Ok, here is my explanation of the weekend's internet issues.
Got to venue, hooked up power, pc, cameras. There was no hard wired internet (which I was told there would be).
Ok, use their wifi. Checked internet speeds, and they were more than adequate for the stream.
I set up program to run and it wouldn't allow me to upload ANYTHING. I could do facebook, google, speedtest, but it wouldn't allow me to upload using the program. I'm guessing there was some permissions in the firewall of the router, etc.
So, after I figured out the problem of it not allowing me to upload, I set my phone as a wifi hotspot and started streaming using my data plan. It worked, great!
Next thing I did, while streaming, was to contact my mobile service provider (Bell) and up my data plan package from current 2 GB (I hate over charges, so I use that plan
) to the highest allowable data plan of 15 GB.
Once that was all figured out, it ran great for the Saturday amateur portion of the tourney.... up until the point where my twitch.tv account was suspended due to some form of policy violation. It said "nongaming" violaton. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, twitch.tv is focused on streams of people playing video games and / or music creation.
This put me in a scramble to find another streaming site, since the old justin.tv is no longer online (they transferred all their users to twitch.tv) , I found ustream.tv site.
I managed to get it signed up, set up and streaming. I then put the link up on my facebook wall, as well as Robert Drenk's and tagged Mike Gould's name too, hoping people would find it and be able to watch. I also went around table to table at the venue letting people know that the previous website address that I had written on paper and left on every table was not valid, and told them to check either my fb wall , or Robert Drenks, and I even wrote it out for a few people there.
I had a browser up in the background and could go on and watch it / chat (when I had time) with people and from my browser, the stream seemed great.
Fast forward to Sunday and the pro portion of the tournament with the Ultimate Match Ups. From the start (with no user name or password changes) , the ustream.tv site wouldn't allow me to authenticate my user name, etc. I performed a series of reboots, logout, logins, etc and finally managed to stream. The internet at this point was very sketchy. Very poor speeds. I had already delayed the start of the UMU's a few minutes and I couldn't hold them up any more trouble shooting the speeds of the internet, so I shot the UMU's and what you saw was the best available at the time.
After the Ultimate Match Ups, I again did a series of reboots, internet disconnects and reconnects and finally got a stable speed for the pro portion of the tournament. Everything was going good (I could see by my browser in the background which basically acted as me being a random user relying on internet to watch = doesn't matter that I was there at all, same performance available to all logged in).
Now, being on my data plan, even after data package increase , I was already almost at my cap after day 1. So, day 2 starts and I get notifications from my mobile service provider saying I have reached $xx of overcharges and my data was cut off. If I wanted to go further, I needed to open a browser on my phone and hit accept on a Bell screen. I did that. We were back up again, for a few hours until I got another one, and this was $xxx and past the point I was willing to go any further.
I approached Robert Drenk and showed him the text notification from my mobile service provider. I told him that since it was a UAL event, and he was promoting it, as he has his name attached to it, to be prepared for people to complain about it to him. He agreed that the feed was to be kept down as he is going to be editing a very nice product to be seen later.
Robert came up later and handed me money to help cover my costs.
I stayed on the ustream.tv site and gave updates as I could.
Sorry to all who were anticipating a full weekend of seamless internet streaming. Sometimes the internet just doesn't co-operate with us all.
) to the highest allowable data plan of 15 GB.