ScreencastTeam Meetings

The ScreencastTeam meetings are scheduled for every two weeks. Meetings are held at #ubuntu-meeting, irc.freenode.net. They are open for everyone interested and/or participating in the ScreencastTeam.

Meeting

Agenda for this meeting

Summary

IRC Log

19:59:13 -!- Topic for #ubuntu-meeting: Current meeting: Screencast Team | Calendar: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/event | Logs: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/ | 11 Sep 15:00 UTC: Server Team meeting | 11 Sep 19:00 UTC: Technical Board | 12 Sep 20:00 UTC: Edubuntu | 13 Sep 12:00 UTC: Canonical Desktop Team | 18 Sep 15:00 UTC: Kernel Team
19:59:13 -!- Topic set by ubotu [n=ubotu@ubuntu/bot/ubotu] [Mon Sep 10 19:50:05 2007]
19:59:44 < popey> Anyone around for the screencast team meeting?
20:00:04 < spd106> yes
20:00:30 < popey> cool
20:00:38 < popey> going to be a quiet one :)
20:00:54 < popey> ok, lets make a start.
20:00:59 < popey> BONG! Screencast meeting begins
20:01:20 < popey> Agenda is at:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScreencastTeam/Meeting20070910 
20:01:31 < popey> * Action points from last meeting
20:01:42 < popey> ( which can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScreencastTeam/Meeting20070827 )
20:02:10 < popey> Ok, firstly, no new non-ubuntu-screencast-team screencasts have been uploaded since that meeting
20:02:18 < popey> when they are they will be categorised as such
20:02:37 < popey> we now have scp (well I do) access to the screencast site
20:03:03 < popey> (this makes uploading much easier but I still "only" have 90K/s upload rate so it still takes an age to upload 6 videos per screencast!)
20:03:17 < popey> site was getting DOSed, this was fixed
20:03:41 < popey> drupal 5 can wait until the canonical system admins have made a theme for it - and definitely until after MoS2007
20:04:05 < popey> The rest is all still in progress
20:04:11 < popey> Ok, onto the next item.
20:04:21 < popey> * Current status
20:04:59 < popey> We have uploaded 9 screencasts each in 6 formats (3 sizes, two codecs), and they're proving quite popular
20:05:21 < popey> we have around 1000 subscribers to the high quality ogg feed through miro/democracyplayer alone
20:05:47 < popey> we have been in the "most popular" slow on miroguide for the last week:- https://www.miroguide.com/
20:05:50 < popey> yay us!
20:05:54 < Webspot> yay
20:06:07 < popey> (hi Webspot )
20:06:11 < Webspot> hi :)
20:06:29 < popey> downside is that this week has been madly busy in my personal life - so I am behind - my bad, apologies
20:06:42 < Webspot> I'm also behind :p
20:06:45 < popey> (two kids with birthdays in one week and one starting school means I get called away from the computer a lot)
20:06:52 < popey> however this is not a disaster! :)
20:07:11 < popey> I have decided we need to rejuggle the plan - so we will talk about that in a bit
20:07:25 < popey> we have had a fair bit of feedback in the form of comments on the site
20:07:43 < popey> ranging from "these are great" to "remove this now, you said Linux was an OS, it's a kernel you idiot!" type posts
20:07:57 < popey> I am really happy to get both types of comments
20:08:05 < popey> means people are watching them :)
20:08:29 < popey> Also had a comment about the less than stellar quality of the 1280x720 ogg video - and it turns out I had a setting too low in xvidcap for quality
20:08:34 < popey> i discovered this 5 mins ago
20:08:48 < spd106> Which size video is the most popular?
20:08:50 < popey> so all screencasts from now on from me will be much crisper 
20:08:55 < popey> 1280x720 ogg - easily
20:09:05 < popey> and surprisingly
20:09:19 < spd106> Will the new quality bump up th efile size?
20:09:21 < popey> howeveer that is based only on the feed usage, not the actual downloads of files
20:09:37 < popey> shouldn't do too badly no it just means there will be a cleaner master to encode from
20:10:13 < popey> so that's the current status - I have one extra one that's not online yet - "installing ubuntu"
20:10:21 < popey> I have decided to split it
20:10:27 < popey> to have multiple "installing" videos
20:10:39 < popey> one for using the live cd, one for the alternate cd and maybe another for server/netinst
20:10:52 < popey> so we cover all bases - make sense?
