[Linux-aus] Re: A/V recordings and publishing

["Silvia Pfeiffer" <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>]

I'll be you anything that if you hand out all the LCA equipment to
LUGs now, you will never be able to get it back and in good condition
in time for LCA 08. Not everyone will be able to use the gear
appropriately. Parts get lost or break. We even had one full set of
replacement parts for LCA this year and we did need some of that! Just
use the video gear heavily for a specific event, such as a barcamp out
in the wild, and you'll see it deteriorate. It's not so much the
quality of the original equipment but rather its usage.

I'm not trying to paint everyone black here, but life has taught me
some lessons.

Cheers,
Silvia.

On 1/30/07, Hugo Vincent <hugo.vincent@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Silvia,
>
> On 31/01/2007, at 1:06 AM, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> > We actually discussed this point a bit at a previous SLUG meeting.
> > While it would be a good idea for the LUGs to use the equipment to get
> > more experience in  video recording, it would also mean that next
> > year's LCA a/v team would need to start buying stuff from scratch -
> > because once the gear is handed over to a LUG, it will (hopefully) be
> > used and thus, obviously, lose quality.
>
> Sorry, this is not obvious to me - why will it lose quality or become
> unusable? Obviously tapes and other media will deteriorate, but well
> built hardware (things like tripods, mixers, cables, microphones,
> cameras) should last quite some time, and the quality shouldn't
> appreciable deteriorate as they are used. Things like DVD burners
> might possibly get less reliable from occasionally use over this
> year, but unless they are really poor quality in the first place,
> they should still be fine for LCA'08.
>
> Hugo