BBC iMP at MIX 06
Got involved with building a WPF application to show off the BBC's Integrated Media Player (iMP). The idea is that if you miss a TV program on the BBC, you can download it to your PC and watch it up to a week afterwards.
The project was a real success despite numerous setbacks and Bill Gates and Ashley Highfield (Director of New Media at the BBC) showed the demo at the MIX 06 conference in Las Vegas. I was backstage pressing all the buttons - very stressful!
It was a real eductaion seeing how much kit is used in these events - the backstage area looked like a trailer park. All the equipment is duplicated with a backup so even the projectors that display the screens are actually two projectors accurately focussed so you only see one image. If one blows then the other just carries on.
All of the machines are duplicated too with a high quality KVM switch to switch over to backup if needed. During Scott Guthrie's talk where he was typing code live into the machine, another guy was backstage typing the same code into the backup machine in case the main machine went down! Amazing.
Yes, we used the backup on our demo - when I came to play the high-def video the Vista Media Center machine froze so I quickly switched to backup. There's a 12 second gap if you watch the video (we start at about 39 minutes in):