Media Project Forum Transcript

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Introduction

Madhavi Linden: today jeska will be talking about the integrating media in Second Life, aka media project. Jeska, take it away

Jeska Linden: Thanks Madhavi! As Madhavi just mentinoed, we'd like to spend some time getting your thoughts and brainstorming a bit about Media in Second Life. William ( hi William) and I are working with a team here at Linden Lab to improve the way that Media (including the Web) interacts with Second Life - we call it the Media Project.

The purpose of the Media Project is to provide a fully interactive and immersive media experience in Second Life....It's a continuatinn of the recently launched html on a parcel (similar to video or audio on a parcel). The next steps of the Media Project involve improving and expanding this capability.

Thoughts on Current Version of Parcel Media

Jeska Linden: First, I'd like to spend a few minutes getting your thoughts on the current version of parcel media. Has anyone here used the newish html on a parcel functionality?

Sitearm Alter: no.. :(

Cezary Fish: if I got it right what we have now is just a static webpage "snapshot" right?

Jeska Linden Cezary - yes, that's true

Eggy Lippmann: i have tried it

Templar Merlin: !

Leah Salome: I have seen it

Kim Anubis: I've messed with it a little bit -- a client used it for an audio stream for an event, rather than the usual radio stream.

Cezary Fish: maybe the whole concept shall be reoriented a bit....maybe instead of bringing web into SL we shall bing SL into a browser? :)))

Jeska Linden What has been your experiences with it?

Eggy Lippmann: i have a client interested in sharing web pages in second life

sammy Bourne: Hi there jeska, Well if it is possible to play flash websites and there is a camtasia like engine in it, it would be great for people to create there own movies to stream in second life. They make a flash movie put it on the website. then from inside SL select that aria and they play streaming video on land without renting shoutcast or anything.

Doc Tokyo: is it true that it is a full "ubrowser.com" implementation? or just part of it?

Jeska Linden The curent media browser allows you to "place" a url (which could be a web page or a streaming video or audio stream, etc). Everyone who has media enabled, will see the media - so they'd see a web page - a snapshot of a webpage actually. Which we know is less than optimal (hence the Media Project)

sammy Bourne: I missed that one

Jeska Linden I was just curious if anyone had used it and what their experiences were :)

Cezary Fish: static :)

Media Feature Requests

Eggy Lippmann: it would be really nice if you finished it :) right now it is already useful for some things

Jeska Linden Agreed! Which is why we're here. What does "finish it" mean to you? What would you like to do with it?

Browsable Webpages

Cezary Fish: do you plan to introduce browsable webpages?

Flash animation

Doc Tokyo: i try to get a flash animation within a html page working ...if there are only static pages it would be nice if we could use flash as well

Jeska Linden: Flash support and html on HUDs are both interesting uses of media/html inworld / in viewer

Doc Tokyo: indeed .. flash will be the answer to the poor user interface programming possibilities of lsl

Interface Tools

Eggy Lippmann: well, programming in second life is very crude. In the real world we have interface toolkits. Here we dont have concepts like buttons and input fields. I would like to make HUDs with web pages

Jeska Linden nods

Eggy Lippmann: layer a transparent button on top of the web button

Displaying MS Office Documents

Gus Plisskin: / the most often requested feature from our clients is to display MS Office documents. Strangely, collaborative editing of documents isn't asked for nearly as much. More complete HTML on a parcel could handle the display side

Forms Inworld

Kim Anubis: I would love to be able to do forms with input fields.

Music

Eggy Lippmann: i would like to be aple to play music independently from the parcel - vertical stacking, or simply a mini winamp

Jeska Linden: Eggy - yeah, I've heard that from musicians inworld before

Eggy Lippmann: these are surely common requests. If you want to have a game with more than one level you have to tile them out into parcels. Servers are expensive and small :)

Cezary Fish: are there any limits for vertical media parceling (theoretically)????

