TeleMeetings was, [Fwd: GNHLUG.Organizational - Automated notification of topic changes]

[Ben Scott]

On 10/10/07, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
> On Oct 6, 2007, at 07:49, Ted Roche wrote:
> *  Input is King.

  Yes.  That.

> We're used to good video quality ...

  You obviously haven't watched much at YouTube.  ;-)

> ... and the mic on a camcorder with an amateur operator and poor
> lighting gives you something that no amount of anti-shake post-processing
> and gamma adjustment can really make great.

  Yah, despite what Hollywood seems to think ("enhance that"), things
generally don't get better than the original.

  That said, cheap equipment can do amazing well in the hands of even
a basically competent operator.  I know, because I've managed to take
some good footage with a friend's old and busted VHS camcorder (with
the cassette door held closed by a bungee cord, no less).

  In no particular order:

  If you want audio and video, use a mic external from the camera.
The mic wants to be real close to the speaker (inches), while the
camera often wants to be several feet away.  You can't have both with
one unit.

  Getting speakers to actually use a mic can be difficult.  I
discovered this at work.  We spent $130 on a pretty nice
Audio-Technica wireless handheld mic, and most of the people at our
all-hands meetings won't touch the thing.  You'd think it was
contaminated with Bubonic plague or something.  Sigh.

  Getting speakers to use a mic properly can be difficult.  Most of
the people at work want to hold a mic at chest level.  This does
nothing unless the speaker has had a tracheotomy.  You have to hold it
close to your mouth and speak into it.  I've seen the same with lapel
mics; quite often they don't actually pick up the speaker.  I guess
more sensitive mics are available, and as long as we're not looking
for PA too (feedback), they might work, if background noise isn't an
issue.

  Check everything.  Do sound and camera checks before other people
get there.  During the recording, use the camera's monitor and a set
of headphones to make sure you're picking everything up properly.

  Just for shits and grins, at the 1 Oct meeting on Nagios, I recorded
about nine minutes of audio using the voice recorder built-in to my
Sony Clie PDA.  Tiny, cheap condenser mic.  I just put it down on the
table top, maybe 3-4 feet from the speaker's mouth, and about a foot
from the projector.  It came out surprisingly less than absolutely
horrible, given the craptastic setup.  Here's the file if you want to
try it:

http://bscott192.home.comcast.net/gnhlug/2007-10-01.wav

(6 MB; Sony IMA ADPCM audio.  This is the file I was trying to convert
with LAME.)

> *  Editing takes about 3-5x the runtime

  For our purposes, do we really need to do any significant editing?
I can't imagine us having multiple sources (cameras or mics).  So
start at the beginning, and let it run to the end.  If there are
boring parts, people can use the fast-forward feature.  No?

> *  So does encoding
> *  So does uploading, if you have a residential service

  Yah.

  YouTube can solve a lot of distribution problems.  They're giving
away free bandwidth.  We can take them up on it.  :)

> That might mean the world is now ready for Internet video.

  Or Google Video is spidering the site more often.  ;-)

-- Ben