
Show HN: A free educational live stream platform for kids - MichaelAO
https://dexter.live/
======
MichaelAO
I work at a school with a campus in Texas and due to COVID-19, we created an
interactive live streaming platform to connect kids with the world's best
teachers in a fun and safe way. All of our live streams are free and open to
the public.

We were previously using a combination of Streamyard + Twitch, but had to make
our own for various reasons. I'll see if our CTO will give a debrief of the
tech stack on this thread.

If you're a scientist, engineer, or artist interested in streaming on the
platform let me know! michael@dexterlearning.com

~~~
rexreed
Yes - very interested in what you're using for the tech stack. Why didn't
Streamyard + Twitch work? What are your operating costs (if I can ask)? For
the website, is this a custom site or based on something like Wordpress? Would
love to know details!

~~~
bvergara87
Custom site, built on Vue, Quasar and Firebase. Streamyard + Twitch did work
but lacked a lot of functionality we wanted. We built out a lot of realtime
functionality like polls. We used Streamyard worked for a little bit but
because we wanted to give our streamers only one view to mess with we went
with Agora's API.

~~~
rexreed
Cool. Are you still streaming to Twitch for the actual streaming?

Are you hosting replays? If so, how are you doing that?

Did you have to build custom software to do polls or was that something off
the shelf?

Another Q: if you're streaming to Twitch (or YouTube), how do you prevent
anyone with the link just watching the stream? Basically how do you control
the registered viewing experience?

Sorry for all the Qs: you're being fantastic with responses!

~~~
MichaelAO
No, we're using Agora's API for streaming. Twitch's API works well however we
want to try to keep as much in-house for the exact reason you mentioned above
in controlling the viewer experience.

We'll also be implementing their Cloud Recording functionality but that's WIP.

Yes, we used Firebase to build real-time polls and ChartJS to display said
data.

Not a problem, if you want to continue the thread more long-form shoot me an
email -> bryant(at)dexterlearning.com

(had to post for Bryant... HN throttled his comments/responses)

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kroltan
Congrats on the launch!

However, if you plan to truly open this to the public, you should _at the very
least_ disclose what timezone your streams start at, or show schedules in the
visitor's timezone. Under the most simplistic evaluation, the world has 24 of
them!

~~~
MichaelAO
Thanks! We use MomentJS Timezone to localize to your machine. We'll add
something to make that more clear.

~~~
MichaelAO
Just deployed time zones. Thanks for the suggestion!

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vo2maxer
The ultimate critic, my 11 year old daughter, just listened to the whole
Shakespeare stream. That she peeled away from defeating Protea in Warframe
speaks loudly of how much she enjoyed it. Great job!

~~~
MichaelAO
That makes us so happy to hear, thanks for sharing. Sending a screenshot of
this to the stream host now : )

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gwbas1c
Mute by default, please.

One of the worst things a website can do is start blaring sound when someone
is just casually looking.

~~~
MichaelAO
Thanks for the suggestion!

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iamjkt
I saw the domain and thought maybe Showtime had greenlit a Broadway adaption
of their hit show. Alas.

This looks even better though. Nice one!

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benbristow
Neat idea.

Might want to try moving the 'hero' carousel at the top so that the captions
are centred properly. Looks a bit jarring.

~~~
MichaelAO
Just redeployed - good call looks way better.

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op00to
For some reason the web site doesn’t work on my iPhone at all. All the text is
cut off and navigation is impossible.

~~~
MichaelAO
We haven't had time to optimize for mobile. Most of the users are kids
watching on a computer at home, but it's on the list!

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drcongo
The three shows listed on the home page all sound pretty interesting. Are the
times localised?

~~~
bvergara87
Yes! We use MomentJS Timezone to localize to your machine.

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squid_demon
Might want to fix the typo: "The username for their accunt is..."

~~~
bvergara87
_nervous laughter_...... thanks for this.

