[Linux-aus] [LACTTE] Grant Application for Meetup Group Hardware

Fri Dec 2 14:59:12 AEDT 2016

Hi Will (and the LA council),

I would personally recommend that LA **not** fund this grant request at
this moment. I would recommend funding such a grant request only after the
Wordcamp people have reliably produced videos for their user groups for 6
events in a row.

This however would leave Wordcamp with a "chicken and egg" problem -- they
can't get equipment until they have videos and they can't get videos until
they have equipement. As this group is in Sydney, I have a proposal to
solve this problem.

I'm willing to *lend* the Wordcamp group the following equipment (on a
permanent basis) to allow them to produce high quality recordings;
 * 1 x Wireless microphone receiver
 * 1 x Lapel microphone
 * 1 x USB Audio capture mixer
 * 1 x Numato Opsis board (in case with power supply and cables) for
capturing high quality recording of the presentation
 * 1 x HV30 Canon camera for speaker capture
 * 1 x Lenovo Laptop for recording

The expectation would be the gear is returned (in working order) if
recordings are not produced or the user groups stop meeting. You might also
notice that this equipment is very similar to the kit used to record
Linux.conf.au and PyCon Australia. This setup will allow them to produce
videos of the same quality level as found at these conferences.

As the setup is almost identical to that which will be used at LCA2017, I
would highly recommend that someone from the Wordcamp group attend LCA2017
and volunteer to be part of the A/V team to get a better understanding of
how this equipment can be used and some hands on experience.

Will, how does that sound?

Tim 'mithro' Ansell

On 2 December 2016 at 14:25, Wil Brown <wil at zeropointdevelopment.com> wrote:

