fishing for ideas for a presentation Hangout 'Switch'

[nfolken]

I want to create some kind of switch in the lounge that when flipped would turn on a pi, webcam, and mic mounted on the ceiling pointed at the front of the class and start a recorded Google+ Hangout. It would be great for anytime we have a meeting for people who can't make it, and to record and share classes and presentations.

Unfortunately I can't find any way to start a Google hangout via command line, let alone automate it.

The closest plan I have come up with is to have a pi feed a rtsp stream to youtube. You would then have to schedual a Youtube Live Feed and select the Pi's stream as your source. Anyone can watch, and I think then you can also add the stream to a hangout if you want.

We don't have the bandwidth to setup a full fledged video server streaming to multiple viewers, so we need to use a CDN like YouTube Live or Google Hangouts on Air, which have the added bonus of re-encoding the video at multiple bit-rates and for multiple devices, and records and saves to the web.

Anyway, I thought I would see if anyone else had any ideas

[Gene J. (GeekTinker)]

I think an "One The Air" sign behind the camera would be a good idea. I'd want people to know that a meeting, class or event was being broadcasted or recorded. Too many chances for somebody unknowingly saying the wrong thing and feelings possibly getting hurt because of something that was said. 

Other than that, if anyone would want to listen in to the Hangout from Arch Reactor and interact with the people watching, they would need a set of headphones, not speakers. Otherwise the feedback can be atrocious or at the very least the audio quality suffers.

Gene

[Morganism]

I like the idea of being able to hear, see, and interact in meetings I cannot physically attend-specifically Tuesday night's. However, isn't this what the telepresence robot was originally for? Is that not working? Or not a viable solution? Or just a sore subject?

Either way, I would love to have this capability.

[Andrew Ricke]

The lab PC on the other side of the wall has a camera and speakers just for that purpose for hangouts. (Both provided by Gene I believe). It has been used a few times upon request to broadcast certain meetings or for stop motions of building something on the assembly tables. 

Still no cool switch and on-air sign yet. 

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[Gene J. (GeekTinker)]

The web cam came from Pete Lamonica, I believe. The speakers may have came from him as well. 

I have a mic that I can donate, but it would need an XLR adapter to whatever input is used. Of course, the camera has a mic, but once any speaker is more than a few inches away, sound quality would suffer.

The cool on-air sign could easily be etched out of clear 1/4" acrylic and have a red LED strip along the long side.

[Chris Weiss]

could a chrome plugin start a hangout?

[Robert Ward]

You can create a permanent link to a hangout that we could share.  Once you open the link you just have to click a button on the page to actually join.  I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to make a userscript that just auto-clicks that button every time you go to a hangouts page.

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 11:49 AM Chris Weiss <cwe...@gmail.com> wrote: 

could a chrome plugin start a hangout?

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[Robert Ward]

Actually, someone already made one, here you go: https://gist.github.com/ericcj/eebc7a04d6d80e93a1c9

[nfolken]

There would of course be an obvious notice when the camera is on, and I'm only thinking of having it pointed at the presenter.

I don't want to dismiss the telepresense robot, because it could also provide a similar functionality, but I am really hoping for something that is as easy as flipping a switch. Right now its dead easy for anybody to start a hangout or record a presentation, but nobody does (or we rarely do unless asked, and the people who would most appreciate it aren't there to do the asking). I want it to be an unobtrusive way for us to create more content and get people interested.

Bob, I did run across the Google Hangout Button and thought of having it on the presentation computer, but I couldn't tell if it would still require a sign-in before launching, and then it would also tie up the computer. I had toyed with the idea of creating that button on our website, because it can run some scripts automatically. I read somewhere that a script could be made to add a youtube live stream to your hangout, so it would launch and auto add the stream from the pi. But then youtube live streams can't be started with a flip of a switch and can't run continuously... blarg

[Gene J. (GeekTinker)]

For the dream list for this project (which I would happily help with), how far of a stretch would be to automate the process enough that a member could turn it on remotely from home if they wanted to see a presentation and the physical switch hadn't been activated yet?

[nfolken]

Maybe I spoke too soon. It looks like you might be able to create and start a YouTube Live stream with some code. That might be enough to have a pi automatically create a generic 'event' and to start streaming video to it.

It will take some more research, but it might also be possible to have a Google Hangout Button on our website that would launch a hangout, invite AR members, create the youtube live event, start the pi streaming video, and then add the youtube stream to the Hangout. Of course there would need to be a warning a delay before the camera is started, or maybe if the button just turns on a lighted sign asking someone in the space to turn on the camera.

[EschewObfuscation]

A security related thought: Any remote turnon should be "and" 'ed with the space switch, so it can't be used as an "is the coast clear?" tool. The space switch as it stands isn't an "is anyone there?" indicator, but rather "is someone there and are they willing to accommodate non-key visitors?". That's a bit different.

[Ryan Williams]

I like the "request for live stream" option rather than the straight to stream solution. 

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 9:37 AM, EschewObfuscation <google...@mailfilter.33mail.com> wrote:

A security related thought: Any remote turnon should be "and" 'ed with the space switch, so it can't be used as an "is the coast clear?" tool. The space switch as it stands isn't an "is anyone there?" indicator, but rather "is someone there and are they willing to accommodate non-key visitors?". That's a bit different.

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[EschewObfuscation]

Something like that, requiring action on site, would indeed answer my concern above: hit the "request" button, and part of its response could be a display to the requester of the voice number for the space?