[Linux-aus] David Unaipon Awards, a foss format?

[Paul Wayper]

Janet Hawtin wrote:
> Hi Folks
>
> I was going to send this link to the community folks that computerbank
> have been working with and to Noven's team in Copley, but the formats
> proposed for the stories are closed. Wondering if you can suggest
> tools and formats which we could suggest as the foss equivallents of
> iMovie and MS Photostory?
> http://www.innovation.sa.gov.au/ict/dbu/david_unaipon/home
I just wrote them the following email:

I read on your website that entries the David Unaipon Awards must be in
MS Photostory or iMovie format.  Are you giving people the money to buy
copies of these proprietary applications and the proprietary operating
system they come on?  Or are you expecting people to fork out their own
money in order to be able to enter?  I would hope you weren't implying
that entrants should get illegal copies of the software.

I would suggest you ditch the requirement of what software can be used
and simply specify that you will have copies of MS Photostory, iMovie,
and other video player applications available for the applicants.  There
are plenty of applications, both for-money and free, that can be used to
put together innovative digital presentations.  Specifying one or two is
unnecessary.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Wayper


I also thought that Flash might be an appropriate format to use for such
a presentation.  Yes, it costs money, but in trying to open up the issue
I see it as a good wedge - if you're going to support two for-money
applications, why not a third?  Why not a fourth?

I can understand that the judges need to specify what input formats they
can take.  But at the very least there are plenty of applications that
will allow you to record video from the screen into an AVI file; quite
possibly some of these 'presentation' applications can output to a video
file natively.  If they simply specified that all entries had to be in
one of a variety of video formats, then this would solve the problem
completely.

Just my thoughts,

Paul