> Hi Tim
>
> Thanks for the follow up questions.  Here are my responses.
>
> * * What existing hardware do you have and how is it currently being used?*
> We have three meetups per month in the Sydney CBD, North Sydney TAFE
> college and a startup office in Parramatta.
> The CBD venue has a static wall mounted camera accessible by USB.
> Unfortunately we cannot control position or zoom and the built-in mic pics
> up the audience as it is mounted on a beam in the middle of the room.
>
> The two other venues have no built-in camera and the other organisers
> don't have videos cameras (just phones and photo cameras).
>
> * * Can you provide a link to any existing videos that you have published?*
> We have no existing videos as we don't have the hardware to record.
>
> * * Can you provide information on who will be doing the recording,
> editing and publishing of your videos?*
> Our thoughts on recording would be that it would initially be in the CBD
> and North Sydney locations as there is an organiser overlap of video
> editing experience.
> We would set the camera up in a static position to record speaker and
> screen and use a radio mic to capture audio into the camera.  I believe all
> Sony video cameras have an external mic input.
>
> Both myself and James Carmody have experience with video editing - adding
> titles, splitting video, synchronizing audio and compressing using Adobe
> Premier.  We're currently editing the WordCamp Sydney videos getting them
> ready for publishing to wordpress.tv
>
> We can talk to the Parramatta organisers to see if anyone has editing
> experience, however, there is uncertainty whether that meetup group will
> continue in 2017.  We have an organisers meeting mid December to plan the
> next 6 months.
>
> There is the possibility that we will be creating a new WordPress
> developers workshop meetup group in 2017, lead by myself initially - TBC.
>
> I understand about the excitement factor of getting new toys only for them
> not to be used.  We don't want that to happen.  Kristen, who lead the North
> group and I who lead the CBD group have run the meetup for almost 5 years
> now.  We have a second organiser present at each meetup, however, both
> Kristen and I attend North and CBD groups so there are usually at least
> three organisers at any given meetup, so recording person resources are not
> an issue.
>
> I have tried several times to use the wall-mounted camera in the CBD
> office to take the video and syncronize audio from a radio mic recorded
> onto the laptop but timing differences in the device frequencies meant that
> the audio track and the video ended up slipping out of sync on longer
> presentations.  Having the audio link into the same recording device
> (camera) would stop that issue from happening.
>
> I agree that video quality is not the only deliverable when putting
> together a video, however the cameras we have at our disposal are very poor
> quality, or do not have the storage capacity to record a 30min presentation
> which is why we have not produced any video content thus far.
>
> If we were to buy a video camera for this purpose I would prefer it to be
> a decent HD quality product and something that can last over time.  We
> don't quite need to go 4K yet though! :)
>
> Presentation slides will be linked to from the video which we will publish
> on YouTube - this format seems to work well on wordpress.tv.  We don't
> quite have the time, resources or hardware budget to do in-video slide
> presentations.
>
> ** Have you tried reaching out to other groups in Sydney?*
> The other tech groups that we go to or organisers we know do not have a
> video kit.  The ones that do produce videos are fortunate enough to hold
> their meetups in office spaces that are set up for producing AV content.
>
> There is talk that the WordPress Community (formally WordPress Foundation)
> are thinking of putting together a video kit for Asia-Pacific use (they
> already have one for US and EU), however it is unlikely we as a local
> meetup group would be able to get access to that.  It would likely only be
> for WordCamp conferences.
>
> I hope that helps you understand the position we are in and the request
> that we have made however I completely understand if the council thinks
> the investment is not a good choice at this time.
>
> If you need me to further explain any part then I'm happy to do and you
> can give me a call on 0423 526 829 or follow up on email.
>
> Regards,
> Wil.
>
>
> On 1 December 2016 at 18:34, Tim Ansell <mithro at mithis.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Will,
>>
>> A bunch of questions,
>>
>>  * What existing hardware do you have and how is it currently being used?
>>  * Can you provide a link to any existing videos that you have published?
>>  * Can you provide information on who will be doing the recording,
>> editing and publishing of your videos?
>>
>> Purchasing a camera is the easy part, unless you have a dedicated group
>> of individuals who are doing recording you won't get any results (let alone
>> usable ones). Typically what happens is that new equipment is purchased,
>> someone gets excited about doing the recording, they record one or two
>> events and then the equipment ends up collecting dust.
>>
>> Camera quality is also the *least* important part of capturing technical
>> content, both the audio quality and slide capture quality is significantly
>> more important and generally it is more sensible to invest money towards
>> those. You have described your current setup, so it is unclear to me if you
>> already have those areas covered already.
>>
>> Lastly, have you tried reaching out to other groups in Sydney? You might
>> find that /someone/ has a large amount of recording equipment and would be
>> interested in helping groups that are excited about recording their
>> proceedings.
>>
>> Tim 'mithro' Ansell
>>
>>
>> On 1 December 2016 at 17:42, Linux Australia Vice President <
>> vice-president at linux.org.au> wrote:
>>
>>> As a matter of due diligence, I can confirm the following financials for
>>> WordCamp Sunshine Coast and WordCamp Sydney (the latter which Wil ran with
>>> the excellent help of Kristen Symonds as Treasurer).
>>>
>>>    - Overall profit WordCamp Sydney: $21,348
>>>    - Overall profit WordCamp Sunshine Coast: $6449
>>>
>>> These amounts are inclusive of an amount we require events to return to
>>> LA for assistance with items such as insurance, bank fees, auditing and so
>>> on.
>>>
>>> The approved budget for 2016-2017 financial year includes an amount of
>>> $15k for grants and donations, and $10k of this is earmarked for Software
>>> Freedom Conservancy (we've been waiting to see if $AUD to $USD becomes more
>>> favourable, alas not). So, a $2k grant here would leave $3k remaining in
>>> the grants budget.
>>>
>>> TL;DR, this is within budget and represents no financial imposte to LA.
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>>
>>> Kathy
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 01/12/16 16:45, Wil Brown wrote:
>>>
>>> Date: December 1st, 2016
>>>
>>> Project Name: WordPress Sydney Video Camera
>>>
>>> Aim of Project: To obtain a good HD quality video camera to record
>>> presentations at local meetups and connected events.
>>>
>>> Person Responsible for Request: Wil Brown
>>>
>>> Request:
>>> As co-organiser of the WordPress Sydney meetup and lead organiser of
>>> WordCamp Sydney conferences I would like to apply for a $2000 grant to
>>> purchase a good HD quality video camera and accessories (bag, tripod, mic,
>>> SD cards) for our meetup events and related events such as WordCamp Sydney
>>> and MeetupMixup Sydney.
>>>
>>> The aim would be to publish presentations via YouTube to further engage
>>> with the WordPress and open source community.
>>>
>>> The camera would get good use at our WordCamp events as a hall cam to
>>> engage directly with attendees.
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Wil.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Wil Brown
>>>
>>>
>>> *Web Developer, WordPress Consultant & Speaker **Zero Point Development*
>>> * - We* ♥ *WordPress*
>>>
>>> *Skype: DeveloperWil  m. 0423 526 829  p. +61 (0)2 809 13634*
>>>
>>> *zeropointdevelopment.com <http://zeropointdevelopment.com> |
>>> @DeveloperWil <https://twitter.com/DeveloperWil>*
>>>
>>> *Join us at WordPress Sydney <http://www.wpsydney.com.au/>*
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> committee mailing listcommittee at lists.linux.org.auhttp://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/committee
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Wil Brown
>
>
> *Web Developer, WordPress Consultant & Speaker**Zero Point Development*
> * - We* ♥ *WordPress*
>
> *Skype: DeveloperWil  m. 0423 526 829 <0423%20526%20829>  p. +61 (0)2 809
> 13634*
>
> *zeropointdevelopment.com <http://zeropointdevelopment.com> |
> @DeveloperWil <https://twitter.com/DeveloperWil>*
>
> *Join us at WordPress Sydney <http://www.wpsydney.com.au/>*
>
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