Hi everybody,
I read through the set of blogs posted about last year's Flock to try to distill all the ideas / suggestions folks had written about for this year. (https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/list-of-flock-blogs-and-more/)
---
Lots of notes on logistics and organization. Highlights:
- Challenge of scheduling Fedora Engineeringteam talks as to not conflict - 10 sessions canceled; usually only 2-3. Need to figure out why / manage itto try to avoid so many. - Remove schedule from booklet, have wall schedule - Telegram vs. IRC confusion, too many places to monitor."I would advocate for coming up with an online discussion plan well in advance of the conference next year and sticking to it." - Wifi not sufficient to stream all sessions. Recorded sessions and post after (except for diversity panel which streamed.) Should make a policy on this probably. (Q: what if we streamed audio-only? Would this save bandwidth?)
http://jwboyer.livejournal.com/53056.html
---
Takeaway here is to make the transit options really clear. I'm thinking of making some maps of how to get the airport bus, having a photo fo the pickup point and also the drop off point in Hyannis.
http://www.colliernotes.com/2016/08/fedora-flock-2016-day-1.html
---
Nice pictures of some collateral, notes about the wallschedule and maybe we better not put a schedule in the booklet and instead do the wall schedule as a regular thing:
http://www.ryanlerch.org/blog/flock-2016-krakow/
---
Panels should be more than an hour (not sure about this tho, that seems excessive to me)
Moderation needs to be stricter in panels so it's not dominated by a few of the panelists
https://whatamithinks.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/480/ ---
Miscommunication situation to avoid with speakers:
"I was a bit relaxed after that and didn’t worry much when there was no further contact by FLOCK organizers for hotel and travel bookings. But by early July, I was panicking a lot ! Turns out, I had registered for FLOCK using a different email id (non f.p.o one) and submitted the talk using my f.p.o email id and hence was dropped from the list of sponsored attendees. Anyway, thanks to FLOCK organizers and especially, Joe Brockmier it all worked out in the end since I was already in Berlin for my research work and didn’t need a new visa ! So come August 2, I was all set and ready to fly to FLOCK.."
https://networksfordata.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/flock-diaries-krakow-2016/
---
- flock proxy setup - if we can do this again would be nice, should get the word out about it well in advance and have it in messaging including the booklet
- rideshare page - will be good to have this setup for getting folks from Hyannis station to the hotel
- volunteer organization - we can use volunteers for time reminders for speakers as well as IRC transcription and video recording
https://www.scrye.com/wordpress/nirik/2013/08/06/flock-notes-of-interest/
Cheers,
~m
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 4:18 PM, Máirín Duffy duffy@redhat.com wrote:
Miscommunication situation to avoid with speakers:
"I was a bit relaxed after that and didn’t worry much when there was no further contact by FLOCK organizers for hotel and travel bookings. But by early July, I was panicking a lot ! Turns out, I had registered for FLOCK using a different email id (non f.p.o one) and submitted the talk using my f.p.o email id and hence was dropped from the list of sponsored attendees. Anyway, thanks to FLOCK organizers and especially, Joe Brockmier it all worked out in the end since I was already in Berlin for my research work and didn’t need a new visa ! So come August 2, I was all set and ready to fly to FLOCK.."
Flock 1, we didn't ask for email address if you didn't list your FAS id, and that was a mistake. We had piles of people we couldn't contact. So IIRC, the form got edited to require FAS id, but the result is that as much as 25-30% of the emails in FAS bounce, at least based on the number of failures I received. So that doesn't quite work either.
(FWIW, we had something similar happen to a speaker in RH Summit this year, so Flock isn't alone in people registering and submitting with different email addresses.)
On 04/12/2017 04:39 PM, Ruth Suehle wrote:
Flock 1, we didn't ask for email address if you didn't list your FAS id, and that was a mistake. We had piles of people we couldn't contact. So IIRC, the form got edited to require FAS id, but the result is that as much as 25-30% of the emails in FAS bounce, at least based on the number of failures I received. So that doesn't quite work either.
