Re: [Debconf-video] Re: debconf6 video wishlist :)
On Fri, 2006-01-13 at 23:06 +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-01-13 at 14:44 -0600, John Lightsey wrote:
> Also there was one talk last year (number 6 on the 16th) that appeared
> to have a 14:9 frame ratio. I'm guessing this was due to accidental
> selection of the wrong format on a camera or perhaps some incorrect
> post-processing that cropped PAL frames to NTSC size.
I have no idea how that happened, but there was a running problem with
the way the booth's video was turning out. The video from the front
camera that was passed through the booth looked different from the video
directly off the camera. The picture from the booth seemed slightly
rotated compared to the raw footage and in some cases it had a black bar
at the bottom. I remember working with one video where transitions
between booth and camera in Cinelerra were quite ugly and noticeable but
it might have been a mistake on my part.
> > Chopping videos at the beginning and end could be minimized. If the
> > moderator gave a signal to start the talk, waited 3 seconds and then
> > began, we wouldn't need to crop the front. On the tail end, stop the
> > recording as the applause dies down. You'd have to convince tolimar to
> > limit his introduction to "Here's Blah with a talk entitled Blah"
> > though. :)
>
> This didn't seem to me to be too difficult, except that I didn't have a
> good video editor with which to get precise timings.
It was much worse on the raw video during the first few days. Towards
the end it wasn't much of a problem.
> > I hope copies of the 2005 DVDs will be sold at Debconf.
>
> I had thought of that, but am not sure of the logistics.
Perhaps you can link up with someone in Mexico to burn them there?
Hell, the DVDs from Debconf5 would be a nice addition to the bag of
goodies at Debconf6.
> > What more can be done to help/improve the production
> > of DVDs?
>
> 1. I and anyone else who wants to be involved in "post-production"
> should be able to take home good-quality copies of the recordings (like
> the MPEG-4 AVIs you sent me for this year). This of course requires
> that they are all converted from DV by the morning of 22nd May.
For piece of mind we need to get as many copies as possible out the
door. We were very lucky that Arto was able to keep the videoraid as a
backup last year.
> 2. I/we should settle on a reliable batch video encoder/processor
> (mencoder worked, but was a real pain to use; I know the rest of you use
> other tools). Similarly for remultiplexing if necessary.
>
> 3. We should be wary of losing audio/video synchronisation. There were
> a few videos where the audio was between 100 and 300 ms late (my
> estimate).
This was probably my fault. Without using a video/audio cue like a
clacker it's guesswork to line up two audio streams in Cinelerra. The
use of netcat for capturing video also caused lost frames in the booth
stream which would slowly throw it out of sync from the front camera
video.
Mixing the front camera with the booth was a frustrating PITA in every
possible way.
> 4. I should get WebDVD ready for production. These are the fairly
> essential items yet to do:
>
> * Integration with video recoding.
> * Fix resolution of relative filenames in VOB lists.
> * Provide a means to specify video aspect and menu & audio language.
> * Allow explicit ordering of videos.
>
> 5. We should make a note of any changes to session titles. The files
> provided for download were named according to the titles stated in COMAS
> and on the schedule. However, a lot of speakers used somewhat different
> titles in their introductions or on their slides.
Absolutely.
> 6. For two-part sessions, if they are happening this year, it would be
> nice to have the parts joined with a fade in and out rather than
> distributed as separate files. (Although using separate files makes
> chapter marks automatic in dvdauthor.)
The files get really big though. The video editing machines had ?70GB?
of disk space so editing 2 hours of a presentation from 2 sources would
have filled the hard drives. We were really constrained by time, local
disk space and the slow network connection last year.
John
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