I spent several hours this weekend tinkering with the Quicktime (Darwin actually) Streaming Server (QTSS.) I loaded it up on my dual-G5 PowerMac and proceeded to throw my iSight’s images onto a number of primitive objects in Second Life. The goal was to ensure that any client viewing the stream would see the same image that any other client viewing the stream would see.

Try showing a movie from a static video file to a group of people. Inevitably, they’ll get stuck at different points in the film either because they start playback at different times, or because they drop out and return. This ruins shared experiences, as it makes it impossible for a presenter to ensure that comments about the streaming content are relevant to the content being displayed at the time.

I managed to get it to work, but the expense of carrying out this simulcast process will keep it out of widespread circulation until we’re all sitting at the end of links faster than kilobit DSL.