20:11:02 < Webspot> yeah
20:11:11 < popey> the good news is this pushes back the schedule a bit - and gives you more time to make yours :)
20:11:19 < popey> bad news is we need to rejig the schedule
20:11:48 < popey> i am coming to the conclusion that we should drop the idea of "week 1" "week 2" and just have a steady stream of the screencasts
20:12:07 < popey> because it restricts us having "week of this" or "week of that", I don't think people care
20:12:13 < popey> I think they just want the content :)
20:12:35 < popey> given we already have the "month of" moniker, having  a week of sub-moniker is overkill
20:12:55 < popey> so, I will edit the wiki page after the meeting to reflect this
20:13:01 < spd106> It's nice to have some structure, though you're probably right
20:13:16 < popey> yeah, structure is good, but not when it makes life too hard for us :)
20:13:35 < popey> would also mean we can be a bit more free with the schedule (within reason)
20:13:48 < popey> i.e. we can start talking about specific applications at any time
20:13:57 < popey> we don't necessarily have to stick to a theme for this week
20:14:02 < spd106> I think the introduction week was a good idea
20:14:23 < popey> yeah, and once people are up to speed with what it is, and how to isntall, we can go anywhere from there really, wouldn't you say?
20:14:31 < spd106> true
20:14:49 < popey> although it does make sense to show how to install apps and installing updates early on
20:14:51 < popey> :)
20:14:53 < spd106> As long as the quality remains high
20:14:58 < popey> indeed
20:15:12 < popey> ok, there is an extra spanner I am going to throw in :)
20:15:31 < popey> I am on holiday for a week from 14th to 21st, and will have sporadic very low speed internet access
20:15:54 -!- Netsplit over, joins: nixternal
20:15:54 < popey> so this means we either go mad to make loads, or we just announce a "screencast holiday" on the site :)
20:16:09 < popey> we will still have the total of 30 screencasts in september
20:16:20 < popey> (I plan to record some whilst on holiday but cannot upload due to bandwidth limits)
20:16:28 < popey> so will play catch up after 21st sept
20:16:35 -!- highvolt1ge [n=highvolt@dsl-243-35-221.telkomadsl.co.za] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
20:16:47 < popey> I will of course do my best to make as many as I can, and hope others will before the 14th (this friday)
20:16:58 < popey> but I don't think we should kill ourselves to do it :)
20:17:16 < popey> its all gone quiet :)
20:17:37 < popey> ok, lets move on..
20:17:46 < popey> we've kinda covered the progress so on to the next subject
20:18:03 < popey> * Translation / Sub-titling
20:18:22 < popey> I really wasn't expecting us to get some transcriptions done so quickly
20:18:52 < popey> we now have quite a few srt files - subtitle/caption files - which I need to upload to the site
20:19:12 < popey> I am thinking we can just put them on the page with each screencast as a link to download - and have a little note that says how to use them
20:19:24 < Webspot> Yeah. Seems the best way
20:19:54 < popey> it's possible to upload them to google and the flash player we use can support them but I'm not sure how to get the format right for both
20:20:02 < popey> it seemed to barf when i tried - on both
20:20:13 < popey> maybe the syntax wasn't right - it's on the to-do list anyway
20:20:26 < spd106> I was wondering about that the other day
20:20:27 < popey> the other thing we have to worry about is audio dubs
20:20:31 < popey> oh?
20:20:43 < spd106> google asks for utf-8
20:20:56 < spd106> I'm not sure how to check for it
20:21:28 < popey> how to check if a file is utf-8?
