The ds106 99: #27 Synchtube and MST3K

Last night Timmmmyboy led us (Dr. Garcia, Noise Professor, Jason Toal, Rown Peter, and Mikhail Gershovich) through yet another Mystery Science Theatre 3000-like show on ds106.tv. The technical setup is actually not as complicated as you might think, we find a cheesy z-quality public domain film on YouTube and play it through Synchtube (a remarkably useful tool for watching videos together, and sharing them in one, synchronous space) so that we all can watch mock it together. We can also chat in there, as well as line-up a series of other clips we might want to discuss after the film is done. It is a genius idea and pretty wild experiment. I’m not sure how good our commentary is (it is actually quite hard to do on the fly), though we have a lot of fun doing it—and like ds106radio karaoke, it’s a really fun way connecting through the evening on an otherwise alienating late night in Fredericskburg.

One quick side note on Synctube, Tom Woodward sent out a link after his session on video with ds106 on video, and Timmmyboy picked up on it for the MST3k experiment and it is brilliant, I would recommend to anyone who wants a “room” for shared viewing of YouTube videos. It hosts up to 25 people, and I will be using it for the online Summer session on several occasions.

I just love the social elements of ds106, and the way this course cum community is actually pushing the boundaries of how to connect around these technologies socially for actually hanging out. it is wild, and for me a different level of the social web—it’s not about followers, subscribers, or number of friends,it’s about an intimate community of folks trying to see just how far the human can be injected into the virtual unknown—and there can be no doubt that a lot of what makes it so compelling for me is that is synchronous. I feel like the groundwork is being laid in all this play for re-imagining this idea of the online synchronous course—-but I may be just hyperbolizing again, but something tells me I’m not. And even if I am wrong, it is a tun of fun.

Last night’s session was on The Killer Shrews (1959) but I don’t think it is up on YouTube yet, so here’s a link to the session we did a couple of weeks back on The Giant Gila Monster (that one with Dr. Garcia, Noise Professor, Grant Potter, Jason Toal, Scottlo (?), Timmmmyboy, and who else am I missing?).

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One Response to The ds106 99: #27 Synchtube and MST3K

  1. GNA says:

    Jim.

    First, thank you for posting The Giant Gila Monster Live! video. I just enjoyed it for the second time. It was even better!

    One thing … Scottlo didn’t join us for this screening.

    You know who did? I’ll give you a few clues.

    “Where’s D’Arcy Norman?”
    “Do we know what Alan put on his pizza?”
    “Isn’t a Colt 45 a gun?”
    “I’ll be right back. I’m going to change the wash.”
    “Thank you!”
    “What are you drinking Doctor?”

    Amend your report(s) eh.
    Cheers.
    GNA

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