[ANNOUNCE] Hippopotamus 0.1 - A source client for broadcasting in Ogg/Theora to an icecast2 server

[Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu randomink org>]

Hello all,

Hippopotamus is a simple GStreamer/GTK based application which lets you 
stream Ogg/Theora video to a Icecast server. In other words, it acts as 
an easy to use source client for IceCast (2.x). At present, it can only 
stream video data from v4l devices (webcams, etc) - but I plan to add 
support for audio within the next one or two releases. Hippopotamus was 
inspired by the screencasting software Istanbul, and copies heavily from it.

The name Hippopotamus
======================

Well, I think I like hippopotami, and so I named it Hippopotamus. 
Besides, it gave me the oppurtunity to create such a cool logo[1]. My 
friend Sayan, however, thinks otherwise - and here’s his explanation for 
the name:

    * Hippos » Ancient Greek word for horse - signifying fast.
    * Potamos » Ancient Greek word for river, signifying a stream.

So, the combination of Hippos and Potamos, ie, Hippopotamus stands for 
fast streamer.
OK - that was Sayan’s explanation, and not mine - I’ll simply stick to 
the fact that I have a fascination for hippopotami, and I like hippopotami.

About this release
==================

This is the very first release of Hippopotamus (codenamed "Bangalore"). 
I have just worked on it for approximately 2 days (that included my 
getting familiar with the GNOME DP and GStreamer), and the code is still 
in extreme alpha stage. It assumes that all the accessory elements of 
the streaming stack (Gstreamer, Icecast2, etc) are functioning perfectly 
and does not do _any_ kind of error checking/handling whatsoever. So 
please please, do not blame me if Hippopotamus gobbles up your entire 
harddisk or makes your head explode. Download and use it entirely at 
your own risk.

Website and download link
=========================
Homepage (screenshots):
http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings/hippopotamus/

Download link: 
http://sayamindu.randomink.org/software/hippopotamus/hippopotamus-0.1.tar.bz2

Contact:
sayamindu gnu org in


Enjoy,
Sayamindu

[1] http://sayamindu.randomink.org/images/hippo.png