Performing LIVE, VIA SATELLITE might sound
like a difficult task, but when you have a Geek Genius
like MIkey in the mix, he makes it look like child's play.

When we say "live via satellite", it's true -- but if we're so broke, how can we use something that's prohibitively expensive?

We steal it.

No, just kidding.

No, really. JUST KIDDING. Call off the lawyers, already.

The secret? It's not your father's analog broadcast satellite. Our satellite is digital, just like the Internet.

In fact, our satellite IS the Internet...

Here's an example of the technology we use. Really, it's just mobile Internet -- a two-way satellite broadband connection, using nothing larger than your basic pizza dish for transmission and reception. One dish in Austin, another in Vegas, a third at the show location, all tied together by a Patented Algorithm to remove latency.

(For civilians, "latency" is the inevitable delay introduced by long-distance transmissions, digital or otherwise. Bits can only move at the speed of light, and bouncing a signal off a satellite takes a moment.)

But wait -- surely the upload speeds aren't sufficient to handle full-motion video. Which leads to the other secret: The new H.264 video codec in Quicktime 7 squeezes hi-def content into an amazingly small data stream. It requires a high-performance Mac G5 on both ends to manage real-time compression and playback, plus that Patented Algorithm to keep everything in sync -- but we've literally road-tested it, and we're more than satisfied with the results.

Want to try this at home? Here's how:

1. DV cameras set up at remote Austin and Vegas locations.

2. Cameras linked to Mac G5s via Firewire.

3. G5's each run Quicktime Broadcaster for live encoding using high-performance H.264 codec.

4. G5's connected to pizza-dish broadband satellite upload.

5. Pizza-dish satellite receiver connected to G5 at concert venue.

6. Concert G5 decodes Quicktime streams: full-motion video goes to stage television monitor, CD-quality audio to sound system.

7. Concert G5 also sends back audio-only feed to Austin and Vegas.

8. Concert G5 uses Patented Algorithm to keep video/audio streams in sync, working off embedded timecodes in each stream.

And that's it! Really, it's so simple, we're surprised nobody else has thought of it.