All posts in Random

I watched this refresh­ing video on improv­ing Voice User Inter­faces. I can see how it could be used to improve many tele­phone menus I’ve used.

I’ve noticed many peo­ple hav­ing prob­lems watch­ing the cam­eras, as the offi­cial web site still uses the now defunct Flash, so I wrote this short guide on a way to play the live stream from the cameras:

For PC and Mac

1. Down­load and install VLC Play­er
2. Down­load this file (right click and Save As): https://www.jonhassall.com/downloads/ntufalconcams.m3u
3. Open VLC Play­er, Media -> Open File, and open the file you downloaded
4. Press the track skip but­tons to change cameras

For Android smartphone

1. Install the VLC Play­er app from Google Play
2. Open the VLC Play­er app
3. Press ‘Open MRL’ from the left menu, and type:

   https://www.jonhassall.com/downloads/ntufalconcams.m3u

4. I find it can take a good 30 sec­onds for the stream to open. Play con­trols appear if you swipe up from the bot­tom of the screen. It isn’t very intuitive

iPhone/iPad

1. Install the VLC for Mobile app from the App Store
2. Open the VLC Play­er app
3. Press ‘Net­work Stream’ from the left menu
4. Type this URL into the box at the top:

   https://www.jonhassall.com/downloads/ntufalconcams.m3u

5. Press ‘Open Net­work Stream’
6. Press ‘ntucalconcams.m3u’ which should now be added to the list
7. The cam­era streams should now show. It can take 30 sec­onds to start. Use the track skip but­tons to change between the three cameras.

Hope­ful­ly in the future NTU will either stream direct­ly to a HTML5 com­pat­i­ble for­mat, or set up a live stream­ing con­ver­sion server.

Hope this helps peo­ple enjoy watch­ing the falcons.