r/spacex • u/[deleted] • May 12 '16
Modpost Regarding PTZtv, and links to their Port Canaveral Webcam
[deleted]
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u/TheEndeavour2Mars May 12 '16
I wish to thank you for taking this action. PTZ is in my opinion not, never has been, and never will be a good thing for fans of spaceflight. And I would be happy to donate to a good effort to crowdsource a webcam.
Such a webcam should be set to stream to Youtube. There is absolutely NO need to waste money and effort on stream hosting services. A webcam hooked up to a cheapo desktop running OBS is all that is needed. (Well obviously one needs permission to set up the webcam from the property owner and this mess about restrictions should be cleared up.
Heck I am sure it could be done hooked up to a Raspberry Pi
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u/sarafinapink May 12 '16
Thank you Echo for the excellent summary of the issue. While I can see mistakes were made on our side, I feel that its best to cut ties with PTZtv as they are not behaving very professionally or respectful to those who have followed the rules and praised them for their work. I wish them luck in the future and look forward to a better solution for our community.
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u/phasy May 12 '16
Hi guys, I run an event streaming company based out of Amsterdam and am very experienced in setting up live streams. If you need any help whatsoever in setting up a stream of your own, whether it's selecting a proper camera or choosing encoder software, I'd love to help out in any way I can!
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u/Cosmos3110 May 13 '16
NSF member here. Please come visit us, we would love to cooperate with you guys to get a webcam set up, or coordinate times for people to get down to the Port with cameras. We both share a love for SpaceX, let's do something so we can further that.
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u/Gorakka May 12 '16
Clicked on this link, wholly expecting a post about why we should all turn off adblock and click their malware. Instead had u/EchoLogic telling it like it is.
Great read. And damn, the amount of vitriol being projected onto us could power the sun.
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u/Astro_Zach May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
I too have had a run-in with them. As a web developer, I criticize their use of a pay wall for their working website. They promptly blocked me on social media.
Their response was as follows
Sorry Zach but we don't appreciate commentary that questions our motives, strategy or implementation without the facts or insights to do either.
The existence of out Premium service has got nothing to do with responsive design. It is all about paying for the bandwidth... either by ads on our free-to-view websites or by subscription/ticket on our ad-free Premium service.
We are offering more choice.
Something and/or someone has to pay. Simple. End of story.
I will unblock your twitter account but please keep your commentary/remarks to our content ... not our technology or lack thereof in your eyes.
I hope u/echologic agrees that that's just bullshit.
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u/jazzyjaffa May 12 '16
The sad thing is that this could have gone so differently. PTZtv have really missed an opportunity here.
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u/Destructor1701 May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
Excellent write up, Echo. I'm very sad to see this happening, and it does indeed come across as unreasonable on PTZtv's part. When you deal with a community of tech savvy people like us, some degree of circumvention is to be expected. When they objected and explained their reasons for objecting, I feel confident in saying the vast majority of this community respected their wishes. With each launch event, this community gains a few thousand followers. Some number of them probably found the cam and probably, out of tech-savvy habit, circumvented the ads. We may have failed to reach them with the urgency of the need to support PTZtv, but they must still represent a very small minority.
My point is that our efforts have been in good faith.
The person actually operating the camera shows real interest and professionalism, and consistently provides fascinating views. I have personally clicked on several ads on their site in appreciation of that, something I would never have done with any other ads on the web. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
However, the people manning the Twitter feed seem unreasonably combative on this issue, and their response to our comrade who helpfully pointed out a security hole in their streaming service was, as you correctly labeled it, reprehensible.
However, I think we should simmer down a little in the comments, lest we risk losing our "bigger people" status.
Edit: 'lest', not 'least'
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u/strozzascotte May 12 '16
Perfect statement from Echologic. Count on me for the webcam crowdfunding.
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u/TheBlacktom May 12 '16
juvenile, toxic & criminal element that follows SpaceX
Seriously, the pathetic and horrible ads are toxic over there. And maybe some hypergolic propellants over here :)
I have never seen such poor professionalism from a commercial entity before.
You can find some hardcore threads over at r/teslamotors with the keyword "Saleen"
We’re not happy with the services we are receiving from <<...>>, so we would like to create our own.
SpaceX in a nutshell.
On this note, I will keep you updated on the progress of this idea in this post.
I want to buy you a coffee already. Also spacexstats.com/auth/signup still says "early 2016"
In conclusion all I want to do is link r/pitchforkemporium for you guys.
