Some quick changes to the website

I noticed the picture menus were kind of broken and applied a quick fix. I am using PrettyPhoto on this website to show pictures in a nice way, but the styling got all messed up. Some scripts seem to have changed or stopped working properly. I am not planning to spend a lot of time on fixing this considering I am working on a new website anyway, so I just did a quick fix. When clicking on thumbnails to see enlarged pictures, some buttons are not showing, but parts of the script is still functional. Hover over the picture to see picture navigation and click outside the picture to go back to the thumbnail view.

Looking for Music

Looking for music to use during live streaming in the very near future (Hitbox/Twich, YouTube or possibly elsewhere depending on the content). Any artists out there who would not mind getting some extra promotion? Licensing or written consent needed. Suggestions for Creative Commons/Free to share are also welcome.

Let me know ;-)

My god ...

Deep deep down we all know what's right and what's wrong. I follow this inner knowledge and seek MY truth as well as I can. I am sure, no matter how different we appear to be, we all boil down to be pretty much the same. This my friends is my so called 'god', I don't need a book and I sure would not call it religion. I am not forcing it on anyone, I just try to be as sensible as I can in a world we live in TOGETHER. I am ME and you are YOU and I love you all! MUAHHH!

I feel like music lately

Not quite sure what or who triggered the desire to start making music again, but dang I can't wait to do so once my computer setup is done. Maybe the fact some of my online friends are making music or perhaps YouTube videos passing by on Facebook or just my love for music in general has to do with it. Could also be those depressive moments reaching for really old memories I have left on cassette. I just don't know what truly makes me want to, but it doesn't matter either, just one of my many hobbies. I am writing this post while watching/listening to the 'Burma Shave' DVD on my other monitor triggered by Facebook for sure ;-) as Kat Boelskov posted a message just right now, this must be a sign ... lol. Tom Waits reminds me of a mash-up I did a few years ago which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCS09JuDZoo. I have also been listening to some more recent but still old tracks on my PlayStation (Music2000 and MusicGenerator2), which are pretty crappy by the way, now that I listened to them again (enough reason for not posting a Facebook link to those). Most of my best work, made when I started out making music was never recorded or got lost. Too bad I don't have a studio like friends used to have back in the days when I lived in Amsterdam. We had several keyboards, a drum computer, Korg MS20 synthesizer, sampler, Commodore Amiga, PC with Cakewalk, 3 turntables and even an 8-tracker to record with. This got me into DJ-ing/creating quite a bit of Ambient and together we created some pretty good up-beat, dance and hardcore tracks as well, but I was a terrible DJ at that. Some days ago I started looking on the internet for software to use and that led me to this site: http://www.soundation.com. Found out Cakewalk - which we used a lot back in the early 90's  - is still going strong with Sonar X3. I hardly have any equipment I can really use, so software will have to do next to possibly hooking up my PSX/PS2, crappy mixing panel and old record player. Not sure what results this will lead to, but at least I am sure to enjoy the ride :-)

Will keep you all up-to-date or remain in silence if my perfectionism doesn't allow me to share whatever creations come from it, which could be anything ...

How to playback any TWITCH VoD WITH AUDIO

No longer works for VoDs stored since August 6th !!!

    Twitch has this nice API for any VoD stored. The following link to their API has all you need to still play any VoD WITH audio: http://api.justin.tv/api/broadcast/by_archive/<VIDEOID>.json. You just have to put the <VIDEOID> in that link which is easy to find by going to any video on Twitch. I will show an example below. Through the API link above you can easily find the urls for the stored 30 minutes video parts in flv format. Look for this: "video_file_url", which is followed by the url you need to playback that part of the video. I usually use VLC for playback of any media and by opening the url found in the API in my browser it will ask me to allow VLC to play the video in the browser. Once allowed it will play perfectly fine WITH the audio that is muted by Twitch when you try to watch the video on their website. I can even watch it within VLC itself instead of in the browser. For any VoD longer than 30 mins, you will find multiple urls in the API link, just look for the next "video_file_url".

    This method above can easily be automated with some code/script as a nice feature to embed on your website or have your chatbot provide a link(s) for your viewers when they post a link in chat to one of your broadcasts muted by Twitch. It only needs to connect to the API, do some regex matching and return the url(s) which can then be used for whatever you wish to do with it.

    I wonder however how Twitch is actually 'legally' covering their ass with the new implementation for VoDs containing unauthorized third-party audio when the audio itself is actually still there. Twitch says to "respect the rights of copyright owners, and are voluntarily undertaking this effort to help protect both our broadcasters and copyright owners.". I doubt muting the audio on their own website player only does the trick for them. I think the way they implemented it is just plain bullshit.

    Now for an example I am going to use the Twitch Weekly - 7/18/2014 - Fishstix, Atrioc, Soma & Carnage (LIVE @ 4PM EDT) broadcast. The link is the following: http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/b/548824097. The number at the end of the link is the <VIDEOID>. So we will use that to get the link to the API for that broadcast, which will then become this link:  http://api.justin.tv/api/broadcast/by_archive/548824097.json. That will bring us here. You will then see a lot of information as shown in the picture below with the urls for all 3 parts of the broadcast:

When you watch this broadcast on Twitch, the muted part is after 30 minutes, because they are saved in 30 minutes parts this would be the second url you find in the picture above. The url for that second part of the broadcast is http://store45.media45.justin.tv/archives/2014-7-18/live_user_twitch_1405715067.flv. With VLC or any other flash plugin you will then be able to watch it in the browser (or within VLC) WITH the audio!

    Notice how you will also see "transcode_file_urls" Those urls are links to lower resolutions of the same video parts (240p, 360p and 480p). Very useful for those with bad internet connection and buffering issues on Twitch. With VLC for example a similar method can be used to watch a LIVE stream with lower resolution to prevent the 'oh so annoying' buffering issue you might get on Twitch. I will however not go into detail on how to do this, but I might explain that some other time.

    For those who want the easy way out, here is a link to a website that does this same 'trick' I explained above by using some code/script and Flowplayer to let you watch VoDs from Twitch WITH audio by just entering the <VIDEOID> as explained above: http://twitchviews.co.uk/

Enjoy!