iCarnatic.org - Live Broadcast in HD - Cleveland Aradhana

[icarnatic]

iCarnatic is a not-for-profit organization.

We will be broadcasting live Cleveland Aradhana from April 21, 2011 to May 1, 2011.

The paid concerts will be broadcast in HD Quality.

More information can be found at http://www.icarnatic.org

[suresh72]

What competitions will be broadcast?

[krishnan_subramaniam]

As you may be aware, all the competitions will happen concurrently. We will cover as many competitions as possible.
We plan to cover Pallavi and Concert competition for sure. Let us know our viewers preference. We will prioritize based on that.
Any preference?

Krishnan

http://www.icarnatic.org/concerts.htm

[Carnatic_novice]

Hello iCarnatic, I remember watching Suman Swaminathan and T.S. Sankaran concerts on your portal.
I am looking forward to enjoying the Cleveland program on your portal. This a great service.

[icarnatic]

Event Starts Apr 21... Please buy your ticket soon!

[suresh72]

Special Discount code for Premium - http://www.icarnatic.org/camagaspecial.htm I received as part of CAMAGA

Enjoy the festival.

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Dear Rasikas,

Based on the request from some of our sponsor organizations, that promote Carnatic music, we extended discount to members of those organization. We are happy to offer the same discount to members of rasikas.org as well. Please use the link provided in the previous post.

Regards

Krishnan

[arasi]

As I said in the General Discussions thread in the icarnatic.org thread, I watched part of the first concert. It's working well so far.listening to Kiranavali singing svarams in SankarAbharaNam for SankarAchAryam. Very nice!
Yes, I've caught Cleveland fever. Going to watch (listen to) as many concerts as I possibly can!

[cmlover]

I second it!
The quality is good. More clarity needed in thw audio if they can adjust...

[arasi]

When Sundaram spoke, it wasn't very clear.
...
The two Sugunas are singing. That soulful sAvEri AlApanai was interrupted for a bit

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Dear Rasikas,

Thank you for the encouraging feedback. Yes, there were some early hitches. We are learning. We will strive hard to fix those issues and continuously improve the quality. Again, thank you for your support and keep those constructive feedbacks coming in.

iCarnatic.org team

[arasi]

The kids are all doing so well in their singing and playing! It makes us feel very proud about them. I haven't watched the Carnatic IDol competitions but for one episode. How do the two compare? I am impressed at the way our kids brave the questions and instructions from an awe-inspiring panel of judges. Good luck to them and also to those who are yet to compete. I do not know any of them and I caught on to only a couple of names so far.
The audio was full of echo for a short while but that disappeared soon.Way to go, icarnatic!

[cmlover]

Yes! They are quite good. But the audio of the examiners is not good to get what they are asking. Their comments are short and muffled. iCarnatic must do somethiing to pick up the audio from a separate feed than from the PA system.

This is more realistic and objective than the Idol Telecast which had the commercial tinge. I wish the names of the participants gets announced clearly...

[sriramganapathy]

Great service for those of us who couldn't travel this weekend. Keep up the great work and God bless.

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Dear Sriram Ganapathy,

Thank you for your kind words. With these sort of encouragement we continue to bring the best coverage we can.
We also request the Rasikas to understand, we are webcasting from locations with many physical and technical constraints. If there are some snags please understand and hang in there.

If I may add one more request, as we all know we cannot deliver these sort of coverage without human and financial resources. Rasikas can help us subscribing to one of our paid packages.

Thanks to all those who have supported us.

Regards

iCarnatic Team

[cmlover]

Good work iCarnatic Team
The competition telecast (free) was excellent. We expect better service for the paid ones. Participating Rasikas may post their comments here for your benefit so that you can provide feedback. Also tell us technical details on how best to watch! I am getting the feeds at 50-100 kB/sec
Do note that the audios are very important for CM. Hence if you can allocate greater bandwidth for audio, it will be nice. Again pl get a separate feed from the speakers (instead of the PA system to avoid the ambient noise) so that we have clarity in the spoken sounds.
You may consider special rate ($10-$20) for just selected popular special programs for the benefit of those who do not have the time to watch everything as in the general package...

