dc8 - 1.1
DebConf8
Super Cow Powers Included
| Speakers | |
|---|---|
|
Holger Levsen |
|
Eric Dantan Rzewnicki |
| Schedule | |
|---|---|
| Day | DebConf day 2 (2008-08-11) |
| Room | Salon del mar |
| Start time | 18:00 |
| Duration | 01:00 |
| Info | |
| ID | 288 |
| Event type | lecture |
| Track | DebConf |
| Language | en |
the Debian Videoteam -- Behind the Scenes
Debconf-video: Software, hardware and workflow
The talk will cover the hardware, software and manpower required for a typical dvswitch usecase. Some caveats and challenges regarding sound, lighting and rigging will be discussed, and live demonstration of dvswitch in use will be given.
Since 2005, the talks at Debconf have been recorded on video, to be published online. Beginning in 2006, talks have also been streamed live. One of the goals is to get recordings in high quality online immediately, with little or no post-production work. The video switcher dvswitch, realized in software, and a disk-based recording workflow is bringing us closer to that goal. Tape is still used as backup in case of failures, but we expect those to become rarer as the system matures. A large part of the post production work is restoring failed recordings.
Dvswitch was developed by Ben Hutchings just in time for the Debconf7 in Edinburgh. It enabled a multi-camera live production using cheap cameras and modest laptops. The laptops relays DV streams over TCP/IP. This avoids any degradation due to long cable stretches, and makes cabling cheap and convenient. The output is DV straight from the cameras, producing a very crisp master video.
Dvswitch works with sources and sinks. The sources send video from a file or a firewire port to a listening instance of dvswitch, which can run on a remote machine. dvswitch listens to several sources and displays a scaled down black and white preview image of each one. One of the sources is displayed at full resolution in colour; this is the outgoing stream, which is sent to the listening sinks. Each sink may send the stream to disk or to an encoder for live streaming. It is common to do both; store the raw master to disk, and forward the master to an encoder, and subsequently to a streaming server.
While dvswitch saves us a bundle in hardware, the video team is still heavy on manpower. Remotely operated cameras would help, and we are still looking for affordable solutions that work well on Linux.
The talk will cover the hardware, software and manpower required for a typical dvswitch usecase. Some caveats and challenges regarding sound, lighting and rigging will be discussed. A live demonstration of dvswitch in use will be given. We would also like to offer rehearsal sessions with the demo rig for those who are interested.