20:21:33 < spd106> From what I've read it should be standard
20:21:58 < popey> I don't know much about that I'm afraid
20:22:02 < spd106> but when ever I open an srt it says some iso standard
20:22:44 < popey> looking at it I think google is barfing at the blank lines in the srt file
20:22:51 < popey> http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26577&hl=en_GB
20:22:56 < spd106> oh, ok
20:23:07 < spd106> I thought that was a part of the spec
20:23:17 < popey> 1
20:23:17 < popey> 00:00:00,881 --> 00:00:03,426
20:23:17 < popey> This is Alan Pope with the Introduction Screencast
20:23:20 < popey>  
20:23:25 < popey> for example, google wants:-
20:23:25 < spd106> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip
20:23:36 < popey> just the timestamp and the text
20:23:40 < popey> not the 1 or the blank
20:24:49 < popey> I will monkey around with one of the files we have and report back to the mailing list
20:25:04 < popey> see if we can get the format right
20:25:15 < popey> next thing is audio dubs
20:25:48 < popey> for example I have been sent an audio file for one screencast which i can easily dub and re-encode, so we have a french version of the samba screencast
20:26:05 < popey> i guess i could just upload them all and make a french page perhaps?
20:26:13 < popey> maybe link to the french page from the English page?
20:26:17 < popey> and vice versa
20:26:25 < Webspot> Yeah
20:26:26 < popey> rather than chuck all the languages on one page
20:26:55 < popey> so the url might be /samba_filesharing we could have /samba_filesharing_fr  and _es _de etc
20:27:18 < popey> as a separate page they would be easier for people to link to
20:27:31 < popey> and it woudl be obvious it's an existing screencast but with french audio
20:27:33 -!- toutouff [n=nicolas@gov91-1-82-234-90-217.fbx.proxad.net] has quit [Connection timed out]
20:27:39 < popey> hmmm, well it's obvious to me anyway
20:27:52 < spd106> sounds like a good idea
20:28:05 < popey> so long as they are linked to, maybe we should have a block on the side of the site that lists translated ones so far, and untranslated ones
20:28:11 < popey> no, untranslated is silly
20:28:28 < popey> because none have been translated to swahili so they are all in essence untranslated
20:28:34 < popey> not sure how to display that
20:28:42 < popey> maybe a simple table
20:28:57 < spd106> Are you going to do all sizes?
20:28:57 < popey> list of screencasts down the side, translations along the top, links (ticks) in the middle for translations
20:29:13 < popey> spd106: it's no extra effort just disk space and time to upload to do all the sizes
20:29:23 < popey> I probably won't setup rss feeds and the like
20:29:32 -!- highvoltage [n=highvolt@dsl-241-162-151.telkomadsl.co.za] has quit [Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)]
20:29:35 < popey> maybe have a category
20:29:37 < RobV> Perhaps have a note available under screencasts saying "this screencast is also available in ...", as well?
20:29:45 < popey> which would be useful for non-EN planets to syndicate
20:29:52 < popey> yes RobV, good idea
20:30:04 < popey> "also available in chocolate flavour"
20:30:27 < RobV> i'm more a fan of vanilla, but yeah.
20:30:37 < popey> I could tag all the existing ones with "english_audio" and "english_video"
20:30:43 < popey> and then add extra tags for the non-english ones
20:30:47 < popey> make them easy to find
20:31:08 < popey> ok, this all sounds groovy
20:31:15 < popey> we're SO going to run out of disk space :)
20:31:28 < Webspot> How much do we have?
20:31:48 < popey> /dev/hda1              25G   13G   11G  54% /
20:31:55 < popey> but I don't know if that's LVM - it may be
20:32:25 < popey> it's xen so i would expect it to be lvm'ed, and more space may well be just a request to the canonical admins away
20:32:34 < Webspot> yeah
20:32:43 -!- Balkhog [i=Blomroir@gateway/tor/x-33f8eceafcc7fe43] has quit ["暫離"]
20:32:43 < popey> when I said to them that I figured we would need 8GB MAX for MoS2007, they said it was fine
20:33:23 < popey> ok, so the next question on the agenda is how do we manage the translations
20:33:37 < popey> will it work just having a page on the site showing translation status?
20:33:54 < popey> and ask people to email the srt to the mailing list and/or oggs of dubs to us/me ?
20:34:03 < popey> would be nice to use launchpad/rosetta
20:34:12 < popey> suggestions welcome!
20:34:42 < spd106> I think some kind of version system would be uesful
20:35:00 < popey> I am no expert on these matters
20:35:01 < spd106> People make mistakes, I know I do
20:35:04 < popey> we could use an lp ppa?
