Re: Goals, wishes and suggestions for Debconf8.

On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 15:11 +0200, Herman Robak wrote:
> Wishes to the DC8 orga team:
> 
> * Have a complete schedule ready by the beginning of Debcamp

This, I am afraid, is probably unrealistic.

>   ** Rescheduling must be communicated to the video team in due time

This would be good, though, and I expect that some sort of notification
can be added to Pentabarf somehow.

We did get a team scheduling system integrated with Pentabarf, which was
extremely useful.

> * Good video tripods for all the cameras that need to move during talks
>   (tripods are bulky; I can only bring one...)

Yes!  And we will have some money for this.

> * Be ready to provide one cameraperson for each BoF.  The video team
>   will strive to reduce BoF coverage to panning, zooming and the push
>   of a button on a grabbing laptop.

Lighting in BoF rooms is quite variable and seems to defeat
auto-exposure.  (Even worse, sometimes people try to put the room in
darkness to present slides!)  I always found myself using or wanting to
use manual exposure control.

> * Don't throw parties in the talk rooms, unless you want to induce
>   ulcers and fury among video team members next morning!

Or don't start anything early the next morning.  Once we have worked out
how to set out a room, an hour should be enough to do it again.

<snip>
> * Constant recording by default.  Recording is the "safe" operation,
>   stopping it is risky.

We had constant recording, except when there was too much contention for
the file server's disk.  (To avoid this, I think we should record to
local disk during the day and transfer to a file server later.)
Constant recording made more work for reviewers, and the lack of
feedback from the 'cut' command was itself a problem.

> * Extending dvswitch to remote-control the sources and the sinks,
>   and monitor them for status.

Yes, I think it would be useful to allow some sources and sinks to work
as daemons and have dvswitch connect to them instead of vice versa.

> * "Playout"/"autopilot" in dvswitch, that instructs the banner
>   dvsource to play a banner specific for the upcoming talk, and
>   switches to preset sources (e.g. speaker cam) when the talk is due.

This is a bit risky as we cannot rely on events to start on time.

<snip>
> * Full-resolution streams, ensuring legible slides (optional, of course)
<snip>

If a slide is not readable at 320x240, it probably isn't readable at the
back of the room either.  Speakers should be reminded to use large text.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
compatible: Gracefully accepts erroneous data from any source

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