Category Archives: Category5 Technology TV

Category5 RSS feeds could be 5500% faster with more world accessibility by switching away from Blip.tv for RSS distribution.

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I’ve been hearing for a while that Blip.tv is slow.

It’s never seemed bad to me, but I didn’t really have anything to compare it to.  I have to be honest, I really love the features Blip.tv gives to its producers.  Not so much to its viewers.  But to the producers.  The automated file conversions from FTP uploaded masters is an exceptional time saver in post, and the automated upload to YouTube, while not perfect, also saves some redundant work for me after the show each Tuesday night.

So, to hear that Blip.tv is slow seemed backward to me; it is a real time saver.  To me, a show producer.

Last July, we launched a syndicate in China, because Blip.tv is blocked in China and our viewers were crying out (in particular, Mainland China residents who had traveled to places like Germany for school and had fallen in love with the show, which is very popular there).

So for kicks, I thought I’d test the speed difference between Blip.tv and our China syndication system.

For this little experiment, I used the exact same file from 3 sources (Blip.tv, Amazon S3 and our China syndication system).

Here are the shocking results:

File:  Episode 295, H.264 SD Quality, 246378147 Bytes (235 MB).
Blip.TV:  34m 25s, 117 KB/s
Amazon S3:  52s, 4.48 MB/s
Our China Syndication System:  37s, 6.19M/s

I’m sorry, what?  Blip.tv took nearly 35 minutes to download the episode, whereas our syndication system into Mainland China, which is housed at our datacentre in California, took only 37 seconds!  That’s basically one second for every minute it took through Blip.tv.  I did not expect that!  I’m also impressed that the little syndicating system (which I designed) outperformed S3.

No, we are not going to drop Blip.tv.  It has its place, and that place is as I described.  They’re a big part of our distribution chain.  But perhaps it’s best to retire them as the source for our RSS feeds and let them stick to what they do best: from the encoding to the distribution to YouTube.

So I have a feeling our system which was built to help viewers in China watch the show may soon become our world-wide source for RSS files.  What do you think?  Want to receive Category5 episode 5500% faster?

Now, to git’r done!

Comment below.

Create links to specific points in any Category5 TV episode.

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The new Timestamp feature allows you to start each episode at any point in the video.

The new Timestamp feature allows you to start each episode at any point in the video.

New Feature:

Do you run a blog and want to link to specific portions of a Category5 Technology TV episode?  Or just want to share a specific clip with your family or friends?

Now you can!  Just append the timestamp to the URL as follows:

  • Go to www.Category5.tv
  • Find the episode you’re looking for and open its show notes page
  • Scrub to the point in the video where you want to start and make note of the time (for example, 8 minutes, 19 seconds)
  • Add a slash to the URL in your address bar, and then the timestamp in mm:ss format (for example, /8:19)

Give it a try:  http://www.category5.tv/episodes/291.php/8:19

Receive full Category5 Technology TV weekly episodes by email for free.

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Here’s a new feature of our service which I’m really excited about…

Now, you can receive Category5.TV’s weekly episodes by email!

It looks something like this:

Receive Category5.TV episodes by email.

Receive Category5.TV episodes by email.

This is really exciting because it means you can receive this really cool (and non-spammy) reminder each week once an episode is available.  It’s not a dumb notice, or a “click here for our web site”.  It’s literally an email that gives you 1) a screenshot from the episode, 2) a description of what we did in the episode (the main topic), 3) direct links to download the episode for free and 4) a handy “play now” link which will open a player window and instantly begin streaming the show to your device.

Activate Weekly Email

To activate this awesome feature on your free account, simply login at Category5.TV and choose “Members” -> “My Profile”, and you’ll see the new option “Weekly episode by email” as per the above image.  Check it off and press Save Settings.  Don’t worry, you can turn it off at any time, and we never spam you (it’s against our beliefs as non-spammers)!

Don’t have an account?  No worries; it’s free, and easy!  Just visit http://register.category5.tv/ and sign up today.

Please activate the feature, and once you’ve received your mailout (comes out when each episode becomes available; usually Wednesday mornings), let me know what you think.  I would love to hear your comments below.

Thanks for watching Category5 Technology TV!  Thanks also to _Jot_ for assisting me with the beta testing.

Season 6 Upgrade Survey

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Well, Season 6 is upon us, and I’ve been really working hard to establish a good strong sponsor base.  Thanks to your support by clicking banners and purchasing products from our supporters (please, keep it up!), we’ll be able to further improve things on the set of Category5 TV this year.

Here are my ideas, and what I’d ask is that you comment below with your vote or your own ideas if you have some that are better.
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SSD and a Flight Box.

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With upcoming remote broadcasts such as our annual cottage special, and the 5th anniversary show, one of my quests this year has been to come up with an economical but functional portable studio rig.

Our biggest issue simply stems from the fact that we’ve grown a lot in the last year.  Our broadcast studio requires very powerful computers to make the show happen.  That’s not easy to do in a portable studio rig.

Sure, big budget shows can look at things like TriCaster, but that’s not us.
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#Cat5TV making its way to #China.

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Hongjiang wrote me this week, “Hi Robbie: I am a Chinese college student. Several months ago I was in Germany. During that time I discovered “Category 5 Technology TV” through internet, and fell in love with the show instantly. But what’s really frustrating is that after I got back to China, I can not watch the show any more! Even though I can still access to your website and read the notes. I think it’s because of some networking policy of mainland China (The same reason we can not get access to Youtube or Facebook). Now my only solution is to ask some friend in Hongkong to help downloading the show and sending it to me weekly.”

Well Hongjiang, you’re not the first to make mention of this problem, and it’s been haunting me for some time that the “Great Firewall of China” blocks your access to Category5 Technology TV.
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