Easier Video Streaming Inworld

Kim Anubis: It'd be really cool if video streaming were more reliable/easier for the average resident to use

Quirky McArdle agrees with Kim

Jeska Linden: Kim - can you expand on that please? Do you mean easier UI or something else?

Kim Anubis: A lot of people can't get audio streaming to work at all, or have a lot of trouble with it. I have turned down a couple of large projects because of the unreliability and trouble so many people have getting their video stream to work, especially at first.

Quirky McArdle: the forced reliance on QT is a problem

Eggy Lippmann: streaming servers are complicated and expensive. i wish we could share webcam feeds more easily inworld

Jeska Linden: Would flash video help with that Kim? In other words, is it needing Quicktime that causes confusion?

Kim Anubis: It might help if it's a lot easier for residents to set up and use, and especially if the system resources it required were lower

Doc Tokyo: is there any chance in the near future to get rid of that reliance on QT?

Kim Anubis: I know people who have been here a while who just can't get video to work at all. I asked Glenn a while back for some statistics

Quirky McArdle: Flash, w00t!

Hiro Pendragon: Seems to me there is a much more fundamental problem. That SL should be treated like Internet standards. That streaming media should be able to be delivered like it is on the web - identify each individual user and provide a clear API to describe which prim to show it on.

Doc Tokyo: support for more codecs would be a real step forward ....

Kim Anubis: on how many residents actually are able to use the video stream, and how many have trouble with it just initially, but there's no data available.

Jeska Linden: Doc - I don't believe that's int he plan at the moment, but I'll take the feedback with me

Doc Tokyo: ok ;)

Cezary Fish: I think Hiro rised and important one here, SL should be just common net media standards compatible....

Jeska Linden nods

Kim Anubis: I agree with Hiro & Cezary

Jeska Linden I think taht is a good end goal to keep in mind. But there are stages along the way to get there

Eggy Lippmann: linden lab does not have a magic wand to wave and instaneously make SL perfect. it's good to keep requests grounded in reality :)

Inworld Whiteboard

Sitearm Alter: ok one thing i find is for meetings (like this) to have something everyone can a) SEE and b) the moderator can update LIVE helps inworld work meetings a lot

Jeska Linden Sitearm - like some type of shared whiteboard?

Sitearm Alter: Jeska ya :) i use a web page i edit as we meet and everyone has the web browser open while we talk on sl voice

Shared Viewing

Jeska Linden I'd like to talk a bit about shared viewing. Several of you mentioned that when we were talking about what you'd like to do with media inworld. Maybe explain a bit what "shared viewing" looks like to you, or what it would help you accomplish

Hiro Pendragon: It looks like the Internet. Stop thinking about how to implement features 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... and just make it a clear standard and we can implement them.

Cezary Fish: does a web snapshot in media window update, and, if so, how often????

Jeska Linden Hiro - the Internet looks like a lot of things ;)

Eggy Lippmann: hiro, i doubt any of the MDCs has the money to invest in large scale platform development :) and i don't want to rely on freelance projects that are here today and gone tomorrow

Hiro Pendragon: If we could identity all users on a parcel, and then we had a clear way of telling each user 1. Which medias to play 2. What time to play them 3. What part of the video to start at .... well, then, things like shared viewing, syncing, etc, is all trivial. (and 4. What prim / surface to show a media stream on)

Hiro Pendragon: Eggy, large scale? A simple script, I'm talking about.

Kim Anubis: I have a script that synchs video

Eggy Lippmann: i meant making second life plugins for every media type if LL were to come up with a standard interface of sorts

Jeska Linden: I think we could all be talking about the same thing - having standards to support a funtion are good things

Hiro Pendragon: Jeska, I think we are but it's about LL's approach.

