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Lars Aronsson | 1 Sep 08:30
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Video skills and equipment


I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania. 
Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes, 
some only played the first minute and then stopped.  I don't think 
the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems.  Video is 
new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with 
still images.

How can we learn to make better videos?  Are there some good 
instructions?  Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a 
video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we 
need.  In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video 
Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it 
doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with 
discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in 
different operating systems.

There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg 
Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain.

Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate 
"good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality?  
Is the Commons village pump enough for this?  Commons has a 
separate graphics village pump.  Do we also need a separate video 
village pump?

Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards, 
instead of tape cassettes.  Many new models cost less than 300 
euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps 
not included).  Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
(Continue reading)

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Gregory Maxwell | 1 Sep 09:52
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Re: Video skills and equipment

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 2:30 AM, Lars Aronsson<lars <at> aronsson.se> wrote:
> I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania.
> Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes,
> some only played the first minute and then stopped.  I don't think
[snip]
> How can we learn to make better videos?  Are there some good
[snip]

The particular example you raised isn't much of matter of skill or
knowledge it's a matter of simply having the time: After all a lack of
sound is obvious to anyone, so long as they have the opportunity to
spend the time to get it right.

But in general even to people skilled in the art making video is
vastly more time and resource intensive than stills. So this will
remain a challenge even if better educational materials are provided
(I snipped out your suggestions in those regards because I had nothing
to say to them: they sounded like good points).

[snip]
> Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards,
> instead of tape cassettes.  Many new models cost less than 300
> euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps
> not included).  Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
> that kind of usage is what drives the price down.  What models are
> good, and what should one watch out for?

Unfortunately you're not going to be producing video which is remotely
professional looking with a 120 euro camera, not yet at least.
Consider the typical user-created video on youtube.
(Continue reading)

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Paul Houle | 1 Sep 16:02
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Re: Video skills and equipment

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania. 
> Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes, 
> some only played the first minute and then stopped.  I don't think 
> the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems.  Video is 
> new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with 
> still images.
>   
    Don't screw around with low-end cameras based on flash memory;  the 
best bet you'll get on the cheap end is a camera that uses miniDV 
tapes;  tmost miniDV cameras have firewire ports that you can use to 
read the video into a computer for editing.  You can certainly get 
something OK for under $1000,  but there are some panasonic cameras 
around $3000 that are quite a bit better,  particularly if you're 
shooting under low light conditions.

    Sound is the most important variable to control;  people will 
tolerate bad video if the sound is good,  but will tune out if they 
can't hear what's being said.

    There are two reasonable options for getting sound from presentations:

(i) a wireless lapel mike,  or
(ii) high-quality shotgun mike

    You're not going to get consistently good (or even occasionally 
good) results if you use the mike that's built into the average camera.  
If there's an amplification system in use,  you may be able to plug 
directly into the amplification system.  Personally I like wireless 
lapel mikes and take them to lecture shoots all the time,  although a
(Continue reading)

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Michael Peel | 2 Sep 00:31

Re: Almost 5 million free media files

The draft press release is now up at:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/ 
Wikimedia_Commons_5_million_files

Comments / suggestions / direct edits to the page are more than  
welcome. I guess we'll hit the milestone in the next 24 hours or so...

Thanks,
Mike Peel
Wikimedia UK

On 29 Aug 2009, at 22:28, Michael Peel wrote:

>
> On 29 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Isabell Long wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/29 Maarten Dammers <maarten@...>:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> In a couple of days from now (three?) Wikimedia Commons will hit
>>> the 5
>>> million uploaded files (see the statistics at
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics).
>>> At that point Wikimedia Commons also exists almost 5 years.
>>> Wouldn't it
>>> be nice to send out a real press release to a couple of news
>>> agencies to
>>> get some press attention? 5 million files is a big milestone and
>>> should
(Continue reading)

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bawolff | 2 Sep 07:41
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Re: Video skills and equipment

> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 03:52:53 -0400
> From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@...>
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Video skills and equipment
> To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l@...>
> Message-ID:
>       <e692861c0909010052p6d435bb7jb9a28f120a0e1292@...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
[snip]
>
> Even ignoring the skills and time issue, I don't think it's currently
> possible to do decent staged videography without a couple thousand
> dollars in lighting and camera equipment (and even at then we're not
> talking fantastic results).
>
> So I've laid down the gauntlet and said it couldn't be done: So now
> someone gets to come and prove me wrong and show me some excellent
> work done on a small budget. :)
>
[snip]

A couple years ago, someone (user:David Vasquez) made a wikinews video
brodcast that was very good. So i think it can be done, its just
rather difficult. (However it wasn't done on an extremely small
budget, but it wasn't hugely expensive either as far as i know). Links
if anyones interested:

- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikinews11Apr2005_Demo_(high_quality).ogg
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikinewsSpecialReportCCDC.ogg
(Continue reading)

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Hay (Husky | 2 Sep 14:53
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Commons reaches 5 million files

Around 11:46 UTC we reached 5 million files on Commons! Not quite sure
which file is the 5th million, but this is one of the candidates:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kj%C3%B8benhavnsposten_28_nov_1838_side_1.jpg

Thanks everyone for making Commons such as a fantastic project, and
creating the world's largest repository of free images!