20:35:14 < popey> sorry, lp bzarr repo
20:35:32 < spd106> I'm new to this as well, I'm afraid
20:35:50 < popey> maybe a mail to the launchpad-users list might help
20:36:09 < spd106> What do the docs team use?
20:36:14 < popey> i think it might also be useful to mail the loco mailing list - the global one - actually asking for translations
20:36:19 < popey> I don't know
20:36:38 < popey> but if we ask the loco list - we really need a system in place first
20:36:51 < popey> so I think asking the doc team and/or launchpad devs first might be a wise plan
20:37:19 < spd106> Is the screencasts team part of the docs team?
20:37:26 < popey> see if we can organise a revision control system first, then solicit help
20:37:29 < popey> yeah, kinda :)
20:37:56 < popey> they would like to have some screencasts they can link to from the documentation
20:38:20 < popey> brief history..
20:38:21 < spd106> They have lot's of skilled translators too
20:38:52 < popey> I setup the screencast site as a ubuntu-uk thing, Matt East (mdke) suggested it shouild be a global (not UK) thing and thus adopted us into the doc team
20:39:05 < popey> i recently setup the irc and mailing list channels for us to discuss separate from -doc
20:39:17 < popey> not because I don't want to be part of -doc, just figured we needed a dedicated channel
20:39:33 < popey> if there is any help we can leverage from the -doc team then all the better
20:39:44 < spd106> There was a post to the docs list today asking about screencasts
20:39:48 < popey> yeah :)
20:39:59 < popey> he popped into the irc channel too - seems very keen to make a few screencasts
20:40:13 < popey> which is exactly what we need/want :)
20:40:30 < popey> ok, so summary:-
20:40:58 < popey> Contact launchpad devs (via mailing list) and doc team to see how they manage revisions of non-structured data like our .srt files
20:41:15 < popey> once we can figure some kind of control system we start asking doc team and loco teams for help translating?
20:41:20 < popey> make sense?
20:41:29 < spd106> yep
20:41:48 < RobV> yep; one thing: what about audio files?
20:42:21 < RobV> Is there any structure in place for them yet, or will that need to be looked at - in due time ;) - too?
20:43:04 < popey> I'll ask about that at the same time
20:43:16 < RobV> Okay
20:43:21 < popey> the two are heavily related really
20:43:27 < popey> thanks for reminding me :)
20:43:49 < popey> ok, next topic, unless anyone has anything further on translation...
20:44:18 < popey> * Formats that videos are supplied in:-
20:44:22 < popey> too many, too few?
20:44:53 < popey> i need to get some proper stats from canonical system admins as to which videos most people watch
20:45:29 < popey> we could potentially just have 1280x720 ogg and 1280x720 flash, and upload to google video for everyone else :S
20:45:33 < popey> comments/flames?
20:45:48 < spd106> I like the small ogg
20:45:56 < popey> damnit ;)
20:46:07 < spd106> I only have a 1024x768
20:46:11 < popey> ah, ok
20:46:13 < popey> understandable
20:46:31 < popey> but if you grabbed the 1280x720 you could watch that scaled down?
20:46:41 < popey> which would arguably look better than my re-encoded version
20:46:46 < spd106> Yeah, but it wastes bandwidth
20:47:15 < popey> well.. you say that...
20:47:19 < spd106> I suppose I could cope
20:47:35 < popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 85M 2007-09-10 15:00 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_1280x720.ogg
20:47:35 < popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 31M 2007-09-10 14:16 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_512x288.ogg
20:47:35 < popey> -rw-r--r-- 1 popey popey 50M 2007-09-10 14:26 20070908_places_and_system_theora_400k_vorbis_768x432.ogg
20:47:39 < popey> yeah, you're right
20:47:46 < popey> wowzers, look at those file sizes
20:48:19 < spd106> Does anyone download the medium one?
20:48:41 < popey> tell you what though, I am staggered and amazed we haven't been asked for MOV (H.264/AAC) and AVI (MPEG4/MP3) support!
