Shoutcast as an option or no?

[Devine9]

In RET of late, we've been throwing around the idea of starting up a shoutcast every week for about 1-2 hours tops.. Each week we would prerecord a lecture by a guest speaker or one of the RET members, and then on a given time each week we would play the prerecorded lecture over the shoutcast. Now of course we would play this shoutcast at 2 times during that given day in order to meet both sides of the globe for timezones.
Topics can be anything from flexlm to the new aspr, to math for reversing, to crypto, to social engineering. Theres a very wide range of topics that we could hit.
Now, in addition to this we also plan on archiving the past shoutcasts in order that in time after we have 30+ shoutcast's saved on the server. Then we would offer them for download. So if you ever wanted to learn flexlm.. but never had the motivation.. you can open a target and start up the mp3 archive of the shoutcast.
I'd like to hear everyone's options on this in this forum though, in case we are missing something. Whether good or bad, state your opinion.

Thanks

Devine Right [RET]

[mala]

I like the idea much, as you might guess... ;)

IMO, just a few things might be added to the "todo list":

- explaining, with textual or audio tutorials, how anyone can setup their streaming radio. That is, documenting what we do while we do it (shouldn't be SO terrible - I think it could be worse if done in a second time)

- disjoining audio streaming from shoutcast: Shoutcast is but one of many different technologies. From my side, I could write something about Icecast, which has both advantages (more flexible, doesn't require windows) and disadvantages (harder to setup) if compared to shoutcast

- working on some tools to manage the... erm... palimpsest? Well, what is played at what time :) In my humble opinion, these tools should be made FREE (=GPL or something like that) and should work on playlists, read ID3 tags, check mp3 timings and show a map of what's going to be played online, in real time, letting (registered) users modify the playlist or update it with new files. A somehow similar program has been written in C by an Italian programmer: it's called SOMA and doesn't run on the Web but implements a client-server communication via a text console.

- contacting people around the net to cooperate with new lectures, programming skills and so on :)

[Ben]

haha, Shoutcasting an Reversing lecture sounds very nice idea ;)
hm..what will happen if the broadcaster opens Sice while broadcasting? :D :D
+mala, simple Shoutcasting is fine as long as the broadcaster has high-bandwidth so it could transmit without any lags.

[mala]

Hi Ben :)

haha, Shoutcasting an Reversing lecture sounds very nice idea ;)
hm..what will happen if the broadcaster opens Sice while broadcasting? :D :D

ahah... I suppose one needs at least two (real or virtual) machines... or upload it to an mp3 player ^__^
Anyway, practicing with reversing while you listen to lessons should be a strange but funny thing :)

+mala, simple Shoutcasting is fine as long as the broadcaster has high-bandwidth so it could transmit without any lags.

I completely agree, that's why I suggested an alternative. I know I might sound too oriented to old technologies, but maybe someone with a 56kbps modem might want to transmit anyway... I could keep an Icecast always open on my ADSL and let them send bytes to me while I "broadcast" them. Well, even my ADSL doesn't provide much bandwidth, but everything is set up yet and that's quite an advantage :)

[Devine9]

It won't be a live broadcast.. so there won't be any problems as far as the person recording, opening up softice.. they can just pause, check, and then continue with the lecture... the full sounds file will be doctored and edited up quite a few days before it ever gets broadcasted anyway.. so no problems. With this we also have the option of streaming from multiple locations during broadcast times as well..

Devine Right [RET]

[Ben]

speaking on Audio,
what about video?
screen capping via a screen cap software and the latest video compressors are very good and can aid more in the 'reversing' lectures,
we all know text is more subjective metter, video will finally show how the person was 'thinking' for a sulotion during his actions.
yeah this eliminates softice from beeing capped, but ollydbg is a really nice sulotion for ring3 reversing (includes unpacking,dongles..etc)
-Ben

[Devine9]

Well then we kinda get into bandwidth issues..
If anyone has a server willing to devote to the cause tho i'd be interested in looking into that. For now tho i think the only option really is audio only.. In the past i've done something very similar to this and it worked out very well. It was over irc, but the users were not asking questions after the lecture was completed. It was mainly just a question of how prepared the lecturer was.
On this post i'd also like to get some ideas that people are itnerested in as far as topics.. We're not gonna work with just RET members for this, so my email is open to anyone interested in recording something.

cheers,

Devine Right [RET]

[quitsendingmetrash]

the more i read through your forum the more excited i am to be here.
all of the above sound great to me. audio, video, what's next? can't wait till technology reaches the point where you can jump out my monitor and give hands on tutoring. ah yes! a hologram would be more feasable.
many PROPS to all of you, from my side of the table. no need for me saying keep up the good work, you are already doing that.
thanks!!!!!!

[AndreaGeddon]

hehe nice idea!
If it is not live, then we could make some simple movie, like a voice in background explaining for example how to debug with Olly, and you see a video with screenshot of what the voice is explaining. For example the voice is telling
"... to see intermodular calls we have to go in the menu ..."
and in video you see the screenshot of olly, then the menu, then the voice to be clicked, and finally the window with calls
Something like this would be really funny! At least i've never seen something similiar on the net!
Bye!
AndreaGeddon

[Devine9]

That is definitely an interting idea. I think through this method we could keep the size down and still have the visual effect on the audience.. hmm.. keep coming with the ideas guys, and we'll pool it together and see if it makes anything soon.

Devine Right [RET]

[Crudd]

Taking essays to the next level. Beautiful. I love the idea.
Crudd [RET]

[andyistic]

How about making a downloadable MP3 of the lecture available?
This way, we could download it and listen to it at our leizure without tying up the Shoutcast server, and not have to deal with Internet dropouts.
We could save them and play them back at a later date if we want to make a reference, etc.

Let's just hope the R.I.A.A. doesn't consider this copyright infringement - hehe.