-- Hay
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Mathias Schindler | 2 Sep 14:58
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Re: [Foundation-l] Commons reaches 5 million files

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Hay (Husky)<huskyr@...> wrote:
> Around 11:46 UTC we reached 5 million files on Commons! Not quite sure
> which file is the 5th million, but this is one of the candidates:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kj%C3%B8benhavnsposten_28_nov_1838_side_1.jpg

Does anyone else get a broken image at that url?

Mathias
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Lars Aronsson | 2 Sep 15:30
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Re: Video skills and equipment

Paul Houle wrote:

>     Sound is the most important variable to control;  people 
> will tolerate bad video if the sound is good, but will tune out 
> if they can't hear what's being said.

I agree. This was my first reaction to the Wikimania 
presentations.  But when you have an external microphone, perhaps 
more than one, you also get the problem that you might have 
connected the wrong one, or forgot to switch it on.  How do you 
make sure the mike is on, before 3 minutes of the presentation 
have already been lost?  Soundcheck, testing, testing.

>     Don't screw around with low-end cameras based on flash 
> memory;  the best bet you'll get on the cheap end is a camera 
> that uses miniDV tapes;  tmost miniDV cameras have firewire 
> ports that you can use to read the video into a computer for 
> editing.  You can certainly get something OK for under $1000, 
> but there are some panasonic cameras around $3000 that are quite 
> a bit better, particularly if you're shooting under low light 
> conditions.

This is easy to say, but doesn't play well with the massive 
collaboration of Wikipedia.  We want hundreds of volunteers to 
take photos of flowers and buildings, and they can do this with 
very cheap digital cameras.  For birds, folk dances and vehicles 
we should encourage video.  But if it requires an investment of 
$3000, it will not become a mass movement.  This is the equation 
we have to solve.
(Continue reading)

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Paul Houle | 2 Sep 17:19
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Re: Video skills and equipment

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> I agree. This was my first reaction to the Wikimania 
> presentations.  But when you have an external microphone, perhaps 
> more than one, you also get the problem that you might have 
> connected the wrong one, or forgot to switch it on.  How do you 
> make sure the mike is on, before 3 minutes of the presentation 
> have already been lost?  Soundcheck, testing, testing.
>
>   
Yep,  sooner or later you make a habit of it.
> This is easy to say, but doesn't play well with the massive 
> collaboration of Wikipedia.  We want hundreds of volunteers to 
> take photos of flowers and buildings, and they can do this with 
> very cheap digital cameras.  For birds, folk dances and vehicles 
> we should encourage video.  But if it requires an investment of 
> $3000, it will not become a mass movement.  This is the equation 
> we have to solve.
>
>
>   
    If the microphone jack is requirement #1,  you could get tolerable 
video with something like

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-fs200-silver/4505-6500_7-33483235.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

    which is more like $300.  A tripod and good mike puts the bill up to 
about $500-600.  You'll do a bit better with something like

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=17382
(Continue reading)

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Otourly Wiki | 4 Sep 11:10
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Re : Almost 5 million free media files

Hi,
Wikimédia France and Wikimedia CH have published a common press release:
(french)
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/commons-5-millions-de-fichiers-930

Regards,

Florian Farge

Alias Otourly sur les projets wikimédiens


Membre de Wikimédia France
Association pour le libre partage de la connaissance


De : Michael Peel <email <at> mikepeel.net>
À : Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org>
Envoyé le : Mercredi, 2 Septembre 2009, 0h31mn 51s
Objet : Re: [Commons-l] Almost 5 million free media files

The draft press release is now up at:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/
Wikimedia_Commons_5_million_files

Comments / suggestions / direct edits to the page are more than 
welcome. I guess we'll hit the milestone in the next 24 hours or so...

Thanks,
Mike Peel
Wikimedia UK

On 29 Aug 2009, at 22:28, Michael Peel wrote:

>
> On 29 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Isabell Long wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/29 Maarten Dammers <maarten <at> mdammers.nl>:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> In a couple of days from now (three?) Wikimedia Commons will hit
>>> the 5
>>> million uploaded files (see the statistics at
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics).
>>> At that point Wikimedia Commons also exists almost 5 years.
>>> Wouldn't it
>>> be nice to send out a real press release to a couple of news
>>> agencies to
>>> get some press attention? 5 million files is a big milestone and
>>> should
>>> get some coverage.
>>
>> I agree with that, I think there should be something in the news 
>> about
>> this!  I don't know if this has already been thought of, but Commons
>> doesn't get very much press coverage (mind you nor does Wikipedia in
>> England at least) so it would be very interesting and maybe Commons
>> could gain even more files from it being publicised?!
>
> Wikimedia UK is contemplating sending out a press release about this,
> also highlighting Wikipedia Loves Art [1] and the upcoming Britain
> Loves Wikipedia [2]. Assuming we manage to get it written in time...
>
> Mike
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Loves_Art
> [2] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Britain_Loves_Wikipedia
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l


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