Bill and I have had several discussions about the TV feed between the Hyatt and the Marriott. We will be broadcasting the Masquerade over the cable systems of both hotels (like we did in the Hyatt last year).

So my mind got to work on quickly turning a PC into an automated system for showing messages, without having to resort to broadcast TV software. Yesterday, I got it working.

Since we have this at our disposal, and would like to run a test signal all day to ensure the signal is running properly, I had proposed we have ‘DragonCon TV’. DC-TV would be like the bulletin board on your local public access cable station … broadcasting information and schedule changes to hotel guests. This would also let them know that they could watch the Masquerade from the comfort of their own hotel.

The first idea was using PowerPoint and running a presentation in a loop. That worked except for one issue … changing the information. You have to shutdown PowerPoint to load a new file or change the existing one. That means going off the air.

So I combined one of my computers with a TV output, Linux, a web browser, some MP3s and Greymatter (the scripts that run techops.net) to make a messaging board. I can add/delete mesages without taking the system down. So changes can be made without interrupting the broadcast. My message board is really just an auto-loading series of web pages without a border or mouse (or pop-up ads for naked women selling electronic devices that automate your dishwasher).

I have a bunch of music playing in the background, mostly techno and sci-fi movie themes. The hotels should have paid their BMI/ASCAP fees, so there shouldn’t be legal issues playing the music (I’ll be sure to check before we go live).

Anyway, I want to get as much information into the system as possible before the con starts. The idea is that I plug it in and it’s ready to go. I want to talk to the Daily Dragon people about this, but I’d like your input too. What information, besides the schedule, needs to go into this system.

Thomas, Bill … can I get the panel schedules before the con starts?

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