Eggy Lippmann: i'd certainly like PPT in SL

sammy Bourne: I have to say many of the company's I could build for are going away from SL , going to Multiverse, and now outback virtual , they don't seem to have the problem to have the problem with media and other things. What atracts these coca cola like company's is that it can be played lowband, and one land can be on your own server and support up to 10.000 avatars. like in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN4aBOt-DiU I'm always behind second life, because I think they are the leader in " the vissitor can create his own content without use of Maya or 3DSmax " So media is fine, but I think housing more then 1000 av's on a sim would be more important. for us dev's

Jeska Linden: I'd have to disagree, but let's keep focused on the issue.

Hiro Pendragon: This is a clear example of that. You're trying to provide a game solution rather than create a simple standard that emulates how we would do it if SL were part of the web.

Jeska Linden sammy - thanks for the input on what other platforms you're looking at. I'd like to improve media in Second Life, in order to do that we have to take it one step at a time

Eggy Lippmann: i noticed that some roadmaps have emerged on the wiki. will there be one for media?

Jeska Linden: Eggy - once we have one :)

Eggy Lippmann: yay

Cezary Fish: Sometimes it is good to take a jump :)

Jeska Linden: Is there anything else about shared viewing that you'd like to tell me ?

Hiro Pendragon: IMHO the whole media system should be tossed.

Eggy Lippmann: decouple, decouple, decouple - let people view media without land, on the client, let them share it with their friends easily while not being present in the same place. Switching back and forth between browsers and SL ruins immersion

Leah Salome: can we jsut have a browser in second life?

Jeska Linden: Leah - there is a browser in Second Life - push F1!

Cezary Fish: Will, it could be useful to have a WORKING browser inside, just to use it the way it is used :)

Quirky McArdle: a working browser without flash capability isn't worth much

Using Interactive Aspects of Shared Media

William Linden: Does anyone have any thoughts about how the interactive part of shared media might be of use to them, by way of example?

Kim Anubis: Web forms

Jeska Linden: Flash games at all interesting?

Eggy Lippmann: i'd like to stream webcams directly from my computer to people without getting a separate server to repeat it

Quirky McArdle: competing with WebEx and Live Meeting

Kim Anubis: That'd be great, Eggy

Eggy Lippmann: mixed reality conferences. Could we somehow have a media repeater installed on our sim for an extra fee, and have it integrated into the interface etc

Gus Plisskin: Eggy: but depending on implementation, that makes LL legally and technically responsible for more

Eggy Lippmann: we do it with voice chat - time for video chat

Hiro Pendragon: There's no reason for SL to reinvent the wheel with freely available web services. SL should be leveraging what's already out there.

Eggy Lippmann: latency, ease of use

Doc Tokyo: i think flash will be a important thing .. just to overcome the poor interface programming possibilites - and flash means interaction .... ubrowser support flash?

Boliver Oddfellow: creating a seemless in world retail experience for e-commerce

Jeska Linden Boliver - could you explain your retail example? I dont fully understand..

Boliver Oddfellow: its simple, if I were say LL bean, Id want a guest after enjoying my sim to be able w/o leaving my sim to connect to my flash enabled web site and make a purchase

Quirky McArdle agrees with Hiro and observes that new platforms have already made that "leap"

Boliver Oddfellow: leaving the SL environment breaks theimmersive quality of the experience

William Linden: Nice example, Boliver - thanks.

Boliver Oddfellow: yw William

Boliver Oddfellow: remmebr we work hard to bring brands into SL and the more other platforms offer the harder it is to advocate for SL

Doc Tokyo: and is it true that animated gif's are working?

Jeska Linden: Doc - currently we do not support flash, although we're exploring ways to make that possible

Doc Tokyo: that would be great .... i cant wait to build user friendly interfaces ;)

Jeska Linden: Ok, I have a few more questions and then everyone can get back to their day :)

Jeska Linden: Also - if you're curious about what we just released, there is an explnation in the public wiki: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Media_on_a_parcel. It includes discussion on the work that was done there to lay the groundwork for a plug-in like architecture for adding new media type support.

