Special guest blog by Tom Rule from Macon, GA.

Tom Rule

StreetJelly is, of course, all about live performances. The user agreement even has a requirement to never use a recorded performance when streaming. But it says nothing about performing live AND recording the live performance! […….and even Frankie said it was OK!]

After getting a few StreetJelly performances under my belt, I began wondering if I could do just that – record a performance at the same time it’s being streamed on StreetJelly. I have a website of my own over at http://www.tomrule.info where things are for sale, and I thought a video might make a useful marketing tool [youtube, anyone?].

My parents would probably like a copy as well! They did pay for all those piano lessons……

This is one of those things that might be useful to know that (A) it CAN be done, and (B) HOW it can be done….at least on a Mac. [If you run Windows, see below!]

So the idea is to have ONE webcam streaming live out to StreetJelly AND have the computer taking the SAME audio and video streams and saving it to a movie on the computer – which you can then ship up to youtube, burn to a disk, email to distant relatives, or use the video to scare off small rodents and annoy your neighbors.

QUICK NOTE ON MY SETUP

I’m a keyboardist AND an audio guy, so it really doesn’t work for me to put up a mic when streaming – I get MUCH better audio running the keyboard into the computer. I’ll use a mic to talk to the audience – it and the keyboard audio feed into a little Mackie mixer, which plugs into the audio interface [an old M-audio Firewire Audiophile]. I’m using an iMac that is a couple of years old…..so it is NOT the “latest greatest”.

I’m using a Logitech webcam, although this would also work with the builtin iSight camera.

HERE’S HOW

You’re going to use your web browser and Quicktime Player.

1. Surf over to StreetJelly and setup your broadcast as normal. You can go ahead and start broadcasting, or just keep it on the test screen for now – it doesn’t matter.

2. Fire up Quicktime Player – it’s in the Applications folder.

3. in QT Player, select File–>New Movie Recording.

4. In my case it automatically selected the webcam. If it doesn’t, then click the triangle in the bottom area of the window and select the correct video and audio sources.

There are some other settings there as well … quality levels, where to save the file, etc. If you don’t know what something does do a test and see what happens.

5. Click record.

That’s it!

6. When done, click the record button again to stop recording, and then stop the broadcast. My version of QT Player will actually upload to youtube from within the application – so the performance can be on Youtube pretty quickly after it is completed!

WINDOWS?

From some cursory research it appears that there are a couple of programs that will allow this same thing to occur on Windows. You can either get a program [ManyCam is one] that creates a “virtual camera”….i.e. you select the “virtual camera” in the settings in Flash and whatever program you are using to record [your webcam probably came with some recording software].

In this scenario Camera talks to Cam Software [i.e. ManyCam] which then splits the video/audio out to StreetJelly AND your recording software.

It is also possible that you have an app like Quicktime Player that will work in a similar fashion as on the Mac – where you just fire it up, select the camera, and it works.

There are waaaaaay too many variations of Windows to even begin writing about it – my suggestion is to try something and see if it works. Just another piece of technology magic that allows us to create in our living rooms/studios/barns/wherever!

Thanks Tom!  Do forget, everyone, put your YouTube channel in your StreetJelly artist profile so we can all get a link to your videos.  ~frankie