Maybe a feature to ask Patrick for would be email verification?
~m
On 04/12/2017 10:18 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
- Wifi not sufficient to stream all sessions. Recorded sessions and post
after (except for diversity panel which streamed.) Should make a policy on this probably. (Q: what if we streamed audio-only? Would this save bandwidth?)
This is something I should have probably blogged about too (thanks Mo for pulling all of this feedback together).
I'd like to make a case for this year's Flock to also put extra consideration into planning out how our talks are recorded and documented.
As some background context, I processed all of Flock 2016's recordings on YouTube after they were uploaded en masse. All of the talks are documented here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flock_2016_Talks
Because of this, I am familiar with some of the successes and challenges that happened, and also followed along with discussions and feedback on social media pages / comments after we published all of the videos. Consequentially, I'd mostly like to request improved recording infrastructure for this year's Flock.
In 2015 and 2016, recording laptops for each room have been used to record the talks. Talks are recorded using Cheese and then the raw recording file is uploaded directly to YouTube. Last year, the OpenQA room's laptop had a faulty microphone, and all talks in that room are without audio. We also lost all of the files for part of Day 1 and all of Day 2 for Picasso (keynote room).
Flock is a valuable opportunity where a large part of the Fedora community gathers together in person to work on key parts of the project. Not only are the discussion topics valuable for attendees to reference back later on after the event, but the talks are also a key opportunity for us to communicate the things we're working outward with a wider audience beyond the contributor community. This was something that was commented on heavily after Flock in our public presences (social media accounts, Telegram community groups, etc.). People noted that many interesting talks weren't recorded or documented (or had audio issues) and also noted that even the recorded ones were difficult to follow because sometimes speakers were off-camera or their slides weren't available with the recording (and the slides were off-camera, so a lot of context was missing).
I see it as a valuable opportunity for us to invest heavier into improved video infrastructure for this year to both help communicate outward about the things we're doing to a wider (and very interested) audience and to help contributors reflect back on our discussions and topics throughout the year (and be able to follow what's happening from the recordings). And especially seeing how widely the Fedora community is dispersed and how we'll never be able to fund everyone to make it to Flock, wherever we host it, I see it as a valuable investment for our contributors at home who want to follow along remotely as best they can.
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Justin W. Flory jflory7@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2017 10:18 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
- Wifi not sufficient to stream all sessions. Recorded sessions and post
after (except for diversity panel which streamed.) Should make a policy on this probably. (Q: what if we streamed audio-only? Would this save bandwidth?)
This is something I should have probably blogged about too (thanks Mo for pulling all of this feedback together).
I'd like to make a case for this year's Flock to also put extra consideration into planning out how our talks are recorded and documented.
<snip a lot of good description of problems>
I see it as a valuable opportunity for us to invest heavier into improved video infrastructure for this year to both help communicate outward about the things we're doing to a wider (and very interested) audience and to help contributors reflect back on our discussions and topics throughout the year (and be able to follow what's happening from the recordings). And especially seeing how widely the Fedora community is dispersed and how we'll never be able to fund everyone to make it to Flock, wherever we host it, I see it as a valuable investment for our contributors at home who want to follow along remotely as best they can.
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.
So what do you propose for solutions otherwise?
josh
On 04/13/2017 02:50 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Justin W. Flory jflory7@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2017 10:18 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
- Wifi not sufficient to stream all sessions. Recorded sessions and post
after (except for diversity panel which streamed.) Should make a policy on this probably. (Q: what if we streamed audio-only? Would this save bandwidth?)
This is something I should have probably blogged about too (thanks Mo for pulling all of this feedback together).
I'd like to make a case for this year's Flock to also put extra consideration into planning out how our talks are recorded and documented.