Eggy Lippmann: thank you for all the hard work you're putting into it. as a developer, i am painfully aware of the frustrations that come with doing lots of invisible but badly needed work

Webpages on Prims

Jeska Linden: Let's switch gears and talk a bit about web pages on prims. Currently you can place one url per parcel on one texture and apply that to an object. It's tied to the parcel. Can you think of any things you'd like to do if it weren't tied to the parcel and was dynamic ?

Doc Tokyo: i can use the header data from the media http request to get the ip-adress of the requester? .. so is it possible to send a personal html page to every av (with a unique ip-adress) and will it be shown on the same screen?

Cezary Fish: does it refresh?

Doc Tokyo: are there any pitfalls in that idea?

Kim Anubis: Interpretive tour guide on a HUD

Jeska Linden: Doc - sounds interesting, I'll be sure to take it back to the team

Doc Tokyo: with video it works ;) because i have the http-header data ;)

Marissa Bergbahn: Making the use of forms available, would open up lots of new business cases

Jeska Linden nods

Eggy Lippmann: i would really like forms in SL

Hiro Pendragon: "Completely change the way we use SL"

Kim Anubis: I spend a lot of time coming up with workarounds for data input -- forms are one of the things I want most of all

Eggy Lippmann: me too

Hiro Pendragon: Using videos as ambient effects embedded in objects, like gears in a locomotive

Boliver Oddfellow: exactly Hiro

Hiro Pendragon: Shared whiteboards using online whiteboard software

Doc Tokyo: but forms means interaction ... so lets make clear how soon there will be any kind of interaction ...

Eggy Lippmann: google docs

Hiro Pendragon: (assuming we get flash)

Eggy Lippmann: wikis

Doc Tokyo: at least the possibility of a forced update

Hiro Pendragon: Video conferencing using online software; ________ using online software. Anything that's on the web now is in SL - Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, SLpics.com, SLExchange,

Jeska Linden nods

Boliver Oddfellow: making SL part of the web so that all this talk of Sl being the next iteration of thr web can actually happen

Jeska Linden All great examples

Hiro Pendragon: Instant messaging (til you folks bother to make SL IM jabber compliant)

Eggy Lippmann: yes please jabber

Hiro Pendragon: Arcades of flash based games

Jeska Linden: I'm also curious, what is it about viewing web content in Second Life that makes it more interesting than just popping open a Web browser?

Hiro Pendragon: video on HUD for instructions / immersive gameplay experience

Cezary Fish: simplicity

Boliver Oddfellow: simple jeska, going outside of Sl removed SL's best feature it kills the immeriveness of the 3d web space

Gus Plisskin: measuring RL sales impact might be easier with web forms. peopel are far less likely to click thru and use the external browser. Immersion matters...

Ability to Interact vs. Support for Broadcast Type Media

William Linden: Curious which is more important to folks at the moment: 'broadcast' type media support vs. the ability for interaction (I know both are important -- but curious about current thoughts)

Jeska Linden: William - oh good qustion!

Doc Tokyo: interaction more than broadcast William ;)

Marissa Bergbahn: interaction William

Kim Anubis: I actually hate looking at web pages in a browser in SL but some clients want it. What I really, really want is working Web pages on a prim, not so much for Web browsing, but for data input.

Eggy Lippmann: it takes a small but annoying amount of time and extra resources to multitask SL and other apps.

William Linden: nods

Hiro Pendragon: What Eggy and Boliver said is very important - breaking that attention and going to an outside browser is a huge attention shift.

Eggy Lippmann: breaks immersion. plus we are sure that with better integration between SL and other media, there would be an explosion of creativity

Doc Tokyo: i need more than one html-prim on the same parcel ... but that will break the general idea of a new media type ..

Eggy Lippmann: as i said earlier it is very hard to make good interfaces in SL. We are stuck wasting our time with message-passing code and worrying which side of the prim will have the button image

Hiro Pendragon: Wearing video clothing / attachments, We could do video avatar faces overtop our faces :) 1-prim control units / panels using flash apps

Jeska Linden super-meta! :)

Using Forms

William Linden: Could someone expand on the forms story a bit? Just by way of some examples you're thinking of?