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u/vaporcobra May 12 '16
Wonderful summary of events and I wholeheartedly agree. The behavior of PTZtv has truly stunned me, I too have never before seen such immature incompetence out of a commercial entity ever before. Beyond comprehension, honestly, and I can only hope that PTZtv's "customers" hear about their behavior towards SpaceX fans and choose to abandon a company with such despicable values.
Optimistically, the crowdfunded camera that we might be able to produce could replace and improve upon PTZtv's product to the point that its Port Canaveral viewers might choose ours instead.
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u/Bunslow May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
"hacking"? I was perhaps the first to post a VLC link and all I did was dig through the human-readable javascript. Keep it classy folks
(Edit: And besides the shit ads, it's mostly because Flash is a piece of shit software and it needs to die, I watch twitch via livestreamer now, fuck Flash /rant)
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u/karnivoorischenkiwi May 12 '16
Public opinion on what hacking is is a little silly. It doesn't help that media keep showing stock photos of linux terminals with "ls -ltr" commands. Judging from they way the website looks and it's setup it's clear they didn't do their homework :P
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u/piponwa May 12 '16
The fact that they only offered fullscreen for a premium tells it all.
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u/D_McG May 12 '16
I loaded their normal page, ads and all, and then just zoomed in and scrolled to make it full screen.
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May 12 '16
To the public at large, "hacking" apparently means "doing stuff with a computer that I don't understand".
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u/davoloid May 12 '16
Hacking in terms of "circumventing how something's been intended for use" - kind of applies.
I have a little sympathy for the individuals, who've struggled to deal with what's a massive surge on their normal business. I don't know how much revenue those ads generate, but I expect that sudden bandwidth hit affected them massively, and the sense of entitlement we have for access to that footage does not justify the arseyness towards them. And the doxxing (seems to have been on the facebook group) is always unacceptable.
On the other hand, I reckon what was leached away via the other streams was probably minimal, so it would have been better for them to be open to suggestions on how to move this forwards. Offers from here, facebook, NSF and others, no doubt.
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u/nulsec May 12 '16
Hacking in terms of "circumventing how something's been intended for use" - kind of applies.
It does not. Content producers have zero control over how users view their content on their own machines.
All a content producer does is serve you html and javascript, no different than sending you a text file or a word document.The user decides which application to view this document in and how to view the document.
Under the law, the only time the user technically loses rights is if a video is encrypted and that is only because breaking encryption is made illegal in some cases.0
u/davoloid May 12 '16
You're missing the point. PTZtv:
Had a website that showed footage from a webcam
This was paid for by advertising and subscriptions
People tried to get round that because they didn't like the adverts/malware
"Get round" = "hacking" in this situation.
You don't have a right to dick about with something just because you can technically or you think you can legally. That's what they took offence to originally. Doesn't detract from throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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u/Gweeeep May 12 '16
"Get round" = "hacking" in this situation.
Sorry, I don't agree. In my mind, hacking is when you change the source to access or modify the host. Linking to their data (by what ever means) does change what they are hosting. No manipulation of their website or data has occurred. They're just wrong.
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u/nulsec May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
People didn't try to get around it. They simply rendered one line of javascript the way they wanted and ignored the rest.
100% legal and there is nothing wrong with it. You can render javascript/html any way you want on your own system.
This is why lots of free streams tied to ads still use flash players in an attempt at hiding the raw stream and forcing you to watch ads to make the stream work. Still mostly fails.
This is the beauty of the internet, the content providers can't control your system or how you choose to render the information they send you. Viewing the info in a way they don't like is too bad for them, they have no legal control over how you render content on your own computer. Any text in a ToS that violates fair use means nothing either.
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u/katriik May 12 '16
Might be just a silly comment, but: "We’re not happy with the services we are receiving from PTZtv, so we would like to create our own." This is exactly what Elon Musk did about rocket engines in the beginning of SpaceX (let's keep it simple, for the sake of the context): not happy with current ones available, so he did its own. And it is working like "charm", because I just can't find a more pharaonic word for that at this moment. So, yes, you shall go for it, and I will gladly participate in this.
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u/MarcysVonEylau May 12 '16
Guys, screw PTZtv and our own camera, and maybe let's start cooperation with USLaunchReport ?
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u/beentheredengthat May 12 '16
from youtube page: "USLaunchReport.com is produced by our parent organization Veterans Space Report Inc"
I didn't realize this. I would love to contribute to a great non-profit like that.
