Thread: postgres conferences missing videos?

postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Aljoša Mohorović
Date:
am i the only one thinking that postgres is seriously lacking
recordings from conferences?
when i look at talks schedule from some postgres conference i always
wonder why nobody records talks?

i've heard arguments before, for other projects/conferences, that
authors/companies don't allow recording of talks but that should not
matter.
postgres is losing a lot of promotional and educational materials, why
is this happening?

Aljosa

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Vick Khera
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Aljoša Mohorović
<aljosa.mohorovic@gmail.com> wrote:
> postgres is losing a lot of promotional and educational materials, why
> is this happening?
>

Someone has to do lots of work to tape the talks, get proper
permissions from the presenters, and then host the videos.  Often this
would land on the shoulders of the conference organizers, who are
already working hard just to pull off the live show.

I do know that some talks at the PG East conference have been recorded
and posted online.  Perhaps you should look for those?

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Aljoša Mohorović
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:23 PM, Vick Khera <vivek@khera.org> wrote:
> Someone has to do lots of work to tape the talks, get proper
> permissions from the presenters, and then host the videos.  Often this
> would land on the shoulders of the conference organizers, who are
> already working hard just to pull off the live show.

never said that it's not so just that i'm surprised/disappointed that
it's so low priority.

> I do know that some talks at the PG East conference have been recorded
> and posted online.  Perhaps you should look for those?

the best collection i've found is at http://vimeo.com/channels/postgres
it's not that there are no recordings just that conferences are
missing an opportunity to promote postgres.

Aljosa

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
David Fetter
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 09:09:35PM +0100, Aljoša Mohorović wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:23 PM, Vick Khera <vivek@khera.org> wrote:
> > Someone has to do lots of work to tape the talks, get proper
> > permissions from the presenters, and then host the videos.  Often this
> > would land on the shoulders of the conference organizers, who are
> > already working hard just to pull off the live show.
>
> never said that it's not so just that i'm surprised/disappointed that
> it's so low priority.

Who proposes, volunteers!  How are you going to help?

Cheers,
David.
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Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Aljoša Mohorović
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 9:45 PM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:
> Who proposes, volunteers!  How are you going to help?

being on a different continent and unable to attend doesn't actually
enable me to do something.
my post doesn't try to undermine actual work being done by people on
conferences.
i'm just trying to point out that recordings are much more important
for educational and promotional purposes and it currently looks like
it's pretty low priority in postgres community.

Aljosa

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
David Fetter
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 11:55:20PM +0100, Aljoša Mohorović wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 9:45 PM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:
> > Who proposes, volunteers!  How are you going to help?
>
> being on a different continent and unable to attend doesn't actually
> enable me to do something.

Not so, by a long shot.  If this is actually important to you, there
are plenty of ways you could help, not least by funding the effort.

Capable videographers are not cheap, and if you think we can get away
with having amateurs, try watching a 45-minute talk recorded by an
amateur, or better still, try coordinating the efforts of at least
three people per talk, as you'll need massive redundancy.

When professionals volunteer their time, they still have expenses like
travel, storage media, etc., and you can help defray those.

What you really, really need to stop doing is proposing that others do
an enormous amount of work for your benefit without offering to help.
You have two choices here that would be constructive: offer to help
(much better) or keep quiet (at least not whiny).

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778  AIM: dfetter666  Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter      XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com
iCal: webcal://www.tripit.com/feed/ical/people/david74/tripit.ics

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Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Aljoša Mohorović
Date:
On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:20 AM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:
> Not so, by a long shot.  If this is actually important to you, there
> are plenty of ways you could help, not least by funding the effort.
[...]
> What you really, really need to stop doing is proposing that others do
> an enormous amount of work for your benefit without offering to help.
> You have two choices here that would be constructive: offer to help
> (much better) or keep quiet (at least not whiny).

funding looks like a good way to change this, is there a way to donate
to postgres for a specific purpose?
how can i setup an official page, preferably a part of postgres site,
that focuses on collecting donations for organization of recordings?
is there a payment system already enabled, can it be set to track
donations for recording of conference talks?
i am seriously interested in getting recordings from conferences
although it's not only because i want to watch them, it's basically
because i believe that postgres is losing a lot without recordings.

Aljosa

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Tomas Vondra
Date:
Dne 21.3.2011 20:23, Vick Khera napsal(a):
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Aljoša Mohorović
> <aljosa.mohorovic@gmail.com> wrote:
>> postgres is losing a lot of promotional and educational materials, why
>> is this happening?
>>
>
> Someone has to do lots of work to tape the talks, get proper
> permissions from the presenters, and then host the videos.  Often this
> would land on the shoulders of the conference organizers, who are
> already working hard just to pull off the live show.

