[H-GEN] AV equipement for HUMBUG

Mon Jun 1 13:00:14 EDT 2009

G'day Matt,

How long is a piece of string?  That's kind of what you asked!  :)

I bought a Canon Vixia HF100 when I was in the States last June.  It was 
admittedly a lot cheaper then than it is now (rrp AU$1499).  Aside from 
not really liking the left/right zoom it has, it is a great little 
camera.  If you don't want HD, then Canon has a number of SD cameras 
based on Flash (SDHC) cards.  I'd definitely recommend Flash-based over 
DVD or tape based for a number of reasons - the lack of drive noise 
actually being a big reason.

You also need to realise that the camera isn't the only thing you'll 
need if you want these recordings to work well.  You'll need *at least* 
a lapel mic for the presenter so that the presenter's audio, not ambient 
room audio, gets recorded along with the video.

I have done a number of web streamed/recorded events over the years and 
am willing to offer any advice I can.  I normally do these with a full 
AV production (or at least mics, a mixer, my HF100 and Live Meeting) and 
the results are quite decent, varying with the cost of the production.  
The one thing you really don't want is to spend a wad of cash on a video 
camera to end up with a training video where the birds outside the room 
are heard more clearly than the presenter.  :)

Speaking of LiveMeeting, I know there's no chance that Humbug will use 
this as it is a) closed source and b) a Microsoft product.  However, did 
you know about Dimdim which has an open source web meeting client as 
well as their Pro and regular Free clients?  It is a pretty good 
alternative, however has a few limitations (that they are working on)  
This may also be a good option for Humbug, allowing the meetings to be 
streamed to members who cannot make it to the regular meetings.  That's 
what I do each month with the SMB IT Pro group here in Brisbane (using 
LiveMeeting for now, until Dimdim overcomes some of their current 
limitations).  One thing that Dimdim for Linux is missing is the 
screencasting feature (they are working on it) which would be really 
handy in this situation (streaming Humbug meetings for members).

People tend forget that the most important part of a video 
conference/stream/presentation is the audio.  :)

Regards,
HiltonT

On 2009-06-01 21:37, matheist76 at westnet.com.au wrote:
> The main reason is that we would like to film the talks that we have. Say that we have a basic tutorial
> of Python (which is beginning to be really important to HUMBUG's website) then we can film the talks and
> post them up. Or we could save them to disk. This we would add to the other resources that should be on
> the wiki.
>
> There is space on the current Talk's section of the HUMBUG website to place a link to that talk but we would
> need to find someone willing to host the video.
>
> It would also provide a good proving ground for the AV equipment that we would be using for LCA. This has been
> for some LCA's a really big let down. I would like to avoid egg on my face.
>
> I also believe that we shouldn't need to go for an expensive piece of equipment. So the cost may be minimal. At any rate there is really no harm into looking at AV equipment.
>
> If Clinton is right then we might be able to get LA to pay for it which would be a big bonus.
>
> Matt
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Greg Black"<gjb at yaxom.com>
> Sent: Monday, 1 June, 2009 9:07:38 PM GMT +10:00 Brisbane
>
> On 2009-06-01, matheist76 at westnet.com.au wrote:
>
>    
>> We in the exec are looking at possibly getting AV equipment. We need a
>> suitable video camera. Something that will work with Linux of
>> course. I'm also interested about what software works best to record
>> and compress the videos. So what I'm after is your experiences with AV
>> equipment and the related software.
>>      
>
> Um, why do we "need" this kind of equipment?  It's generally expensive
> and Humbug is a very low budget organisation.  I certainly can't imagine
> that it would be worth whatever it costs.  Perhaps I'm just not seeing
> some wonderful benefit.
>
> Cheers, Greg
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