Kim Anubis: I do a lot of educational projects, so a lot of my clients want to have surveys, quizzes, report submissions, etc. all handled in SL. We can do it, but it's kludgy

Eggy Lippmann: william, christmas cards, surveys, do you know that we brought the Ministry of Justice into SL. We would like to do projects that are part of a company's workflow in SL, not just the flashy marketing campaigns but business process automation

Marissa Bergbahn: it would openup better interaction with the Avatars beside the chat line ...

Kim Anubis: Exactly, Marissa

Hiro Pendragon: Integration of full CMSs into SL

William Linden: Thank you -- examples are alway good; appreciate it

Kim Anubis: Also, we do a lot of scripted "machines" that are reconfigurable, and although we can do a lot with notecard-driven gadgetry, it's far from ideal

Boliver Oddfellow: agrees with Kim, and notes its hard to dissuade a client whos sold on the drag and drop abilty of say qwaq that Sl is a better idea

Kim Anubis: More secure data entry methods would really rock

Jeska Linden nods

Marissa Bergbahn: simple thinks, like adding Name, Adress stuff like that

Hiro Pendragon: !!!! oh, oh... duh ... being able to have content entirely changeable from outside SL - by changing the web page

William Linden: interesting idea Hiro

Eggy Lippmann: yes please no more chatting commands to objects in hidden channels :)

Kim Anubis: Yeah, Eggy!

Doc Tokyo: if there will be form ... will it be possible to send more POST-data than the limit of 2048 (for llHTTPRequest)? - forms*

Eggy Lippmann: it would make it easier to manage content, yes - content in SL is hard to manage due to distance limitations in linking, inability to backup. We would like external assets

Kim Anubis: Oh, this is sort of related -- it's a fantasy I have . . . if we could change the appearance of script dialog popup windows -- change the color and logo -- I would love forever the Linden responsible. :)

Eggy Lippmann: as much as possible, SL should run off the same FTP as my website

Doc Tokyo: and will there be some lsl commands to remotly interact with the http content? (like prefilling a textarea)

Gus Plisskin: Kim: We've had commercial clients request that. good mention.

Hiro Pendragon: @Kim - yeah. Make them look like standard windows, and maybe be able to input the size of them as an option, and x,y on the screen where they will pop

Jeska Linden: Doc - what type of scripts are you looking for?

Doc Tokyo: i want to realize a interactive message board. ava's can add notecards ... name and key of the ava will added automatically. I want to force a update of the http content via lsl

Kim Anubis: Can already do that, Doc

Hiro Pendragon: @Doc the only type of script we really need is to load a web page and pass arguments into it.

Eggy Lippmann: javascript

Hiro Pendragon: duh, replacement of XyText, FINALLY.

Hiro Pendragon: It's only been what? 4 years?

Eggy Lippmann: 5 :)

Doc Tokyo: haha ...xytext already appears in my dreams ;). I will open a bottle if we get rid of it ;)

Eggy Lippmann: a lot of clients want better integration with their website. We have to do HUDs to mimic part of their existing interface. It would really cut down development costs

Hiro Pendragon: @Eggy - the bottom line is that it goes back to the fundamental idea that SL is not and should not be a walled garden.

Quirky McArdle: Eggy, substitute "all" clients want better integration.

Kim Anubis: I have a number of clients who are resistant to using anything outside of the SL viewer -- they want it all right here. Some don't even want to use email. So, more integrated media options would be good for them. They'd probably never use anything else if they could get away with it.

Eggy Lippmann: reading the web page i am profoundly inspired by the road ahead. It would be great for classes -showing what we're actually doing

Closing

Jeska Linden: Thanks everyone :)

Quirky McArdle: yvwc, and thanks for taking the time to listen

William Linden: great to meet everyone, thanks!

Jeska Linden: And thank you all for your time! :) Big thanks to Madhavi for setting it up !

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