Movie and Tea Session: The Princess Bride
The date and time have been chosen: The movie will begin at 2:00 PM Eastern time (5 hours behind UTC) on the 29th. Since people have expressed interest from California (8 hours behind UTC) to the UK (right at UTC) that means local start times will range from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
You do not need a copy of the movie to participate. I have purchased a copy on Google Play and will stream it via Rabbit (on the web at rabb.it if you’re curious). I will post a link to my Rabbit session here in this thread about two hours before the start time. All that is required is to click on the link using either a Firefox or Chrome browser (or Safari with a special plugin). According to the Rabbit FAQ the service will support up to 15 people. Feel free to join early if you want to make sure everything is working before the start of the movie.
For Safari users, the plugin download page can be found here: https://temasys.com.sg/plugin/
For details on Rabbit see my post near the bottom of this page.
It might be best to have your chosen teas set up ahead of time. See my post at the bottom of the page for possible ideas.
I look forward to seeing you then :D
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Original message:
Roughage and I are setting up a movie and Skype video chat tea session on December 29th or 30th, and we decided to open it up to the Steepster community to see if anybody else wanted to join.
The general format would be to set several teas up ahead of time that go with themes in the movie, start our movies at the same time, watch the movie together using an online sharing service, and chat & drink gongfu tea while watching one of our favorite films.
I think it’s only fair to disclose that we’re both fanboys of this story, having seen the movie a number of times as well as read the book, so there will most likely be a fair amount of banter going on during the film. We both plan on watching the film separately a few days beforehand to refresh our memories of the details, giving us free reign to comment during the Skype session over video chat without feeling like we’re missing anything.
In terms of logistics, we’ll be watching the movie on our computers using headphones so the lack of perfect synch between our two movies won’t bleed into our microphones. As an alternative, if you wanted to watch it on your TV you could just mute your mike until you wanted to talk.
We are planning to use Rabbit (rabb.it) for this session. Browser based. No software install. Firefox, Chrome, and (with a plug-in) Safari. Only downside is this particular movie will be in 480p, not HD; this is a limitation of the particular movie source, not Rabbit itself (see discussion for details).
If you’re interested, please chime in. And if this goes well we will most likely repeat it with a different movie in the future. We envision this as a way to connect far-flung members who might otherwise never meet.
(Note that we are not firm on using Skype. Google Hangouts or some other service would work just as well. We are willing to bow to the general consensus).
Edited 15 December to reflect change from Skype to Rabbit.
Love it, though my laptop is broken so no Skype etc. for me. I could do a chat room.
Absolutely. We can work this out. Do you have a smart phone? (I’m thinking possibly WhatsApp, which does free voice over WiFi).
Love this movie, what kind of tea do you think Buttercup drinks? Humperdinck? Vincini?
I’ll be there, but how many people can Skype for free at a time? I use to other programs because of that…
P.S. I’ll be the guy with a room full of manga
We’re not married to the Skype idea, it’s just the only thing we’ve tried so far.
What other programs would be appropriate?
How intrusive are the ads on oovoo? It looks like a pretty nice package, especially with the screen sharing option but I am not a fan of ads.
Personally, I think that Google Hangouts looks like it might be the best option if I can persuade it to talk to my webcam. However, as TeaExplorer writes, we are open to other suggestions.
You all probably know best… I just used oovoo to watch Netflix with 4 people and it was nice. The ads are in the middle, you can x them but it’s manual.
In truth we don’t know best, we’re just working our way through the possible options. I’ll check out oovoo when I get a chance. Thanks for the suggestion
rinalyn — Yeah, I’m leaning that way as well. Took it for a test drive the other day. Will write up my thoughts after dinner.
Liquid Proust — ooVoo actually looks pretty good, and will be test driving it when I get a break (probably the weekend). If you’re available perhaps we could give this a try together.
I think for this first “movie and tea” session I’d like to try Rabbit just due to not needing to install software so we can attract the largest group of participants. But if ooVoo works out better for this sort of thing I’d like to have it as an option for future sessions.
Sounds fun! I’m putting a vote in for Google Hangouts. I think multiple people can do it at once…
My laptop is prone to freezing so I might be in and out if I’m available that day. I’d have to figure out how to get the movie too, it’s not on Netflix to stream… Logistics….
AHH! I was going to be pleased and say it was on Canadian Netflix, but…it’s not! I could have sworn it was, maybe the license expired.