[thenpaanan]

I have subscribed to the Premium package but my parents who were watching it told me that they were not able to watch the "Inauguration of Vazhuvoor Sri Ramaiah Pillai Centenary Year Celebrations" as listed in the program. I was not home at the time so I do not know what the issue was. Did anyone else experience this? The competition broadcast was fine, so I wonder if this was some confusion between free and premium package programming.

-Then Paanan

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Hello Thenpaanan,

We did webcast the "Inauguration of Vazhuvoor Sri Ramaiah Pillai Centenary Year Celebrations".
We had large number of paid customers online and enjoyed the program. We monitor the broadcast from 4 different locations to address issues promptly.

I am not sure what the confusion was. Are you able to watch the current program (Ramayana)?

[arasi]

Then Paanan,
I was busy around that time. I did see a moment of JAyanthi's dance...and at the end, an announcement about BMK's concert at the Pittsburgh temple by an office holder. Hope you all could watch the bAla kANDam. What an ambitious project! Cleveland pulled it off with aplomb. Though I thought the production was a tiny bit long, I could see so many talented young people doing their best, whichever part of the world they came from--and the children who did the story research.
Savithri Jagannatha Rao has to be commended.
The mini stage on stage generated such good music. Anahita and other vocalists were excellent. Ranjani Ramakrishnan's violin was sweet sounding as usual but at times sang sweeter.
And now to the brilliant man for the grand music whih made this performance a superb affair. The rAgapravAham did not stop. Ravikiran had woven endless rAgams into this work and the rAgamAlikAs just sparkled. As I said, it was at the end that I felt that it was a bit too long when I wondered where paraSurAmA was. He did make a brief appearance!
Dr. Sudha Sesahayyan brought a new perspective to the three characters of KauSika, Ahalya and PAraSurAmA (but Ravikiran said he stayed strictly with vAlmIki). SS's account about Ahalya was fascinating. How differently she's depicted in various works. How in Pudumaip pittan's story she becomes stone again (she does that in one of my poems too!).
An evening well spent, watching great performance...

[cmlover]

Kudos to Ravikiran and Savithri Jagannath Rao for a superb production. I lost track of the ragas woven into this...
The dancers mostly US based did an excellent job. Some visuals in the background would have made it even better.
An enjoyable start of the Festival. Credit goes toVVS for pulling it together...

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Hello thenpaanan,

Hope you were able to watch rest of the program yesterday. If you have any issues, please initiate a live chat session from our Upcoming concerts page. We will try our level best to resolve the issue. Thanks to our volunteers -- we monitor the broadcast from 4 different locations (Auditorium, US NC, Germany and India). And all the volunteers are in constant sync and we try to address the issues then and there. We sure hope, you will have a pleasant experience.

Dear Rasikas,

Following are the couple of issues we have heard and the resolution:

1. I not able to hear:
Closing the browser and reopening has fixed the problem
2. I am getting an error this ticket is in use by someone else --
If you have shared the ticket with another person or try to access the program from two different computers, you will get this error. You will see a link on the error message to restart the session on your desired system. Please do not share your ticket.

3. I am getting an error - You are prohibited from accessing this program
In some cases, folks without valid ticket try to view it with invalid ticket; genuine error
In some cases, valid tickets are also getting this error -- In those cases please clear your browser history
[This will vary from Browser to Browser -- Firefox (tools -> Clear Private data); Google Chrome (Clear Browsing Data);
Safari (Safari --> Clear Cache) ] and then restart the browser;
You can access the content, by directly clicking the link that was included in your email.
We have seen few cases of - incorrect copy and paste; in some cases folks trying to use pay-pal transaction id as the ticket-id.

Hope these tips will help and improve your viewing experience. We request fellow rasikas who may have experienced similar problem to help each other by posting useful guidance.

Regards

iCarnatic Team

[shankarabharanam]

Today there was clear delay.. Because currently I am watching it on ekutcheri and the pancharatna broadcast hasn't started in your site

[arasi]

From eight, nothing at all. I sent the paypal receipt as asked by you and the mail came back undelivered. You say you have to deal with a few who misuse your service--but we are disappointed that though we have paid for it and are using only one computer, we are denied access! Please help...

