----->fwd:

To: <mediafest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Drazen Pantic" <drazen.pantic@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 17:34:05 -0400
Subject: [mediafest] Live ASCII Streaming

Live ASCII Streaming of Video



1. Introduction

    The Internet, with its architecture, infrastructure and media
    characteristics, is a challenging arena for video experimentation
and
    dissemination. The concept of moving images, sound and text over
    decentralized TCP/IP network lead to the development of Web,
streaming
    technologies and recently pear_to_pear (P2P) standards. Due to
basic
    characteristic of Internet traffic and communication video is, and
    always was, different from one to many full_broadcast quality
    distribution channels. And regardless of strong commercial
tendency to
    bring Internet streaming to - in terms of known business and
    conceptual commercial models - safe heavens of "network
television",
    audio/video presentation on the Internet still remains something
    different.

    One of the experiments in using Internet technology in
representing
    video material is ASCII streaming, in which illusion of the motion
is
    brought to experience by moving ASCII text based images, within
the
    fixed raster matrix on the screen. ASCII streaming does not try to
    bring Internet multimedia streaming close to "broadcast quality",
but
    goes into totally different direction: representing video as the
    sequence of moving images composed of ASCII letters.


1.1. History

    From the early presence of personal computers and low resolution
    character based printers, one of the very first applications was
    printing pictures and photos as ASCII characters, presenting
visual
    images as the matrix of letters. With the development of high
quality
    printers, ASCII pictures almost disappeared.


1.1.2. ASCII Art Ensemble

    Recent effort of bringing the sensibility and esthetics of
absolute
    technologies into realm of current practices and technological
    development is work of ASCII Art Ensemble, [1].

    ASCII Art Ensemble has taken the task of converting seminal pieces
of
    film and video into the ASCII movies: the sequence of text
segments -
    characters representations of the movie frames. They have
developed
    software for converting video into ASCII files as well as the
first
    ASCII player. Player was developed as Open Source Java Applet.

    Similar work on creating the Java applet that allows the user to
    display an animation of ASCII text is available on [2], although
    author does not provide source code, and require a his name and
URL to
    appear in the accompanied Web page.


1.1.3 HasciiCam

    Major step forward towards live ASCII streaming has been made by
    Jaromol and the group around dyne.org, [3]. Their product,
    Hasciicam..."makes it possible to have live ASCII video on the
web. It
    captures video from a tv card and renders it into ASCII,
formatting
    the output into an html page with a refresh tag or in a live ASCII
    window or in a simple text file as well, giving the possibility to
    anybody that has a bttv card, a linux box and a cheap modem line
to
    show a live ASCII-video feed that can be browsable without any
need
    for plugin, java etc. Hasciicam's source code is released under
the
    Gnu Public License." ...(taken from [3]).


2. Live ASCII Streaming Implementation

    The following (ASCII) scheme shows the flowchart of the
    implemented live streaming:


                 |video feed
                 |
                 v
    +------------|-------------+
    |  Linux box with:         |
    |  - bttv video card       |
    |  - hasciicam software    |
    -------------|--------------
                 |
                 V
           ,-----------.
        ,-' ASCII file  `-.
       ( (10-15 frames/sec))
        `-.             ,-'
           `-----------'
                 |
                 V
          +-------------+
          | Web server  |
          +-------------+
                 |
                 V
          ,-------------.
       ,-'  ASCII Java   `-.
      (      player         )
       `-.               ,-'
          `-------------'


2.1. Encoding

    Encoding (converting analog video feed into the sequence of ASCII
    files) has been done on a Linux box with video card and software
    (bttv) package that enables digitizing and importing of video
material
    through composite/S-video input.

    HasciiCam package decomposes video in the sequences of frames and
    converts frames into corresponding ASCII file. An example of one
such
    file taken from the live feed from live cam in front of Location
One,
    could look like [4].


2.2. Java Player

    ASCII output from the Hasciicam is then sent to the http server
that
    is to deliver content to Web users. But, st it is obvious from
[4],
    the output is not directly suitable for presentation as the ASCII
    video feed. Few additional features were needed:

    * better visibility and clear representation of the ASCII feed in
    a form of a movie;

    * platform independence, so that this relatively light video
    presentation could be played on variety of computers and computing
    devices;

    In order to accomplish those goals we have developed a small, open
    source Java player for live ASCII feed, ASCIIMATOR. Player has
been
    developed starting from ASCII Art Ensemble Asciimator player, but
    different nature of live streaming has forced substantial changes
of
    Java code. The player is available as open source and free
software,
    under Gnu Public License, [5]

    The demonstration of the live feed from the cam in front of the
    Location One is available on [6].


2.3. Portability and Playing on Handheld Devices

    The player software and described practice has been developed
having in     mind handheld devices (Palmtops, WAB phones, DOCoMO
cells in Japa etc)     that can handle Java code.  ASCII streaming on
such devices is fully
    justified by the low resolution screens and generally modest
computing
    power, not sufficient to decompress highly compressed movies.



[1] http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/aae.html
[2] http://www.ericharshbarger.com/java/
[3] http://ascii.dyne.org/
[4] http://204.181.65.31/ascii/aka
[5] http://location1.org/documentation/Asciimator.java
[6] http://204.181.65.31/ascii/






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