Not that much - I've recorded local JUG monthly meetings for more than a
year. With a decent DV cam and a microphone, it's quite easy. After all,
it's just a pearson standing and talking, not a LOTR ...

Hosting - unless you want something special, you can use youtube. We're
quite happy with it.

Tomas

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Tomas Vondra
Date:
Dne 21.3.2011 21:45, David Fetter napsal(a):
> Who proposes, volunteers!  How are you going to help?

Well, if this is the only problem then I happily volunteer to take care
of this for pgday 2011.

regards
Tomas

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Tomas Vondra
Date:
Dne 22.3.2011 00:20, David Fetter napsal(a):
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 11:55:20PM +0100, Aljoša Mohorović wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 9:45 PM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:
>>> Who proposes, volunteers!  How are you going to help?
>>
>> being on a different continent and unable to attend doesn't actually
>> enable me to do something.
>
> Not so, by a long shot.  If this is actually important to you, there
> are plenty of ways you could help, not least by funding the effort.
>
> Capable videographers are not cheap, and if you think we can get away
> with having amateurs, try watching a 45-minute talk recorded by an
> amateur, or better still, try coordinating the efforts of at least
> three people per talk, as you'll need massive redundancy.

Well, I'm the first one to admit I'm a lousy videographer. But is that
really that important? The person is just standing there and talking, so
what really matters is the sound. Because the slides are usually about
20% of the information.

So just put there a tripod, a reasonable HD cam for $300 and you'll get
a decent video of the session.

> When professionals volunteer their time, they still have expenses like
> travel, storage media, etc., and you can help defray those.

Yes, there are travel expenses and it takes time. Storage media is not a
big deal - you can use a simple HDD.

regards
Tomas

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
John R Pierce
Date:
On 03/21/11 5:04 PM, Tomas Vondra wrote:
> So just put there a tripod, a reasonable HD cam for $300 and you'll get
> a decent video of the session.
>

you definitely want a sound patch from a lapel mic or the room PA, and
not be using on-camera sound.

and probably two cameras, one aimed at the presentation, and the other
tracking the speaker, so you can put them in an inset, or cut between
the views.         there's always *some* post production that needs to
be done, and its all quite time consuming.



Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Jon Nelson
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 7:16 PM, John R Pierce <pierce@hogranch.com> wrote:
> On 03/21/11 5:04 PM, Tomas Vondra wrote:
>>
>> So just put there a tripod, a reasonable HD cam for $300 and you'll get
>> a decent video of the session.
>>
>
> you definitely want a sound patch from a lapel mic or the room PA, and not
> be using on-camera sound.
>
> and probably two cameras, one aimed at the presentation, and the other
> tracking the speaker, so you can put them in an inset, or cut between the
> views.         there's always *some* post production that needs to be done,
> and its all quite time consuming.

Somebody ought to talk to the folks that run PyCon - the videos there
are excellent and typically available within hours or less. Perhaps
they have some useful insight or advice?

--
Jon

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
tv@fuzzy.cz
Date:
> On 03/21/11 5:04 PM, Tomas Vondra wrote:
>> So just put there a tripod, a reasonable HD cam for $300 and you'll get
>> a decent video of the session.
>>
>
> you definitely want a sound patch from a lapel mic or the room PA, and
> not be using on-camera sound.

Yes, that's definitely true. We're using a standalone dictaphone with a
lapel mic, and the results are great.

> and probably two cameras, one aimed at the presentation, and the other
> tracking the speaker, so you can put them in an inset, or cut between
> the views.         there's always *some* post production that needs to
> be done, and its all quite time consuming.

Depends on what you aim for. Two cameras will definitely give you more
options, but you'll need to spend a tremendous amount of time on that.
That's why we're happy with one camera, because in that case the
postproduction is really simple (just cut the ends, put there the audio,
encode, publish).

regards
Tomas


Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Andrew Sullivan
Date:
On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 09:09:35PM +0100, Aljoša Mohorović wrote:

> never said that it's not so just that i'm surprised/disappointed that
> it's so low priority.

If you are disappointed that something has been made a low priority by
someone else, then perhaps you should consider making it a high
priority for yourself.  This is a community project, so if you think
this is an important thing from which the community could benefit,
you could volunteer to make it happen.

