On 04/13/2017 09:02 AM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Aw crud, I forgot tripods. GoPros don't work with standard tripods without an adapter. So to have them work with the 2 full size tripods we have, itcosts $6.99/piece to buy a4-pack of GoPro tripod adapters.
It's probably not going to make sense to rent more tripods as it's the same or sometimes more expensive than owning, options I'm finding:
Table top option:
- $10 cheapy table-top tripod for gopro http://a.co/i05gHWN
Full tripod option:
$15.75/camera
- $14 lightweight 50" tripod $14 http://a.co/gBSnW1T
- $1.75 1 of 4 tripod adapters in this kit http://a.co/0H85uwt
So to update the previous cost estimate - assuming we want full tripods everywhere and accounting for the 2 we have -
$70 - 5x tripods / $14/each $14 - 8x gopro tripod adapters ($6.99 / 4pack) $84 additional
New total: $705 (621+84) includes all shipping / insurance / etc
We probably want power strips / etc too but I have some I can bring from the westford office I'm sure we'll figure that out.
~m
On 04/13/2017 09:47 AM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Hi,
On 04/12/2017 08:50 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
Professional video support is very expensive, likely eating most of the additional budget we have allocated towards this year's Flock to record all the sessions that way. That's why the laptop and volunteer setup has been used in the past. We simply don't have budget to do it otherwise.
REQUIREMENTS
First off - I don't know how many rooms we need concurrently (I believe we have 7 reserved with the hotel) - but that is something we'd need to know in order to price out options. I'll assume 7 (I believe we had 7 in Krakow.)
EQUIPMENT
Next - here is equipment I have available that I can loan to this effort but may or may not be helpful:
- 1 Crown Sound Grabber Condenser Microphone (caveat, eats AA batteries)
/ Red Hat owned
- 4 Audio Technica ATR4650 Omni Condenser Computer Microphone (crappy
range, requires mic jack and most computers dont have one anymore) / Red Hat owned
- 1 Canon full size basic tripod / Red Hat owned
- 1 basic full size tripod / personally owned
- 1 table tripod / personally owned
- 1 Canon DV recorder (requires DV tapes) / Red Hat owned
I think people are more likely to loan stuff that is less likely to get broken or less expensive. E.g., I would be willing to record sessions with my personal equipment (GoPro with ZoomH1 mic) but I am a little worried about just loaning the setup to a room where I'm not present. However, I'm cool loaning my tripods out (see above) and I have a Red Hat one Denise gave me. So there, we have three tripods....
I have a set of 4 lapel mics we use for usability testing I can also loan to the cause but I don't know how helpful they would be - they're meant for in-front-of-the-computer recording and don't have great range.
This is the company we're likely going to be working with to do the projectors / screens / etc. Note they rent other equipment too. They rent mics and audio recorders. No video recorders, though. No camera tripods either:
I'm thinking a low end Go-Pro might be the best option for recording:
- Ultra wide angle means speaker has to walk a lot farther to go off-camera
- Cheap (comparatively speaking)
- Caveat: the built in mics are notoriously horrible so we need external
mics for them. I have one of these and it works pretty good, they are $20/piece - http://a.co/f0DKldc
I've found at least a couple of places (lensrentals.com, borrowlenses.com, oerentals.com) that charge between ~$30-50/7 days to rent GoPros. So here's a little price quote for that:
$621 total (w / shipping)
- (rent) $32/7 days / 1 GoPro Hero4 Silver - $224
- (own) $14/purchase/ 7 ac adapters - $98 (rent/own same price)
- (rent) $22/7 days/5 32gb mem card pack * 2 - $44
- (own) $20 x 7 gopro mics - $140
- $60 optional damage insurance for rented equip
- $55 shipping
for 7 days for 7x cameras + 7x ac adapter (so we dont have to worry about batteries dying) + 10x memory cards (with some to spare) + 7 mics.
We'd own 7 mics then (they're not just useful for gopro, might be useful in later endeavors?) and 7 gopro ac adapters (I'd be willing to buy personally and lend one to the cause, maybe others would too)
I own one of those mics and a gopro 4 (the black). In non-conference-talk filming situations it's worked well. I could test the setup ahead of time maybe at a random meeting in Westford to see how well it might work before we invest in it. The thing that's nice about the model above it is has the built-in screen for monitoring (not all gopros do.)
MANPOWER
In order to get volunteers that stick around / have some degree of accountability, have we ever thought about tying a volunteer position (e.g. monitoring X room for so many hours during the conference) to funding? As far as I know, it's been speaking gig + blog to get funding. It might be worth thinking about having more options? Maybe not even requiring speaking, a staff level of funding?
Cheers, ~m
Hi all, I realize this is an old thread, but with Flock coming up, I was wondering if there was any plans or any needs by the Flock staff for video recording equipment. I still think it will be important for us to try to make an improvement on recording equipment, and I liked Mo's proposal above.
For what it's worth, I'm already planning on bringing two 1080p HD camcorders with external mics for each. I wouldn't have an issue using these for some of the workshop rooms.