We’ll give Hangouts another shot and see if we can work out what the problem was.
I’m not sure about prices for the DVD in Canada, but it’s available new for $6 on the US Amazon site (and possibly a little less used).
My copy is old and on VHS, haha. I’ll be away for Christmas at that point but I think it’s a great idea.
This would satisfy me on several levels, one being that I was trying to get some people to have a tea party on google hangouts last year, but it never happened because we could never all be available at the same time. And secondly, it would be so awesome to do this!!!!!
We look forward to having you! Either Roughage or I will post updates to this thread as soon as we check out the possible conferencing candidates (hopefully by this weekend).
Lariel, Veck and I sometimes use a free webbased (in browser no download) service called Rabbit to watch movies together, and it’s easy and works well. That would be my suggestion for platforms.
It works with Netflix and Hulu and Youtube… so only one person needs to have a copy or login. If it’s not on there… there is a plugin someone could get (whoever has the movie) to run from the computer.
this is like https://www.watch2gether.com – no registration required :) idk which is better but rabbit has an awesome page!
Phi — I’ve looked at Rabbit and it looks promising. The movie is not on the usual sites (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu). Can you point me to the plugin for playing from a computer? I could not find a reference to it on Rabbit’s web site or blog.
Edit — I emailed the rabbit team about the plugin question.
As a fallback, the movie is available on Google Play for $10. I’d be willing to buy it if it comes to that, but since I have it on DVD and BluRay already I’d prefer to check out the “run from a computer” option first.
yssah — watch2gether also looks like a promising site. The list of supported web sites, however, does not include any with this movie. I’ll check it out for other uses though. Thanks!
Phi — So after a couple of back and forth emails with a person at Rabbit it turns out they only support content streaming from the web, not from a user’s computer. The only plug-in they support is one to allow the Safari browser to work with their service.
This is not really an issue since I found the movie on google Play and I can stream it from there.
I’ve checked out a couple of possibilities for streaming a single copy of the movie that we all can watch, so we can eliminate both the sync issue and the need for everyone to have a copy of the movie.
Rabbit (rabb.it on the web) is a solid contender for a few reasons. You can watch the stream in a web browser (no software installation) and there are video chat “bubbles” at the bottom so we can all see each other. It allows up to 15 people according to the info I’ve read.
Rabbit requires you to use either Firefox or Chrome on your computer due to built-in support for the type of video streaming they use. It’s also possible to use Safari, but you’ll need to install a plug-in for the video streaming.
It will stream web content in HD (assuming the source material is HD). The video lag is minimal, on par with streaming the content in a browser. I only really noticed it when significant movement occurred in a scene.
The video chat bubbles can be any combination of video and audio, so people with just a microphone and not a camera can also participate.
There is one small downside which applies to just this movie. I could only find The Princess Bride in streaming format on Google Play, so I bought a copy there in order to test this out. Google Play will only stream HD in the Google Chrome browser, but Rabbit works by playing the movie in a virtual Firefox browser in the cloud. So the best resolution I could get is 480p. Assuming we are OK with watching this movie in less than HD, I’d like to vote for Rabbit.
(Note that Rabbit will stream in HD for things that play in HD in Firefox. I tried stuff from Netflix and that worked just fine).
So what do you all think? Do you want to try this approach, or are there other suggestions?
So roughage and I were discussing some possible tea choices to go along with the themes in the movie. Feel free to play along :)
For the start of the movie we’re going with something comforting. Some possible thoughts might be a Laoshan or Yunnan Black, a nice middle-aged Menghai 7542, or a favorite oolong. Choose whatever seems fitting from your collection.
For the chase scene we are going with something a little jarring, the 2012 “Xue Ju Shu Pu” Ripe with Snow Chrysanthemum from Yunnan Sourcing. roughage claims he has “spent the past few years acquiring immunity” :)
For the death / Miracle Max scene something that could lead to despair but has an uplifting finish. This one is a little more difficult but I’m leaning toward the 2010 Haiwan Peerless Ripe since the first couple of steeps are intense but then it turns more mellow and tasty. Those intense early steeps should also help wash the chrysanthemum from the palate!
For the grand finale we want something special. roughage has a 1990’s Hong Kong sheng sample and I’m thinking of either the 2003 HK Henry Special 7542 from Hou De or one of the YQH cakes from the recent group buy.
I plan to have my selections set up ahead of time in 60ml gaiwans and ready to go.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Which teas do you think would be good to drink with this movie?
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