<snip a lot of good description of problems>
I see it as a valuable opportunity for us to invest heavier into improved video infrastructure for this year to both help communicate outward about the things we're doing to a wider (and very interested) audience and to help contributors reflect back on our discussions and topics throughout the year (and be able to follow what's happening from the recordings). And especially seeing how widely the Fedora community is dispersed and how we'll never be able to fund everyone to make it to Flock, wherever we host it, I see it as a valuable investment for our contributors at home who want to follow along remotely as best they can.
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.
So what do you propose for solutions otherwise?
josh
I don't think that a professional video team or support is required, but I would like to see us utilize better hardware or usage of resources we do have available. For example, even a microphoned camera on a tripod set up in the middle / side of the room would be a significant improvement in my eyes. Assuming we have a similar number of rooms as last year (near 6), would it be possible to find six cameras, microphones, and tripods in either of the Raleigh or Westford Red Hat offices?
I also think that it could be possible to coordinate volunteers to help assist with camera set-up and recording too. We ask attendees to volunteer for timing reminders / transcriptions, so I don't think it would be much more work to ask for volunteers to start and stop recording a talk too. How to use the cameras / hardware could be a part of the pre-Flock volunteer training session, like we had last year.
The bind would be that at the end, someone or a group of people would have to manually dump the video from the cameras onto a computer before uploading them to YouTube, but I feel like this is something we could hopefully justify the manpower for (the only extra step from previous years is importing from camera to computer).
I would like to emphasize that we don't have to think too big here or spend thousands on a complicated video set-up. But I feel like almost anything would be better than what we have now. If finding the hardware is a concern, I almost feel like you could ask attendees if they would be willing to loan any hardware for the event. It doesn't need to be Hollywood-grade cameras with lapel microphones and switching angles, but the goal should be to better capture the purpose and discussion for every talk / workshop. To me, a camera on a tripod with an external microphone for every room would be a significant improvement.
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 9:19 PM, Justin W. Flory jflory7@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/13/2017 02:50 AM, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Justin W. Flory jflory7@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2017 10:18 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
- Wifi not sufficient to stream all sessions. Recorded sessions and post
after (except for diversity panel which streamed.) Should make a policy on this probably. (Q: what if we streamed audio-only? Would this save bandwidth?)
This is something I should have probably blogged about too (thanks Mo for pulling all of this feedback together).
I'd like to make a case for this year's Flock to also put extra consideration into planning out how our talks are recorded and documented.
<snip a lot of good description of problems>
I see it as a valuable opportunity for us to invest heavier into improved video infrastructure for this year to both help communicate outward about the things we're doing to a wider (and very interested) audience and to help contributors reflect back on our discussions and topics throughout the year (and be able to follow what's happening from the recordings). And especially seeing how widely the Fedora community is dispersed and how we'll never be able to fund everyone to make it to Flock, wherever we host it, I see it as a valuable investment for our contributors at home who want to follow along remotely as best they can.
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.
So what do you propose for solutions otherwise?
josh
I don't think that a professional video team or support is required, but I would like to see us utilize better hardware or usage of resources we do have available. For example, even a microphoned camera on a tripod set up in the middle / side of the room would be a significant improvement in my eyes. Assuming we have a similar number of rooms as
We did that in Charleston. Guess what happened? Nobody put the SD card in and the mic didn't work so we lost the first 1/2 day in the big room. Equipment is only as good as the people that run it (or don').
last year (near 6), would it be possible to find six cameras, microphones, and tripods in either of the Raleigh or Westford Red Hat offices?
IIRC, the one camera we had in Charleston had to be purchased. Red Hat is a software company, not a movie studio :).
I also think that it could be possible to coordinate volunteers to help assist with camera set-up and recording too. We ask attendees to volunteer for timing reminders / transcriptions, so I don't think it would be much more work to ask for volunteers to start and stop recording a talk too. How to use the cameras / hardware could be a part of the pre-Flock volunteer training session, like we had last year.
