Hi, 2008/12/18 Jonathan Hartley <[email protected]>: > Hi, > > John Pinner wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> 2008/12/18 Dinu Gherman <[email protected]>: >>> >>> M.-A. Lemburg: >>> >>>> Sure, there's always a benefit in being able to access presentations >>>> after they have been given. However, in the past, not even the slides >>>> were made available by all speakers. IMHO, tt would be far better to >>>> at least get all those together on the website, rather than discussing >>>> the next steps. >>> >>> I would like to stress this a little bit more. In fact, I've >>> had trouble for all past Python conferences, whatever their >>> names and places were, when it came to getting anything like >>> a complete set of slides for that event. Maybe I'm the only >>> one who cannot attend all Python events in the world and would >>> like to have at least something written/graphic I can follow >>> onscreen (or even paper - yes, there still is paper) to see >>> what I missed, but I guess I'm not. I've been pointing to this >>> issue on various occasions at least for the past few EuroPython >>> conferences, but so far with little effect. >>> >>> To be honest, the current enthusiasm for video recordings of >>> such events comes as a surprise to me. I understand the tech- >>> nology becomes easier to use, but it's a long way from there >>> to getting something done that is actually worth the effort. >>> Looking e.g. at the most seen PyCon'08 video, I think you'll >>> agree with me that this is a waste of time and resources (and >>> despite that, the talk itself might have been excellent): >>> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-heME0gEDmY >>> >>> Having a cool medium doesn't guarantee useful results. This is >>> no new insight, of course. Remember (if you can): when desktop >>> publishing was born, people also thought, that would finally >>> make producing excellent looking documents as easy as 1+1. >>> >>> Same with home videos, and now conference videos. Making vi- >>> deos that deserve being watched takes time and resources. For >>> good ones you typically need dynamic panning and zooming and >>> also more than a single camera to switch between the presenter >>> and his material. I know, because I'm taking videos of music >>> performances several times a year. >>> >>> Well, sorry if you already knew all this. I just wanted to draw >>> your attention back to quality again and deemphasize the cool- >>> ness factor for a medium that clearly has the potential of pro- >>> ducing great documentation, but neither at zero nor little >>> effort. And this effort must be balanced with the results you >>> get, and for the videos I've seen so far, quite frankly, most >>> of the time I would have been happier with a PDF document. >> >> I agree with almost everything you say, but then I'm an oldie and I >> use vinyl LP's with tube amps for quality. >> >> However, unless the technology is tried, it will never develop. >> >> Having been both speaker and organiser, I can tell you that the major >> problem with getting the slides up is the speakers. Quite a few do >> their slides just before the talk. We badger them for the slides so we >> can put them on a conference CD, but we're *very* lucky if we get half >> the talks a week before the event. As an organiser, dealing with >> speakers is like herding cats, and I have been one of the herd;) >> >> If it's left until after the conference it will never get done, then >> you are busy catching up on all the things you didn't do because you >> were organising a conference. >> >> So this year we'll make a real effort to get the slides out of the >> speakers, and maybe we can make provision to extract them from the >> delinquents at the point of delivery. This will need good session >> chairs, who were difficult to find last year. >> >> Best wishes, >> >> John >> -- >> _______________________________________________ >> Europython-improve mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython-improve >> > > I don't want to muddy the waters creating *more* work, but does anyone think > there is any value in creating transcripts from the video or audio? Is it > feasible that this could possibly be done with minimal manpower on our part > by hiring a typist to do it? > > In my opinion, such transcripts, coupled with the slides, would provide much > of the benefit of the audio/video, plus are searchable / googleable.
I think the amount of work involved would be very high - let's take 3 days of talks with 3 streams and an average of 5 hours per day = 45 hours of speech to transcribe, and this would be costly Maybe we could get it done in China, but I wouldn't vouch for the accuracy. People can submit formal papers for publication if they wish, otherwise slides plus audio should be very acceptable, and we may struggle to get all that. Thanks for the suggestion, John -- _______________________________________________ Europython-improve mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython-improve
