Tim called by with MJ Ray, a friend of his from Turo Technology LLP, another co-operative (like Bristol Wireless) based in Weston Super Mare. Local Bristol area readers may know MJ, as he does attend BBLUG sessions.

We were very pleased to see how Tim’s IT skills had improved since his last visit – he’s now blogging and doing audio and video recording. As part of an organisation that encourages and trains people in using such tools to improve their skills and get involved in their communities, it’s only right and proper that the leading advocates should know what to do with them too.

As proof of his newly-acquired skills, he recorded a 10-minute interview with Rich Higgs and your ‘umble scribe.

Tim has recorded his visit on the E-Democracy.org project blog. His piece on Bristol Wireless can be read here, whilst those of you who are brave may like to listen to the interview.

Click here for the BBC report (RealPlayer required).

Starting with the Vivaldi funded backbone installation at Holroyd House in Windmill Hill, the BBC crew braved 13 floors to film John and his Westcom team erecting our new aerials and interview Bristol Wireless volunteers on a crisp clear morning with beautiful views of the city (photos pete?)

Next we moved onto Princess Royal gardens where Rory talked to residents and users of the community suite, and finally to a park off the cyclepath, so Rory could prove to himself that it was possible to just stand in the open in Easton and connect to the net. BW-ECC was loud and clear (phew!).

What’s that, then?

Simple really — but first, a technical aside and word of thanks: we’re using a debugged and slightly amended version of Garrick Van Buren’s WP-iPodCatter Plugin for WordPress to produce a special RSS feed from these news pages. Garrick has released the plugin under the GNU General Public License for the benefit of the WordPress community and deserves our thanks for his efforts. If you’re feeling particularly well-disposed, you could drop him a donation through Paypal — see the link on his WP-iPodCatter page.

So then: a videoblog… well, it’s basically just a category in this news section, but you subscribe to it using the Videoblog RSS link in the right-hand column. When you do that using a video-enabled RSS aggregator, something wonderful happens. Each time we publish a new item in the video category, the corresponding video file (usually MPEG4) will be downloaded for you to watch. And, er, that’s more or less it! It’s as if Bristol Wireless had it’s own intermittent TV channel.

For more information on RSS feeds, there’s a page on the wiki which explains what they’re about in more detail — it also has links to some of the more popular videoblogging software should you need it.

And so here we go: this is what makes this an entry in the videoblog — a link to the re-encoded HesFest video in MPEG4 format.

The movie is a speedy tour of our network, with interviews along the way. Entirely Free (Libre) Open Source software in it’s creation. The main video editing was done with cinelerra from http://cvs.cinelerra.org/

We’ve released the film under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License. Please contact us for other licensing arrangements. There are two ways to download the video:

Bittorrent

There is a BitTorrent of it available: Bristol_Wireless_90_Second_Film.torrent

It is 23MB and is a ‘.avi’ file (using Xvid and MP3) at DV resolution (720×576) and very good quality. You can download bittorrent from http://www.bittorrent.com/ and have a look at the progress of the torrent at http://strummer.bristolwireless.net:7171/.

Http

There is a normal http download available: bw_90_sec_challenge.mp4

It is 4MB and is a ‘.mp4′ file (using MPEG4 and AAC), low resolution (320×240) and low quality but still watchable. You are free to distribute this version too, but only if you make clear to person recieving it the license it is distributed under. You must pass on at least the link to the license code which is at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/ and the say that the work is to be Attributed to Bristol Wireless Community Co-operative Ltd.

Playing It

If you have trouble playing the either file, you might want to try VLC from http://www.videolan.org/

The school

The aerial crew – Matt, Rich and Bob

Thumbs up from Bob

A short video

There’s a 4.9MB, 300 kbit/sec, MPEG4 video file at the other end of the following link. I’d recommend a right click and download before watching it, but ymmv.

Bannerman Road school antenna installation

Enjoy!