Tried this as well. It's hit or miss.
The bind would be that at the end, someone or a group of people would have to manually dump the video from the cameras onto a computer before uploading them to YouTube, but I feel like this is something we could hopefully justify the manpower for (the only extra step from previous years is importing from camera to computer).
That is work that has had to be done every flock ever. I don't see how it's different.
I would like to emphasize that we don't have to think too big here or spend thousands on a complicated video set-up. But I feel like almost anything would be better than what we have now. If finding the hardware is a concern, I almost feel like you could ask attendees if they would be willing to loan any hardware for the event. It doesn't need to be Hollywood-grade cameras with lapel microphones and switching angles, but the goal should be to better capture the purpose and discussion for every talk / workshop. To me, a camera on a tripod with an external microphone for every room would be a significant improvement.
If volunteers which to make that happen, then that would be fantastic.
I'm not trying to block progress, but I'm skeptical magical cameras with awesome mics will show up. I'm further skeptical that we'll get significant more volunteer participation to run them in a consistent manner any more than the laptops have been run.
josh
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
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
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
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.
I like the idea, plus I can bring a tripod with me if it is needed.
Regards,
-- Zacharias Mitzelos <mitzie at mitzelos dot com> mitzie on freenode http://zacharias.mitzelos.com
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017, at 20:27, Justin W. Flory wrote:
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.
-- Cheers, Justin W. Flory jflory7@gmail.com
flock-planning mailing list -- flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to flock-planning-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Email had 1 attachment:
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On Sat, Aug 5, 2017, at 07:27 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote: == clip ==
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.
Stephen Gallagher is, I believe, taking point on this.
We have 5 simultaneous tracks (max). Right now, I think the plan is to use a line in from the room sound system to the computer to ensure good audio and to use an external webcam to capture the video. I don't know that we need much more than that as a lot of our sessions are "do" and not "talk" so there is less to record that has value long after the event.
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.
regards,
bex
On 08/07/2017 05:02 AM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017, at 07:27 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote:
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.
Stephen Gallagher is, I believe, taking point on this.
We have 5 simultaneous tracks (max). Right now, I think the plan is to use a line in from the room sound system to the computer to ensure good audio and to use an external webcam to capture the video. I don't know that we need much more than that as a lot of our sessions are "do" and not "talk" so there is less to record that has value long after the event.
From my past experiences at Flock, even at more "workshop"-oriented sessions, I've wished that I could reference a better recording later on to recall something that was discussed / remember who brought up an idea / follow up on something that happened in the workshop. In previous years, I felt more obligated to write all of this down myself, and it would have been easier to know that I could trust a reliable audio/video recording so I could do less live note-taking and do more summarizing after the session.
With this year's Flock being more focused on doing, I think reliable video recordings are more important so they can be used as a frame of reference after the conference. Seeing the room, who is talking, and remembering everything that is discussed by going through the video would be useful. Since I know there will be multiple sessions I want to attend but likely won't be able to make some because of scheduling conflicts, it would be helpful for me to have reliable AV of a session so I can stay up-to-date on what is covered and try to contribute to the discussion after the session, even if I'm not in the room.
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.
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. :)
On Mon, Aug 7, 2017, at 05:35 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote:
On 08/07/2017 05:02 AM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017, at 07:27 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote:
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.
Stephen Gallagher is, I believe, taking point on this.
We have 5 simultaneous tracks (max). Right now, I think the plan is to use a line in from the room sound system to the computer to ensure good audio and to use an external webcam to capture the video. I don't know that we need much more than that as a lot of our sessions are "do" and not "talk" so there is less to record that has value long after the event.
From my past experiences at Flock, even at more "workshop"-oriented sessions, I've wished that I could reference a better recording later on to recall something that was discussed / remember who brought up an idea / follow up on something that happened in the workshop. In previous years, I felt more obligated to write all of this down myself, and it would have been easier to know that I could trust a reliable audio/video recording so I could do less live note-taking and do more summarizing after the session.
