[gst-devel] Instrudeo project

[Bram Biesbrouck]

Hi all,

Perhaps you know it, or you don't, but for the past year, I've been working on 
something, I like to call 'the Instrudeo project' (Instrudeo = 
instruction+video). The whole concept of the Instrudeo project is to use 
screen-recordings and screencasting for a whole lot more then what it is used 
for today. It's based on the concept of community-created videocontent, using 
free and open-source screen-recording software (like Istanbul and 
ScreenKast), but connected to the web. Current screen-recording programs are 
designed to produce static video content, possibly editable, but that's about 
it. I'd like to expand this concept to the web, creating a flexible basis or 
library for more interesting applications. One idea is to create a client 
that can broadcast and record the video-stream on the fly, so you can help 
people out, just by doing the required actions on your desktop, having the 
possibility to edit the recorded stream afterwards and publish it as 
a 'solved solution'. A second one is a AJAX-based video player, which I 
nearly completed (check http://beligum.org/testbed/).

My testbed was (and still is) ScreenKast, which is also a client for 
http://captorials.com and it's backend-webservice, but I don't want to stop 
here. My goal is to join some people together in an action-group who actively 
think about how we can use screencasts in new technologies. The community is 
always blamed that we aren't able to create new technologies, and I'd like to 
be a part of one of the counter-examples, but I can't do it alone, so I'm 
recruiting ;-)

Of course, there's need for some funding or sponsoring; for the past year, I 
established some connections with people who are interested in the idea, and 
are willing to help in one way or the other. An example: I've bought two Dell 
PowerEdge servers that are colocated in Brussels (hosting captorials.com). 
The colocation-hosting is entirely sponsored by E-Bo Enterprises 
(http://www.e-bo.be), a company in Ypres (Belgium) who is manufacturing thin 
client solutions, together with VMware and are on the verge of going global. 
This week, I had a very interesting meeting with a person from Lille 
(France), who is the CEO of Speechi (http://speechi.net), a company that 
specializes in recording and publishing Powerpoint-sessions. As a third, I've 
been in contact with one of the largest bandwith providers here in Belgium 
(http://www.realroot.com), who was willing to sponsor some rackspace 
and an uplink.

If you are interested in the idea of creating some new and progressive 
screencasting technologies, please mail me your thoughts and forward this 
mail to other interesting people. For the moment, I don't have a job 
(ScreenKast and Captorials took 100% of my time the last year), but as my 
savings run dry, I'll need to start looking for one if I want to keep paying 
my rent. Besides sponsoring, I see some opportunities in making money by 
displaying ads for open-source projects, partnering with FOSS-businesses to 
share technologies, creating promotional video's, etc. The final goal is to 
make a living with creating FOSS software, playing around with new 
technologies and just having fun.

Tell me what you think.

Bram Biesbrouck