Norway Day 360 Slow TV from Ålesund

Courtesy TV2 Nyhetene Facebook Page

Gratulerer med dagen!

Happy Norway Day! Today Norway has a national holiday celebrating its Constitution Day.

How fitting that one of the national channels, TV2, is doing a Slow TV style broadcast via the internet.

Facebook and Norwegian broadcaster TV2, have created a Live 360 video experience from the top of a mountain, overlooking the beautiful fjords of Ålesund in Norway.

For the first time ever, people around the world can be transported to Norway and experience in 360 the calming water and sun over this beautiful mountain enclosed fjord for the whole day. All live and fully immersive.

With the sun due to set at 22:33 CEST (13:33 California PDT, 16:33 New York EDT), people can tune in to bring a relaxing moment to their day, no matter where there are watching from.

To experience this unique viewpoint of a Norwegian fjord you can go to TV 2’s Facebook Page on mobile, desktop or VR headset.

If you are viewing without a 360 headset of Google Cardboard type devices for mobile, the image will display flat, as in the inset picture.

The camera will continue to broadcast until 23:00 local time (22:00 BST, 17:00 EDT, 14:00 PDT).

TV2 have previously produced a major Slow TV project, "Fly Med Oss" - Fly with Us in May and June 2014 - with helicopter journeys from every airport in Norway. 

Fly Med Oss was the first commercial Slow TV project and won the Beyond HD Achievement in Image Capture award at the TVBAwards in London in 2014, beating the BBC and two other nominees. A short taster on this YouTube clip below, more on YouTube.

If you want further livestreamed Slow TV style webcams outside of the TV2 transmission, the webcam from Fløyen, Bergen is a fantastic location for keeping an eye on people and the panorama there, or a dedicated birdwatching and northern lights channel from Norway at Zooom.

New to The Slow TV Blog? See social media links, notable internal links or to get in touch, the media centre page.

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NRK Slow TV 2016 Review - Was Fjos (Barn) Slow TV?

An interview with Thomas Hellum and Rune Møklebust of NRK Hordaland and producers of Slow TV, catching up with Slow TV events in 2016, some of the conceptualising around Slow TV and exciting Slow TV plans in Norway for 2017.

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Is Slow TV coming to the Mid West?

Further UPDATE, April 2016...

Prerecorded web Slow TV has indeed arrived in the Mid West; FoodFarmsCSA now have a few videos available on their channel.

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UPDATE on the story originally posted below on 17th December

Hear an interview on the Green Visions feature from KUMD Duluth Public Radio, Lisa Johnson talks with Janaki Fisher-Merrit of Food Farms - at this link here. Updated 21st January 2016.

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You may have wondered "Will Norwegian Slow TV ever arrive in the USA? Even in the Mid West?" Well, a family run organic farm in Wrenshall, Minnesota is bringing "Food Farm Slow TV" to the web. 

A short taster clip on YouTube gives the suggestion that this is going to be a web based Slow TV of the type closer to 'Wallpaper TV' or 'Ambient TV' where small details change. It looks to be similar in spirit to the engaging web based Slow TV now broadcast online from the Czech Republic.

Watch the rotating potatoes and occasional darting green gloved hand with the ambient noise of the machinery feeding the produce along. What questions does this make you ask? What are the selection criteria? Where are the spuds coming from? What happens next? Enjoy the taters teasing you with their clip...

Coincidentally just this week Norwegians Worldwide shared on their advent calendar on Facebook that Minnesota has 851,000 Norwegians - the greatest number of Norwegians in any state in the USA.

Norwegian Slow TV has already been transmitted from the Mid West when the First Lutheran Church, the Luren Singing Society and Northern Lights choirs from Decorah, Iowa - just 279 miles drive south from Wrenshall - took part via satellite link in the marathon Hymn Book Slow TV broadcast from Trondheim in November 2014.

Ponderings on a TV broadcast in the USA in 2016 can be found here; and there's a BBC4 broadcast on Christmas Eve of reindeer pulling a sledge for two hours. More details here. 

Food Farm has an extensive blog worth looking at here, a Facebook Page, Instagram and Twitter. 

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Czech Slow TV! Česká Slow TV!

One of the Live Slow TV streams on

slowtv.playtvak.cz

A delightful discovery and the first dedicated and branded online Slow TV channel is hosted at slowtv.playtvak.cz . The channel consists of webcams but is not diminished for it. Besides archive transmissions, there are live feeds from many types of subject. 

At the time of writing there are five feeds : an airport runway, complete with radio between pilots and air traffic control (sometimes in English); a winter view across the River Vltava Prague; a bird feeder (reminiscent of NRK’s ‘Piip Show’); a waste incinerating plant where monstrous grabbers lift refuse into chutes - watching pigeons peck over the rubbish, dodge machinery and bits of bag waft around a bit like the carrier bag in ‘American Beauty’. My favourite one has been the ‘lubricating tram’ live feed around Prague centre. 

I was at first bemused thinking it was a translation error from Google Chrome’s translate feature (yes, Slow TV’s exciting - but THAT exciting!) - but in fact it is a tram which is dedicated to oiling the tram tracks on Prague’s street tram network. Tuning in at night when it had been raining, the streets were dark but reflective. Watching the tram icon on the map mark where the vehicle was going and the interactions of lights, vehicles and people - it worked for me. Turning the volume down to just audible and then having my own music (Classic FM) playing worked wonderfully and gave a nice cosy feel before bed (check out the Danish word ‘hygge’ for the best sense).

Late Night Lubricating Tram Slow TV

slowtv.playtvak.cz

Keeping an eye on the Facebook page for slowtv.playtvak.cz it's clear some have been having fun interacting with the live broadcast from the tram, even getting on it a time or too with a swift stop and a berating from the driver. The hook line on the banner reads -"Napínavé příběhy se dějí právě v tomto okamžiku. Zpomalte a klidně se dívejte. Nebo rovnou sami zasáhněte do děje!" - which translates as "Exciting stories are happening at this very moment. Slow down and calmly look. Or directly intervene themselves into action!".

It may not be as high a production broadcast via TV signal as NRK but remains engaging and interesting - a wallpaper TV which may or may not do very much while you have it. But there’s the hook - something could happen. I’ll certainly be getting to know Prague a little better. If you’re wondering about translating, using Chrome, right click on a blank piece of page and click “translate to....” whichever language your default language is on.

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