With this year's Flock being more focused on doing, I think reliable video recordings are more important so they can be used as a frame of reference after the conference. Seeing the room, who is talking, and remembering everything that is discussed by going through the video would be useful. Since I know there will be multiple sessions I want to attend but likely won't be able to make some because of scheduling conflicts, it would be helpful for me to have reliable AV of a session so I can stay up-to-date on what is covered and try to contribute to the discussion after the session, even if I'm not in the room.
I dont' understand this because of the way that I consume media. That doesn't make it wrong, it is just a sentiment I have almost never had. However, I also recognize that everyone is different and if you're bringing this up then there are a bunch of people who feel the same way who have not yet spoken.
If we can make this work, let's do it. We are mostly going to be resource constrained, as you note below.
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?cata...
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.
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.
regards,
bex
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@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?cata...
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.
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.
Stephen,
Absolutely. I will coordinate with Jen - she is out of pocket this morning, but we will figure something out for that Monday night and let everyone know as soon as we do.
Thanks!
Jenni
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 7:31 AM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@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?catalogId=4&item_id=52544131&langId=-1& currentSKUNbr=325808&storeId=10101&itemType=1&addWE1ToCart= true&documentID=9414ef5595443425e76f523ee687a6aafec44b2b
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.
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.
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 01:31 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@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?cata... 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
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 11:04 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 01:31 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@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?cata...
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.
Yes, but I don't think I'll be able to bring them as I'm coming to Flock directly off a family vacation (and I don't want to be lugging Flock equipment around where my kids might grab them).
I think we'll probably be okay with just the night before; the cameras we plan to order are on the known-working list. It will hopefully just be a quick plug-in and confirm that it records successfully.
I played around a little with Cheese today and it *should* work, but we're going to need a goodly amount of available hard drive space on these machines. To be absolutely certain we have enough space, we're going to need about 2GiB of disk per hour of recording. (Realistically, it's probably a little closer to 1.5GiB per hour, but I'd rather have the leeway).
So, the laptops need to have about 72GiB of free space available to accommodate our needs. (9 hours a day, four days at 2GiB per hour).
Yes, I know that some rooms may not be recording all the time, but I'd rather have too much space than too little, especially if someone forgets to shut the recording off at any point.
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.
We don't need a formal room for this; Making sure this works can be done in a hotel room. We just need the equipment.
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 12:00 PM Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:\
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.
I just got word back on this; the wired mics will be installed with long cords, so if we want to move them to a table during a hack session, we can do that.
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 06:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Yes, but I don't think I'll be able to bring them as I'm coming to Flock directly off a family vacation (and I don't want to be lugging Flock equipment around where my kids might grab them).
cool - we will ship to either BOS or the venue.
So, the laptops need to have about 72GiB of free space available to accommodate our needs. (9 hours a day, four days at 2GiB per hour).
Jen - I think you are coordinating the laptops. Can you confirm this with IT? If not, lets ensure there is an external drive onsite for copying. I am guessing we'd have to buy it?
We don't need a formal room for this; Making sure this works can be done in a hotel room. We just need the equipment.
ok.
regards,
bex
Yes, laptops are being ordered and being sent directly to venue. They'll send tracking once they've mailed them. I would not assume that there is 72 GiB available as these are loaners and am not sure of their capacity. Personally, I think it's a good idea to have an external drive anyway as IT will nuke contents of laptops once they get them back.
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 6:15 AM, Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 06:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Yes, but I don't think I'll be able to bring them as I'm coming to Flock directly off a family vacation (and I don't want to be lugging Flock equipment around where my kids might grab them).
cool - we will ship to either BOS or the venue.
So, the laptops need to have about 72GiB of free space available to accommodate our needs. (9 hours a day, four days at 2GiB per hour).