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u/beentheredengthat May 12 '16
Just to move on from the PTZtv mess, I encourage everyone to go to their youtube about page and hit up the donate button for a worthy cause.
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May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
It's such a shame really.. i think many people at first glance were under the impression that this was just a small scale company who suddenly got hammered by 1000s of enthousiastic spacex fans.
The idea of 3 men in a office near the port working their asses off.
Their service provided people with exactly what they were looking for but from their comments they themselves aren't even remotely interested in providing people with something like this.
Again, such a shame because i too was under the impression that these guys would genuinly be helped out by so many people willing to donate, support and promote their service.
And i'm sure it already dd because according to their search ranking they tripled their popularity and got extremely large amounts of traffic (even towards their ad riddled website) which (after i disabled adblock for a second) spammed me with flashy images and 2005-escue flashing ads.
I'd like to see this crowdfunded camera become reality, in the hope that even the port itself would be willing to cooperate as far as it's required to set up a nearly stationary camera.
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u/redox57 May 12 '16
I am pretty sure that more than 50% of the viewers were viewing from their awful website, and I think that the evil hackers were not causing a big lost of revenue compared to what they were earning with their coverage of the event. Even though I had the ability to remove their ads, since the first watching, I have never done it. The stupidity of people never earning enough money is so annoying ! :(
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u/thawkit May 12 '16
"Unprofessional" is an understatement. Glad that you are taking the positive move to set up a dedicated Spacex cam. keep us posted.
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u/beentheredengthat May 12 '16
I wonder if we couldn't partner with the USLaunchReport guys. They could certainly use our support and are non-profit for a good cause.
And it seems as though they are offering services on their website (videos of events, not live streaming).
The serious question is, will the spacex community actually follow through with donations at the level to support such an effort or are we all blowing smoke?
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u/TheEndeavour2Mars May 12 '16
Would we donate to some "Hey guyz can i haz monies? cuz I got a webcam" type effort? No.
Would we donate to a well planned effort (Which researches legality of operating the webcam, clearly details the equipment needed and costs involved, has initial permission from the property owner where the camera would be set up, etc..) I am pretty sure that is a yes.
It does not have to be anything more than a small indiegogo or kickstarter page. As long as it is handled by professionals and supported by the team handling this subreddit. I am pretty confident it would meet the funding goal.
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u/Here_There_B_Dragons May 12 '16
Some people here have given money to people attending the NASA social press events, so yeah I think we can get funding from here. Forget the (# subscribers * $0.05) model, think ~30-100 giving $5-$50.
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u/chargerag May 12 '16
The stupid thing is they could have come over here and people would have volunteered to build him a better website. He could have really built his site into something great.
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u/jaytar42 May 12 '16
Wow, thank you Echo for this honest write-up of the issue. Some of their tweets were utterly offensive and reading them makes me sad.
Count me in for the webcam funding. Hopefully, this webcam will be embedded in spacexstats :)
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May 12 '16
Aha, I don't trust myself enough to run it inside my website :). Best keep it open and free to view on some well known streaming website that doesn't occasionally crash due to massive server influx (which, by the way, I've fixed :D).
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u/jaytar42 May 12 '16
I said embedded, not hosted ;) Thought about hosting it on youtube and embedding it on spacexstats or Mission Control.
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u/Deathtweezers May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
Real people work longs hours, 7 days a week and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the service. That investment has to be covered.
Yes, sure, a webcam cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up and keep running(also apparently we are all born yesterday). Guess we all have to really work on the crowdfunding here if we want our own hosted web cam...
Edit: It seems that between all 24 of their cams, this figure might actually be somewhat accurate. Apparently PTZ cameras are very expensive.
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u/moxzot May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
Cool hopefully we can get word quickly about a webcam, also i didnt know they were being so nasty to the community.
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u/thawkit May 12 '16
yip i am annoyed now as i was deliberately clicking the adds just to get them he revenue.
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u/HoechstErbaulich May 12 '16
The hacking accusations are hilarious. I can only shake my head in disbelief. What about the guy who got doxxed? Is he alright?
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u/MarcysVonEylau May 12 '16 edited May 12 '16
Hello.
I'm the creator of the spacex.yasiu.pl.
I don't want to comment on the situation, I just want to sorry all of you for inconvienience that happend because of my activity.
I will never use PTZtv sources on my website again.
Edit: Thank you :)