Grabbing the video inside the world and streaming it elsewhere inside actually comes courtesy of some things I’d read about Valve’s HL2 system. If I recall correctly, grabbing the video and distributing it within an HLS level is built in to their game engine. I forget exactly what the limitation is now. It’ll come to me.

I started to post about the possibility of a BitTorrent-style system where the host might have a Camera set up that would capture video (Fraps-style?) from their PC and then upload it via a BT distribution system, and that would get picked up by the first two people (maybe in Seats 1 and 2) and sent to four more (Seats 3, 4, 5, 6) and so on. But that might induce too much delay if it even worked. Not sure we’re ready for that. But capturing to and coming off of a dedicated server should be easy enough if the bandwidth is available. Actually, hasn’t that been done? I think it has.

Right now in SL the sim constraints on the number of avatars is very limiting. If you have a plot in a mainland sim and want to use it for a meeting (e.g. a class on scripting) and there happens to be an event elsewhere in the sim, you may be out of luck.

For (infrequent) Townhall meetings, LL uses a “repeater” (using an old radio for the metaphor). But what if you could stream purely inworld video from one place on the grid to another? Possible? Maybe not right now.

So what about a hybrid system? A combo of a text-to-speech converter and a PowerPoint style slideshow. The slideshow images could be distributed just like any other content, and controlled by the presenter.

I like the moving backdrop idea too (being a longtime filmmaking afficianado). I couldn’t help but stare at the rear window in a recent snip for an old Glen Ford film. It still works pretty well.

Wonder if there’s a good reason to link the two?

An elevator metaphor has its issues as well. When I’m in a public elevator, being enclosed with other people (who are likely invading my personal space), the environment tends to prevent me from discussing topics of importance. If the elevator is in an office building (I used to visit a federal building rather frequently and noticed this), people who worked there spoke freely while visitors tended to not say a word; there was a sense of domain and ownership that I got from the workers. So the elevator is tied to the place in a different way.

Other options include the water fountain (of course), but also the coffee machine and the smoking(!) area outside a building. Within SL these activities are effectively meaningless. So the question really might be: What is the activity in SL that most closely mimics these other real life activities? Maybe it’s flying above the crowd.

Perhaps an escalator? There is an implied urgency so the information needs to be exchanged within a visually-referencable time frame. The space is open enough to not feel like a public elevator. The avatar is expected to be stationary while moving so the person can concentrate on typing messages. There is also the ability to move between levels (up/down) such that you could have stages of interactivity (lowest level is very mobile; highest level is stationary).

Just thinking with my fingers…