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@crankycanuck.ca

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
"Joshua D. Drake"
Date:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:21:46 -0500, Jon Nelson <jnelson+pgsql@jamponi.net>
wrote:
> ts all quite time consuming.
>
> Somebody ought to talk to the folks that run PyCon - the videos there
> are excellent and typically available within hours or less.  Perhaps
> they have some useful insight or advice?
>


The problem is not technology, it is resources. Pycon is a 1200+ person
conference, it is also more expensive than the PostgreSQL Conferences.
PgEast/West when we were running 3 tracks it was easy to keep up with the
requirements to get video up but now, 6-7 tracks? 3-4 days? Only 249.00 to
show up? That is a lot of resources. Simply put, we would have needed a
minimum of 21 volunteers just for video (assuming we each volunteer was
dedicated for only a day). The conferences just aren't that big yet.


Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


> --
> Jon

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Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Susan Cassidy
Date:
Personally, I vastly prefer written information to video.  I can read far faster than someone can read/explain
somethingto me.  Plus, it is easier to refer back to. 

Susan


Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
John R Pierce
Date:
On 03/22/11 12:29 PM, Susan Cassidy wrote:
> Personally, I vastly prefer written information to video.  I can read far faster than someone can read/explain
somethingto me.  Plus, it is easier to refer back to. 

this++



Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Raymond O'Donnell
Date:
On 22/03/2011 19:29, Susan Cassidy wrote:
> Personally, I vastly prefer written information to video.  I can read
> far faster than someone can read/explain something to me.  Plus, it
> is easier to refer back to.

+100

However, I fully appreciate that if it's difficult to find the
(wo)manpower to organise videos, it's going to be 100 times harder to
find someone to transcribe all those talks. :-)

Ray.

--
Raymond O'Donnell :: Galway :: Ireland
rod@iol.ie

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Tomas Vondra
Date:
Dne 22.3.2011 20:29, Susan Cassidy napsal(a):
> Personally, I vastly prefer written information to video.  I can read far faster than someone can read/explain
somethingto me.  Plus, it is easier to refer back to. 
>
> Susan
>

100% true.

But it's also true that slides (and that's all we have usually) are not
a complete information - it's merely a synopsis of the talk. Without the
speech, it's often unusable.

Tomas

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Craig Ringer
Date:
On 22/03/2011 7:47 AM, Tomas Vondra wrote:
> Dne 21.3.2011 20:23, Vick Khera napsal(a):
>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Aljoša Mohorović
>> <aljosa.mohorovic@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> postgres is losing a lot of promotional and educational materials, why
>>> is this happening?
>>>
>>
>> Someone has to do lots of work to tape the talks, get proper
>> permissions from the presenters, and then host the videos.  Often this
>> would land on the shoulders of the conference organizers, who are
>> already working hard just to pull off the live show.
>
> Not that much - I've recorded local JUG monthly meetings for more than a
> year. With a decent DV cam and a microphone, it's quite easy. After all,
> it's just a pearson standing and talking, not a LOTR ...

Yep ... and something many people don't realize is that they don't even
need a dedicated DV cam anymore. Many "still" digital cameras make
excellent video cameras now.

My Canon PowerShot SX20IS compact camera takes great 720p video and
supports a sound patch if desired, though the directional mike on the
camera is surprisingly good. I can zoom seriously deep and still get a
good result thanks to the high-range lens, too. My work's Canon EOS 50D
does even more impressive video - and the 5D Mark II the photographer
uses is incredible.

Many people have low-end SLR or high-end fixed cameras that're really
good video cameras, they just don't know it. Many of them will have
tripods, and a basic tripod for fixed indoor use is cheap anyway.

Given that, I wouldn't think that gear is much of an obstacle.

--
Craig Ringer

Tech-related writing at http://soapyfrogs.blogspot.com/

Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
"Joshua D. Drake"
Date:
On Fri, 2011-04-01 at 11:37 +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:

> Many people have low-end SLR or high-end fixed cameras that're really
> good video cameras, they just don't know it. Many of them will have
> tripods, and a basic tripod for fixed indoor use is cheap anyway.
>
> Given that, I wouldn't think that gear is much of an obstacle.

No, gear is not the obstacle. It is man power.

Joshua D. Drake

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Re: postgres conferences missing videos?

From
Craig Ringer
Date:
On 1/04/2011 12:38 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-04-01 at 11:37 +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
>
>> Many people have low-end SLR or high-end fixed cameras that're really
>> good video cameras, they just don't know it. Many of them will have
>> tripods, and a basic tripod for fixed indoor use is cheap anyway.
>>
>> Given that, I wouldn't think that gear is much of an obstacle.
>
> No, gear is not the obstacle. It is man power.

For what it's worth, if I can ever swing the $lots for the flights to
come to one of the conferences, I'd be a willing one-day volunteer.
Alas, I'm in Western Australia :S

--
Craig Ringer

Tech-related writing at http://soapyfrogs.blogspot.com/