Jen - I think you are coordinating the laptops. Can you confirm this with IT? If not, lets ensure there is an external drive onsite for copying. I am guessing we'd have to buy it?
We don't need a formal room for this; Making sure this works can be done in a hotel room. We just need the equipment.
ok.
regards,
bex
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017, at 02:04 PM, Jennifer Madriaga wrote:
Yes, laptops are being ordered and being sent directly to venue. They'll send tracking once they've mailed them. I would not assume that there is 72 GiB available as these are loaners and am not sure of their capacity. Personally, I think it's a good idea to have an external drive anyway as IT will nuke contents of laptops once they get them back.
Barring anyone having a RH/Fedora drive to use for this, I will order one with the other supplies. regards,
bex
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 6:15 AM, Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:>> __
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 06:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Yes, but I don't think I'll be able to bring them as I'm coming to Flock directly off a family vacation (and I don't want to be lugging Flock equipment around where my kids might grab them).>>
cool - we will ship to either BOS or the venue.
So, the laptops need to have about 72GiB of free space available to accommodate our needs. (9 hours a day, four days at 2GiB per hour).>>
Jen - I think you are coordinating the laptops. Can you confirm this with IT? If not, lets ensure there is an external drive onsite for copying. I am guessing we'd have to buy it?>>
We don't need a formal room for this; Making sure this works can be done in a hotel room. We just need the equipment.>>
ok.
regards,
bex
-- *Jen Madriaga*
Event Manager, Marketing Communications
Red Hat
[1]
100 E. Davie Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
T: @JenInnovate[2]
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OK, in that case we need to ensure that there is at least 18GiB of free space on the laptops themselves. I don't think we want to be attempting to copy them off to the backup drive during the day.
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 8:08 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017, at 02:04 PM, Jennifer Madriaga wrote:
Yes, laptops are being ordered and being sent directly to venue. They'll send tracking once they've mailed them. I would not assume that there is 72 GiB available as these are loaners and am not sure of their capacity. Personally, I think it's a good idea to have an external drive anyway as IT will nuke contents of laptops once they get them back.
Barring anyone having a RH/Fedora drive to use for this, I will order one with the other supplies.
regards,
bex
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 6:15 AM, Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017, at 06:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Yes, but I don't think I'll be able to bring them as I'm coming to Flock directly off a family vacation (and I don't want to be lugging Flock equipment around where my kids might grab them).
cool - we will ship to either BOS or the venue.
So, the laptops need to have about 72GiB of free space available to accommodate our needs. (9 hours a day, four days at 2GiB per hour).
Jen - I think you are coordinating the laptops. Can you confirm this with IT? If not, lets ensure there is an external drive onsite for copying. I am guessing we'd have to buy it?
We don't need a formal room for this; Making sure this works can be done in a hotel room. We just need the equipment.
ok.
regards,
bex
--
*Jen Madriaga*
Event Manager, Marketing Communications
Red Hat https://www.redhat.com
100 E. Davie Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
T: @JenInnovate https://twitter.com/JenInnovate
jmadriag@redhat.com M: +1-919-402-7952 http://redhatemailsignature-marketing.itos.redhat.com/ IM: jmadriag https://red.ht/sig https://redhat.com/summit https://www.linkedin.com/company/red-hat
I'm on PTO in the mountains today. I'll try to sync up with Justin tomorrow when I'm back. On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 6:03 AM Brian Exelbierd bex@pobox.com wrote:
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017, at 07:27 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote: == clip ==
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.
Stephen Gallagher is, I believe, taking point on this.
We have 5 simultaneous tracks (max). Right now, I think the plan is to use a line in from the room sound system to the computer to ensure good audio and to use an external webcam to capture the video. I don't know that we need much more than that as a lot of our sessions are "do" and not "talk" so there is less to record that has value long after the event.
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.
regards,
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