Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and +broadcast them on the air? Using free software? With video on demand +support using +free and +open standards? Included a web based video stream as well? And +administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world? A +few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel +Frikanalen have been building a +system to do just this. The source code for the solution is licensed +using the GNU LGPL, and +available from github.
+ +The idea is simple. You upload a video file over the web, and +attach meta information to the file. You select a time slot in the +program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and +in the web stream. It is also made available in a video on demand +solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time. All +you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.
+ +There are several parts to this web based solution. I'll mention +the three most important ones. The first part is the database of +videos and the schedule. This is written in Django and include a REST +API. The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to +PostgreSQL. At the moment this system can be tested on +beta.frikanalen.tv. The +second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from +the database and providing a video stream to broadcast. This is done +using CasparCG from SVT and +Media Lovin' Toolkit. Video +signal distribution is handled using +Open Broadcast Encoder. The +third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded +video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video +on demand. It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet +decided what it will end up using. Note that the source of the latter +two parts are not yet pushed to github. The lead author want to clean +them up a bit more first.
+ +The development is coordinated on the +#frikanalen IRC +channel (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on +the +frikanalen mailing list. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim +(phed on IRC). Anyone is welcome to participate in the +development.
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