On-Demand Video + CMS + Interactive Input For Museum? 131
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by
timothy
from the free-reign-in-spain dept.
from the free-reign-in-spain dept.
remolacha writes "I've been given the task of tech chief for a biggish art museum (1,300 m^2, or about 13,000 sq ft) in Spain. The museum's designers want 20 'terminals' that will offer on-demand video and interactive content. The terminals' content will change with the exhibits; many will have touchscreens. More interesting forms of input are planned as well (floor sensors, big buttons). It's all on one floor, and the floors are raised, so I can run cabling and set up floor ethernet jacks. Max cable run is 60m / 190ft. The museum may expand to 4 times its projected size once open, by comandeering other floors in the building. To give an idea of where the designers heads are, they were talking about a massive DVD changer in a closet somewhere. I am thinking an intranet running a web server with a CMS and Flash media server, terminals running Firefox in kiosk mode. I'd love to do everything on Linux. Does anyone have experience with a setup like this, better ideas, or advice?"
Check these guys out (Score:5, Informative)
Check these guys out [kersonic.com]: They are specialized in pretty much exactly what you need.
You definitely want to use sound technologies, streaming, etc. Don't underestimate your audience, your average user tends to be really clueless, which means your terminals have to be rock-solid.
Congrats on landing what sounds like a cool project!
This guy does museum video (Score:3, Informative)
Interactivity at museums : ookl.org.uk (Score:3, Informative)
You may want to have a look at www.ookl.org.uk, a system for engaging people, often kids, in art and museum content. On OOKL, people use mobiles and computers to curate, share and present their own collections of material collected from the cultural venue (or world at large). I think OOKL's story-centric approach is very interesting.
Having been involved in OOKL early on I know all the server tech is Linux based. Give them a call -- they are a friendly bunch!
Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Informative)
In a fixed environment like a museum put you media out on the machines and use the network for administration and control. All streaming solutions place to much stress of the network for very little reason.
Sounds cool (Score:3, Informative)
Ideum = Company Recommendation (Score:4, Informative)
Hello,
I highly recommend "Ideum." (http://www.ideum.com/) They are based near Albuquerque, New Mexico and specialize in EXACTLY that sort of thing. I interviewed with this company during a job search I went through a few months ago, but after receiving an offer I decided to work with another small company that provided a better offer instead. Ideum has some cool table top, and desk top museum exhibits in place for major museums already. The founder, Jim Spadaccini, is an extremely friendly and nice guy.
They have a general software framework in place built using ActionScript and C++ to make building custom, interactive, touch-screen programs very fast. Their process was quite impressive, and seemed well designed to segregate the work between the hard core coder and the hard core artist in order to quickly make an impressive exhibit. One of the coolest products they were developing was called "GestureWorks." It is designed to make programming multi-touch displays very easy in ActionScript. As a programmer, I can add an eventListener to an object for "throw away" or for "click and hold."
If you give them a call, tell Jim that Brian Stinar referred you! If he gets busy enough, maybe I'll get a consulting or contracting gig on the side out of it.
I hope this help,
-Brian J. Stinar-
UK Natural History Museum (Score:1, Informative)
You need to talk to the folks at the Natural History Museum in the UK as they have just done what you are trying to achieve for their new Darwin Center. No need to reinvent the wheel, learn from those that have been there and done that. Pay them a visit and see what works and what does not.
HP Thin Clients (Score:4, Informative)
DNA Lounge (Score:2, Informative)
The DNA Lounge in San Francisco, run by Mozilla and XEmacs' one-time developer and hacker Jamie Zawinski, has done some similar things. You can check out their code and documentation here:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/ [dnalounge.com]
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/ [dnalounge.com]
In short, he's created secure Linux internet kiosks, streaming broadcasts, cameras, and scripts to automate much of it - in short, what you're trying to do but in nightclub form.
One word: Maintenance (Score:5, Informative)
I can't count the number of museums I've visited where the whizbang kiosks/interactive displays/demonstrations were out of order. From the lowliest county historical society exhibition to the Smithsonian in DC. Whatever you do, keep an up-to-date set of troubleshooting and repair procedures as you go along. Something easy to follow so that even a simpleton volunteer will be able to get the thing back up and running.
Go with Kiosk Enclosures (Score:4, Informative)
Non-contact interactive exhibit (Score:3, Informative)
A nice mix of wow factor and secure hardware (except for the poor wall).
For the life of me, I can't remember what the system is called or find it with Google. The closest I can find is http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/14/microsoft-touchwall-can-inexpensively-turn-any-flat-surface-into-a-multi-touch-display/ [crunchgear.com]