YAPC Presentation Recordings

Is there a reason The Perl Foundation does not take charge of a central hosting repository for videos from larger YAPCs? Or an initiative to focus on quality recordings? I'd love to see(and hear) more high quality recordings. Looking over the 2012 YAPC:NA videos it appears they were recorded at 480p resolution making text reading difficult. Audio is often not ideal either relying on the facility's broadcast capabilities.

Could we get some interest or a mechanism(fundraising?) to improve this? I realize there is a fear of losing attendance if the material is readily available but I think the actual number of Perl users able to attend key YAPCs compared to the userbase is significantly insignificant.

Many smartphones can capture video at 720p/1080p. Audio capture can likewise be done with a separate smartphone recording at the podium or close distance to the speaker. Dedicated digital videocams and digital audio recorders are not likely to be that expensive if purposed and shared for the large events.

Damian Conway does a great job at helping and encouraging others present well. Let's open that up so more of the Perl community(and outsiders) can appreciate what we have available.

I know there are a few scattered websites that catalog videos but the efforts/use seem to fall off after some time. Presentingperl.com(correction: the TLD is .org) is a common example of this. A great start...how do we improve something like this and keep it growing?

16 Comments

If someone were to request a grant to set up something on perl.org for hosting presentations from YAPC and other conferences (as well as ensuring that high-quality recordings were made), I'd support that in a red-hot minute. This dovetails nicely with "we need better marketing" and "we need more, current, and high-quality educational material".

http://yapc.tv is another great start :-)

Seriously (why did you post anonymously?), every small step in recording conference video is easy. All together it is a pain in ass for the organises.

1. Cameras are cheap indeed. In Riga we had a few HD camera that cost less that 200 €. Transporting cameras with tripods is a hassle (OK, I admit that most organisers really live in the city where the conference takes place, and this is not a problem).

2. You need a dedicated cameramen for each camera (thus, three of four additional persons in the stuff). One of the cameras in Riga was stolen. You'd better pay these cameramen and do not ask the attendees as it is difficult for them to sit the whole day in one room.

3. Post processing is another pain in ass. It's not simply cut the talk from the recording and upload it on YouTube. You also need to find the talk title, speaker's name, maybe attach a link for the slides. Links/embedding to the conference site are desired too.

4. Sound. The only way you can cheat and record sound using camera's microphone is a recording in the room with sound amplifiers. Sounds is recorded OK-ish in this case (see http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/talk/3531 for an example of such recording). Would you like to have better sound, especially in the room which has no amplifiers, be so kind to run around the speaker before he start talking. Barely that means that we need another stuff guy in each room (he/she may also serve a time keeper).

5. Screen capture. Extremely great technique to record video that is displayed on the big screen. Extremely difficult to implement at YAPCs with very few exceptions speakers demonstrate their talks from their own laptops.

6. Permissions from the speakers. Well, not that big problem, and you've got three categories here. a) those who ignore your requests, b) those who agree immediately, c) those who would only agree if they see the video recordings first (which means that you may do all the above with no guarantee that you will be able to publish that).

7. Money-wise. Vimeo PRO account, or a YouTube account, or hosting for the site are not expensive. Time to prepare all above is quite costly.

I have lots of video files archived in my disks at home since 2005, and I have no idea of when this will be (if ever) published. Also keep in mind that it is very easy to receive messages (both public and private) that like "you did a terrible mistake/fucked up/you are idiot", after which you feel that it is just insane to continue volunteering.

7. Together with that you may encounter a speaker who thinks he tells something secret and turn your camera off (here you are: https://blogs.perl.org/users/andrew_shitov/2011/11/lets-say-no-to-no.html).

Anyway, saying for this year's conference in Kiev, we either will not record at all, or will do the recordings with no guarantee to publish, or will invite a third party. In the latter we need just to find another 5000 € for that to be done. So simple.

http://yapc.tv is another great start :-)

Seriously (why did you post anonymously?), every small step in recording conference video is easy. All together it is a pain in ass for the organises.

1. Cameras are cheap indeed. In Riga we had a few HD camera that cost less that 200 €. Transporting cameras with tripods is a hassle (OK, I admit that most organisers really live in the city where the conference takes place, and this is not a problem).

2. You need a dedicated cameramen for each camera (thus, three of four additional persons in the stuff). One of the cameras in Riga was stolen. You'd better pay these cameramen and do not ask the attendees as it is difficult for them to sit the whole day in one room.

3. Post processing is another pain in ass. It's not simply cut the talk from the recording and upload it on YouTube. You also need to find the talk title, speaker's name, maybe attach a link for the slides. Links/embedding to the conference site are desired too.

4. Sound. The only way you can cheat and record sound using camera's microphone is a recording in the room with sound amplifiers. Sounds is recorded OK-ish in this case (see http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/talk/3531 for an example of such recording). Would you like to have better sound, especially in the room which has no amplifiers, be so kind to run around the speaker before he start talking. Barely that means that we need another stuff guy in each room (he/she may also serve a time keeper).

5. Screen capture. Extremely great technique to record video that is displayed on the big screen. Extremely difficult to implement at YAPCs with very few exceptions speakers demonstrate their talks from their own laptops.

6. Permissions from the speakers. Well, not that big problem, and you've got three categories here. a) those who ignore your requests, b) those who agree immediately, c) those who would only agree if they see the video recordings first (which means that you may do all the above with no guarantee that you will be able to publish that).

7. Money-wise. Vimeo PRO account, or a YouTube account, or hosting for the site are not expensive. Time to prepare all above is quite costly.

I have lots of video files archived in my disks at home since 2005, and I have no idea of when this will be (if ever) published. Also keep in mind that it is very easy to receive messages (both public and private) that like "you did a terrible mistake/fucked up/you are idiot", after which you feel that it is just insane to continue volunteering.

7. Together with that you may encounter a speaker who thinks he tells something secret and turn your camera off (here you are: https://blogs.perl.org/users/andrew_shitov/2011/11/lets-say-no-to-no.html).

Anyway, saying for this year's conference in Kiev, we either will not record at all, or will do the recordings with no guarantee to publish, or will invite a third party. In the latter we need just to find another 5000 € for that to be done. So simple.

There's already www.presentingperl.org. I'm not sure exactly who maintains it, but besides the fact that I can't read any of the text, I think it does what you want ;)

I suspect that the site could be improved, and in particular the pipeline to get video from conferences onto the site could be improved. Right now I think it's mostly "bug the admins to include video conference X".

Many people mistake TPF for some big organization. It's a very small group of part time volunteers spread out across the world. There's no paid staff, most of the people involved with TPF don't show up at most conferences, and those that show up at conferences already have plenty to do.

So, let me ask you this. How much would you pay per video to get what you want?

I mentioned TPF not because I thought it was a large organization (I don't; I realize it's small and volunteer-run) but because I think it has grant money to give out (and there I'm right).

As an additional exercise, make a 5 minute video of the sort you want. Show it to us when it's done and tell us how long it took you. Tell us how many of those you're willing to do, and see how many you can sell. You don't have to wait for anyone's permission.

I've tried it. I know that I don't really want to be the person responsible for this at a conference because three very short videos took up my two days.

You're getting many frustrated responses because it sounds like you expect to get something for virtually free and claim that it's easy to do. Since you're anonymous, we also figure that you've never organized a conference or made such a video, but you're happy to tell everyone else how easy it is.

YAPC::Asia just puts everything on Youtube. No maintenance hassle, period :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/yapcasia

Well, good luck then, anonymous. Let us know how it works out for you.

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