Steve On Java

I am pleased to announce that we have a couple new videos available on the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group (SvJugFx) video site. Here is a link to the landing page where you can watch these videos as well as all our previous sessions:

http://web.ubivent.com/svjugfx.html

The first new video is a Hands-On JavaFX Lab given by Stuart Marks, core JavaFX team member, and regular SvJugFx attendee. This was our most successful meeting so far for the local audience, because it filled in the gap between the very technical rich presentations we started with and the experience level of the attendees. The entire flood tutorial was published as an HTML document, but it is much more entertaining to see Stuart do it first hand:

Hands-on JavaFX:  http://jnlp.ubivent.com/jnlp/eventid=10/guest=1/path=doc:129,doc:128,doc:210

The second was the wildly popular Bay Area JUG Round-Up event.  All the Bay Area user groups cooperated to host a massive event with a live recording of the Java Posse.  Oracle sponsored the event, with an introduction by Justin Kestelyn and update on Java.net from Sonya Barry.  And of course the Java Posse did an amazing job working the crowd with some hilarious techie humor.

Justin Kestelyn: http://jnlp.ubivent.com/jnlp/eventid=10/guest=1/path=doc:129,doc:128,doc:217,goto:v:-0

Sonya Barry: http://jnlp.ubivent.com/jnlp/eventid=10/guest=1/path=doc:129,doc:128,doc:217,goto:v:-1

The Java Posse: http://jnlp.ubivent.com/jnlp/eventid=10/guest=1/path=doc:129,doc:128,doc:217,goto:v:-2

For our meeting next month we have the esteemed Max Katz coming to speak on Enterprise JavaFX.  He will demonstrate how to use the open-source Flamingo framework to connect a JavaFX application to an enterprise backend using JBoss Seam.  For those of you who don’t know, Exadel also develops an Eclipse plug-in for JavaFX, which he will be using for all his coding examples.  It should be an exciting event, so please sign-up to attend in person or online:

Enterprise JavaFX with Max Katz:  http://www.svjugfx.org/calendar/13605800/

This past month we had a great combined meeting of the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group (SvJugFx) together with the Silicon Valley Web User Group.  The presenters included Richard Hyde and James Allen from Oracle on the Java Store and Yoav Landman and Fred Simon from JFrog on repository management with Artifactory.

Our April SvJugFx presentation will feature Stuart Marks from the JavaFX Team in Hands on JavaFX – Scripting the Scene Graph.  To attend in person or via our live web stream (and be eligible for great prizes!), please sign-up here: http://www.svjugfx.org/calendar/12863551/

We were also fortunate enough to be contacted by the folks at Ubivent who have developed a JavaFX-based event platform.  Their platform is used by large corporations like SAP, and they have generously offered to host our videos going forward.  Therefore, you can now watch all the SvJugFx videos using JavaFX technology!

To watch the latest videos, you can go to the landing page for the new SvJugFX Video Site:

Registration is optional, but will allow you to comment on the presentations.  Once you launch the application you will be taken to an event hall that lets you choose which presentation you want to watch:

Finally, when you click on a presentation you will be given a virtual theater experience with side-by-side slides and video.  You can click on the double arrows to expand it to full screen, skip around by chapter, and comment on the video as you are watching.

For convenience, here are some links that will take you directly to the two videos and their associated slide shows:

Java Store & Java Warehouse Overview (video) (slides)

Repository Management with JFrog Artifactory (video) (slides)

Also, we have posted the videos on our Parleys SvJugFx Space and will continue to do that for folks who like using this excellent presentation platform.

This is the second installation of my Live Streaming Guide, which will go over all the hardware you need to get setup.  While you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on professional gear, it is possible to put together a high quality setup for a fraction of that cost.  You may also be able to reuse some of your existing hardware, further reducing the cost.

This setup is targeted at streaming a live presentation over the internet that includes a speaker and possibly some slides or a demo.  Not all of this hardware is required to get started, so I will present it in order of how critical it is to the quality of the presentation.

If you are just interested in knowing what I recommend and how much it will run you, skip to the Buying Guide.

Choosing a Camcorder

The first thing you will need is a camcorder to stream the video.  The reason to go with a camcorder rather than a webcam is that you will have more options for lenses and zooming, and will be able to get a much higher resolution (as high as 1920×1080 for HD).  HD camcorders are pretty common and fairly inexpensive; a good one can be bought new for around $600.  Also, chances are that you or someone you know already has one that you can take advantage of.

One important consideration for camcorders is the computer interface.  If the camcorder supports Firewire (IEEE 1394), you are in pretty good shape.  This means it will probably support DV or HDV streaming to a laptop that has Firewire, and video streaming software will automatically pick it up as an input device.  A popular model for doing video streaming is the Canon Vixia HV40 which can be purchased for around $650 new:

Canon Vixia HV40

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I have been doing a lot of research, experimentation, and processing of videos for the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group.  We decided from day 1 that we wanted to take things up a notch by providing high quality web streaming of our events.  It makes particular sense for us, because the JavaFX community is spread all around the world, and we want to be able to reach as wide of an audience as possible.  However, once you have everything setup the overhead is minimal, so it is worthwhile to do for any user group or event.

Video setup for the first SvJugFx meeting with myself (left) and Keith Combs (right) running the rig.

Because this is a fairly in depth subject, I am going to cover it in a 4 part blog series.  Here are the topics (links will be added as each entry is published):

• Part 1 : Introduction – You are reading it!
• Part 2 : Hardware – This will give you an idea what hardware you need (including how to reuse what you have available).
• Part 3 : Broadcasting – A step-by-step guide on how to stream video live from your event and tools to let your remote audience interact.
• Part 4 : Post-processing – How to take the video assets you have and process them for upload complete with slides.

By the end of this series you will be able to walk in to almost any venue and do live streaming on the spot.  You will also be able to post-process professional videos like Hinkmond’s February JavaFX Mobile talk.

Please drop feedback or comments below on anything specific you are interested on hearing me cover beyond what I have already mentioned!