The Internet Device That Stopped Me From Going Crazy

 September 28, 2022 -


Hi everybody, it's Mark Rushton...

After moving to the new studio space, I've had nothing but problems with the CenturyLink fiber internet.  I'll spare you the details, but they're sending out another tech next week.  I think they'll get it fixed eventually, but it's just frustrating.

Unfortunately, there's not another internet company providing service to my location.  Maybe in the future Google Fiber will be out here, or Mediacom, or somebody else.

Using my phone as a hotspot wasn't going to cut it, and something like Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service seemed like overkill, is expensive, and there's a wait list.

All the cell phone companies offer some kind of 5G internet now, and the simplest for me seemed to be T-Mobile's 5G Gateway internet device.  I haven't previously been a T-Mobile customer.

The order process was easy.  The device was here in a couple of days.  It was dead simple to set up.  And the speeds here are very good.  Price as of when I write this is $50 a month.

After placing the device near a window, and sitting nearby on an iPad, I got well over 100mb down and 50mb up.  Checking from my lower level studio spaces, I was able to get 47mb down and 15mb up.



Using the T-Mobile device, my Gateway laptop, and a basic Logitech webcam, I recorded a livestream painting demonstration in "Studio One" using Streamyard, and it was broadcast live to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.

This recording seemed to go quite well.  I didn't get any notifications from Streamyard that they had a troublesome connection.  In the past, when I tried to "go live" using the CenturyLink fiber internet, every livestream would slow down to the point of video glitching or dropping out, and Streamyard's software would complain about it.  I didn't get any complaints from Streamyard when connected to the T-Mobile device.

However, when I watched the replay, my voice sounded like Alvin & The Chipmunks!  That's kind of a bummer, but I also think it's funny so I'm leaving the video up.  I'm guessing the built-in microphone on the webcam is bad, or I had the wrong setting for the microphone source, so I'll play around with that before attempting another livestream.



The main point of doing all this is to regularly produce video content for the services I'm on:  YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, BitChute, Odysee, and Rumble.

I want to do live painting videos of works in progress.  Live art sales.  Gallery tours.  Discussions of completed works.  Maybe interviews with other artists.

The other thing I'm doing, and I did this a few years ago, is make "speeded up videos" of me painting.  I take the video recording, put it into a cheap program like FilmForth on Windows, trim the ends a little, mute the sound, speed the video up, and then add a soundtrack of my music.  I made a new speeded up video of painting recently, although it was with my smartphone and it's not the best quality because of the auto-focus - something I'd try to fix in the next video.  These paintings have gotten a decent number of views over the years, and they help promote not only my gallery but my music, too.  They're easy to make, and I have fun making them.




That's all for now....  more next week!

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