20:48:50 < popey> dunno, need to get stats from canonical
20:48:52 < spd106> non-free
20:48:57 < popey> well, from the windows weenies
20:49:00 < popey> i mean
20:49:05 < popey> and the apple ipod users
20:49:08 < spd106> they're not here
20:49:09 < popey> ipod video even
20:49:11 < popey> hehe
20:49:50 < spd106> Just provide a link to ogg codecs
20:49:56 < popey> ok, lets defer this item until the next meeting, we'll keep doing what we're doing, and I'll see if I can get some stats about which files are popular from the system admins
20:50:12 < popey> heh, the first screencast in the mos2007 has such a link
20:50:16 < popey> ooo, speaking of which..
20:50:30 < popey> we did get a request for a "what if I am on windows, how do i view these" page
20:50:49 < popey> would be useful if someone could put together the text for such a page
20:50:56 < popey> maybe a couple of screenshots
20:51:10 < spd106> Surely most people have heard of flash
20:51:18 < popey> well, yes, true
20:51:24 < spd106> There's always one though
20:51:30 < popey> :D
20:51:53 < popey> ok, will put that on the back burner for now
20:51:57 < spd106> There was that guy who asked about matroska too
20:51:59 < popey> it's low priority - only one comment
20:52:01 < popey> indeed
20:52:16 < popey> i don't even know if ffmpeg supports matroska
20:52:24 < spd106> What's support like amongst the media players?
20:52:43 < popey> well, I was surprised that the totem auto codec download thing just worked
20:52:54 < spd106> Totem plays them, but vlc choked on one I made
20:52:58 < popey> I had a copy of $TV_PROGRAMME that I wanted to watch, and totem did the business
20:53:03 < popey> erk
20:53:10 < popey> back burner then :)
20:53:12 < spd106> so did mplayer
20:53:18 < popey> we know ogg and flv work
20:53:41 < popey> i know the suggestion of multiple audio tracks in one video came up too
20:53:52 < popey> this could needlessly bulk up the video sizes too
20:54:07 < popey> I mean, nobody wants to download a video with 10 languages when they only "need" one do they?
20:54:11 < popey> or do they?
20:54:20 < spd106> Something for the future
20:54:22 < popey> then again, do we really want to host 10 copies of the video
20:54:29 < popey> for each of the languages
20:54:30 < spd106> depends on demand really
20:54:35 < popey> indeed
20:54:54 < popey> ok, matroska, multiple audio tracks deferred
20:55:07 < popey> 5 mins left, lets figure out when the next meeting will be now..
20:55:20 < popey> 24th?
20:55:32 < spd106> Fine with me
20:55:47 < popey> is 8pm good or should we go back to the 4pm slot we had previously?
20:55:48 < spd106> When are you back from hols?
20:55:51 < popey> 21st
20:56:12 < spd106> I prefer this time to earlier
20:56:16 < popey> ditto
20:56:28 < popey> kids go to bed at 7pm, so time for me to grab some food and a glass of vino
20:56:41 < popey> ok, will shedule next meet for 24th@8pm BST
20:56:55 < popey> thanks for the help Webspot spd106 RobV, much appreciated!
20:57:05 < RobV> my pleasure. :)
20:57:06 < popey> I'll update the schedule and will mail the list with the thoughts from today
20:57:45 < spd106> Thanks popey
20:57:47 < popey> (and now I am a fridge editor I can add my own meetings to the fridge calendar Muhahahahaahaha)
20:58:17 < RobV> first the fridge, then world domination
20:58:57 < RobV> popey: one last question/comment from me: are videos already being categorized? I find the website hard to navigate if I'm looking for a specific screencast
21:01:07 < popey> not much, what kind of categories would you like?
21:01:14 < popey> http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1123 woot, added already :)
21:01:57 < RobV> Installation / Administration / Networking, etc?
21:02:17 < RobV> At least, that's what I'd look for if I were looking for a samba screencast, for example
21:03:18 < popey> ok, will add some extra categories
21:03:37 < popey> i haven't actually categorised any of the MoS ones
21:03:40 < popey> which is daft :)
21:04:14 < RobV> Just noticed that too :P
21:04:30 < popey> well, other than categorising for the purposes ofthe rss feeds :)
21:04:34 < popey> which I had to do

ScreencastTeam/Meeting20070910 (last edited 2008-08-06 16:24:46 by localhost)