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Is there a tech angle to this submission? I'm not complaining or asking for one, but sampling the stream I wondered if there might be one that I failed to see:
by usrusr 4y ago
Is there a tech angle to this submission? I'm not complaining or asking for one, but sampling the stream I wondered if there might be one that I failed to see: most of the time a random wildlife webcam would show a scene too boring even for slow TV, but if you have hundreds of them, some will likely have something interesting going on.
Continuously getting eyeballs on hundreds of streams to select one for the show would be incredibly expensive (the linked streams seem to be more condensed than a 24/7 selection?), but it would be the perfect ML playground: feedback is solved, viewer metrics has been an established field for half a century, wrong answers are zero cost and you could create something that simply did not exist before: real time wildlife where there's actually something to see. (or maybe almost realtime, because the human showrunner might decide to allow a few minutes of serenity from the ringbuffer before the action that triggered the detector walks into view, that would still be good enough for "today, at the current time of day")
- timoteostewart 4y agoThis submission, at least for me, pulls the "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" lever. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- drakonka 4y agoI think having the view always be on something "interesting" would spoil what I personally find enjoyable about this stream. I've had this open in a little PIP window all day while I work. I enjoy the nature sounds and sometimes see a reindeer trot past or a bird, which is cool. And when a moose comes up it's all the more exciting, because it's a unique occurrence. Then you go to the chat and see other viewers excitedly post about how beautiful the moose is. I think if the stream showed something exciting all the time it would take something away from the flare of happiness when you see a moose or other interesting animal in-between the calming sounds of nature.
- LeifCarrotson 4y agoI completely agree! It's like the difference between fishing in a stocked pond versus wading a trout stream, between taking a whole afternoon to cook a meal from scratch versus getting fast food, or between watching a classic play and watching a Michael Bay movie... Yes, technology gives us the ability to remove all downtime and have only action all the time. But I don't think I'd want to.
- usrusr 4y agoFast paced cuts to wherever the most action happens this second would certainly ruin it, but somehow I doubt that a true representation of how little happens in a single camera angle would be the answer. Setting the parameters for sighting rarity would still be a form of, well, creativity?
- rejectfinite 4y agoJust the setup is impressive >How many cameras are there? In total there are 7 night cameras, 26 remote cameras, 1 manual camera and 1 drone. All interconnected by 22,000 metres of cable via 15 hubs.