see that the current stream was at 70-80% uploaded, and would finish while I was watching. So, updates 2-4 were almost live. [smiley=waiting.gif]
http://qik.com/video/1935390
http://qik.com/video/1936156
http://qik.com/video/1939968

There isn’t a whole lot else to tell that isn’t already in the videos. It was very slow, with only a few nibbles here and there. At one point, just before video five, I broke off a nice red, which only added to the frustration. 

Late in the afternoon, I tried the canals with the last of the incoming. As I drifted from dock to dock, I heard a big splash from farther in.  I kept an eye on the area while the tide carried me closer and suddenly I saw three consecutive eruptions by a school of decent sized snook. (By decent, I mean decent for NE Florida, I’d estimate 20-24”). I picked up the MirroDine rod and waited…

When they came up again I let fly and landed right in the midst of the fray.  The result was an instant hookup! I felt the thump and line began peeling off steadily. I gave the rod a couple cautious yanks just to make sure those hooks were in, and I felt like I had it under control.  A few seconds later and it all changed. :-[ The line just went slack, no breakoff, no bent hooks, only an empty lure on the end of the line.

I was pretty annoyed and tired at this point. It’s probably fortunate that the cell phone battery was so low it wouldn’t let me record any more videos, otherwise there could have very well been a NSFW update streamed. [smiley=devil10.gif] As a last ditch effort to catch something else, I headed to a spot right near my slip where I can almost always catch a jack. I did, almost… [smiley=cry1.gif]

It was my fault. I was tired and didn’t feel like untangling treble hooks from the landing net, so I just tried to swing the jack into the boat. Well, the hooks pulled and the MirroDine went sailing past my head as the jack flopped back into the canal. [smiley=cussing.gif] That was the last straw. I was done and trolled over to the dock to get the boat cleaned up.

Although the fishing pretty much sucked, the morning topwater action was unusually hot. I just wish my catch to strike ratio had been higher. As for the live video feed, this has certainly proven it’s doable, despite the problems. Now that I know some of the quirks with the Qik application, I think it’ll stream a lot more consistently if I ever do it again. Also, battery life is an issue and I would have to bring along an automotive charger and plug it into the trolling battery somehow. [smiley=hmmm.gif]

Anyway, hope I didn’t bore you too much. I thought it was a potentially cool technology and one I suspect will only improve in the future.


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

I definitely give you credit for hanging in there through the heat. It's been brutal. I wish the fish had kept you a little busier.


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

> That was very cool! Maybe we can start a LIVE section for these kinds of reports... I think it would be a hit. Might need to get a few techies to work this one out.  ;D


 Ya know Jan, I’ve been giving the idea of a live video forum section some thought, and if other members are interested in hosting their own “channels” from time to time, I have some ideas to that might make it a little more user friendly.

First, we’d need a way to embed the video stream into a forum thread like we can now do with other media. Qik provides the code you can cut-n-paste, but I couldn’t make it work without building my own webpage and then linking to it in my thread.

Assuming we can find a way to embed the video, then I think we should have a single, sticky, thread where everyone who wants to periodically contribute live video can post their embedded channel. My reasoning behind this is that this would provide a single page that members can open to monitor all the available video channels at the same time. If any one of them goes live, anyone with that page open will instantly hear and/or see the active video stream. (_Another option would be to have a dedicated single channel that everyone who wants to contribute could share, but there are some obvious security/abuse/conflicting stream issues that might make that approach prohibitively challenging_)

Live video contributors can post an “intent to stream” in the live video section if they want, letting others know they plan to share some content and provide a timeframe for when they think it might happen.

Of course, it would be cool if on the forum homepage there could be some kind of indicator that a live stream was running. Something like the little blinking icon that shows which sections have new posts. However, that might be beyond the capabilities of YaBB without some custom development.

Anyway, just thought I’d throw some of these ideas up for discussion. I’d like to see other members sharing some live (_or nearly live as tom_in_orl suggested_) video reports, and I’d certainly contribute again if there’s interest. It might be fun to get sort of a MicroSkiff TV thing going, but there would have to be enough people willing to do it.


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