On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 01:31 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM Brian Exelbierd <bex(a)pobox.com> wrote:>>
>
> On Mon, Aug 7, 2017, at 05:35 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote:
> >
> > > It might be worthwhile to record some of the talk sessions on an
> > > ad-hoc>> > > basis with the equipment you're bringing
Justin, but I don't
> > > think we>> > > should work to create high quality studios for
each room at all
> > > times.>> > >
> >
> > I'm not suggesting we create a professional recording studio in
> > each>> > room, but it would be nice to have something better than a
360p
> > webcam>> > and a mic that only picks up sound from the people a few
feet
> > around the>> > recording laptop. Even having an external microphone
for whatever>> > recording device is used for a session would be incredibly
> > valuable if>> > it meant more reliable sound.
>
> This is the proposed webcam:
>
https://www.staplesadvantage.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StplShowItem?c...
> I believe that we are planning a line in from the sound system
> in all>> rooms. I suspect, though Stephen would need to confirm that
> we could>> put a micrphone in the middle of the group and use it for
workgroup>> recordings too, while possibly turning off the big speakers.
>
OK, so here's the situation: first, we do plan to have 720p webcams,
so it won't be quite as bad as you think. The video quality on those
cameras are actually pretty good.>
As for the sound, it slightly depends on the room. Each room will have
speakers and a four-line mixer, so if we don't want to use the
speakers concurrently, we can simply mute them.>
Only the big hall has a wireless headset microphone at this time, each
of the other four rooms will have a fixed microphone on the podium
(though it may be possible to move this around to a work-table; I will
check with the A/V folks. These microphones are hooked into the mixers
which in turn have an adapter for mic-in on the recording laptops. We
will probably need to have a brief training session for the recording
volunteers prior to the start of sessions. Brian: I'd recommend we
actually throw a thirty-minute block into the schedule prior to the
formal start of the event. Addendum: we need to get a volunteer page
up as soon as the formal schedule is available and we need people to
*commit* to it. I'd actually go so far as to say we should post a
primary and an alternate for each room we want recorded, so if someone
oversleeps or falls ill, we aren't scrambling.>
Regarding the laptops, I want to make sure those and the cameras we
buy are on-site at least the evening beforehand so we can do some
preliminary test setup with them. We should bring some sort of
external audio source we can use to verify that audio input via the
mic-in is working as well. So any audio device with a mini-jack output
should suffice for this.
Would you having access to them beforehand help? I can
have one or all
of them shipped directly to you.
Next important question: what recording software should we use that is
known to work well on Fedora? I'm not an expert on this, so I'm
soliciting recommendations. It must be capable of capturing video and
audio simultaneously, because I don't think we have the human
resources to remix separate recordings after the fact. My assumption
is that we will default to using "Cheese" unless there's a compelling
reason to do otherwise.>
Note: the cameras, microphones, speakers and mixers are available ONLY
in the big hall on the last day, due to budget constraints. If
you need to record a session in one of those rooms on Friday
morning, it will by necessity be with your own equipment.>
> > I think this is something that could be done from now until
> > Flock, if>> > not from any available AV equipment at Red Hat, then by
community>> > members willing to share hardware for the week. :)
>
> My concern is that getting random hardware assembled into a
> functioning>> system and ensuring that it goes back where it is supposed to
> could be a>> huge jigsaw puzzle.
I make absolutely no promises to be able to support any recording
equipment outside of what we are planning for (which I also make no
promises for, but at least will be able to test out in advance).
Justin, if you and yours want to join me the day before in doing
test setup of the recording laptops, we *might* be able to work
something out.>
Jen/Jenni: Let's set something up and get it on the calendar for the
evening of Monday the 28th (at least an hour, possibly as much as two
if things go awry). We will need all of the loaner laptops and the
purchased webcams in front of us.
I don't know if we have a room that night or
not. I'll have to check.
We need someone to take ownership of wrangling video volunteers.
regards,
bex