[suma]

http://www.ekutcheri.com/view.html?id=12

arasi - watch here until icarnatic is back on. about 60 people are viewing now

[arasi]

Thanks suma!I watched for a few minutes, but icarnatic is back now!

[arasi]

pancharatnam singing was harmonious, considering it was a mix of veterans, stars and 'local' singers. Should I say it? It was far superior to the one we hear at the saint's birthplace
Was impressed to hear there are a hundred musicians who have come from India.
The children's singing after that made me very happy--now, they are sitting in a group and presenting TyagarAjA's story with a bit of singing...

[arasi]

CML,
Are you and others watching? They are presenting it as a villup pATTu! Cute! The maNipravALam speaking caters to all in the audience.

[arasi]

The afternoon program so far (as much as I can watch) is topnotch. Sustaining Sampradaya it is where about two dozen children are
singing and veteran dancers like Rhada danced to their singing, the young musicians being the primary performers!I I'm afraid I do not know much about dance to know the name of the other two that I saw
Now the children are each singing a snatch of a rAgam. All such bhAvam-laden singing!

[nadhasudha]

iCarnatic - Thanks for the initiative in bringing us the festival into our homes - I appreciate the service. I was checking to see the service and from my observations of the programs shown on the free channel I was satisfied with what I saw. One place where I would like to provide feedback is in terms of ability to view programs that are not live. I do not think this feature is currently available for the paid services - correct my understanding if I am wrong.

This is a big factor for me as I work outside the home and if I subscribe to your service, I would like the ability to watch it later at a time when my schedule permits. Availability of this feature would be welcome.

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Dear Nadhasudha,

Thank you for your encouraging words. Much appreciated. Yes, we are NOT recording the Cleveland aradhana programs as per the wishes of the artists. Even if you catch couple of concerts in the evenings or over the weekend, you would have got your money's worth.
In any case, all the proceed goes to Aradhana to promote our culture.

Regards

Krishnan

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Dear Rasikas,

We realize many of you were waiting for the Something Unique program yesterday. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the broadcast at the request of the artist. We sincerely hope you will understand and respect artists wishes.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Regards

iCarnatic Team

[cmlover]

Can you provide the statistics on how many have signed-up for the Paid program in India as well as outside (especially US/Canada) so that we can gauge the general interest in CM ?

[arasi]

iCarnatic.org,
krishnan_subramanian,
Thank you for bringing Cleveland to my home. Considering the number of hours I watched, the few glitches and pauses in the streaming didn't matter much at all! Next year, you're going to make it even better, no doubt!
Thanks again!

[krishnan_subramaniam]

Hello Arasi and fellow rasikas,

Thank you for your support. We will strive hard to continue to improve the quality. There are many factors, that are beyond our control, which can impact overall quality. We will do our best to bring best quality possible.

To answer your question you hand sent me through Rasikas admin -- Yes, at the request of Great Lakes Aradhana Committee, we will webcasting portions of 2011 Sarovar festival (May 6th thru 8th). One of the featured concerts we will webcast will be Smt. Jayalakshmi Santhanam's concert. GLAC is lining up few others for webcast. We will send out announcements shortly in this and other forums.

Regards

iCarnatic Team

[thenpaanan]

iCarnatic.org,
krishnan_subramanian,
Thank you for bringing Cleveland to my home. Considering the number of hours I watched, the few glitches and pauses in the streaming didn't matter much at all! Next year, you're going to make it even better, no doubt!
Thanks again!

I would like to add my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the icarnatic folks who did a wonderful job in my view of letting us enjoy the Cleveland Aradhana from home. Sure, there were many possibilities for improvement, but the overall quality of broadcast was uniformly good, especially considering that this is the first time. All great things begin somewhere and that somewhere is usually not perfect but "merely" good. iCarnatic's broadcast was better than good and I am sure it will become great in the years to come. Congratulations and thanks again for a great listener experience.

-Then Paanan

[maduraimini]

Thank you, icarnatic for bringing us the Cleveland program. I had problems and it was frustrating as it will not let me get in. Kept saying' "error. only paid subscribers". I was a paid subscriber and had to go through help all the time. I even missed some important ones. But the help people were very good and tried their Best and made sure I can see the program. I enjoyed it. Thanks.