Why we are good at Technical Conference Video:
We are techies that wanted good video for the conferences we attend and organise. This means we know what we want, and what we don't.
The point of a technical presentation is to educate the attendees. We extend that goal to the viewer of the video: we focus on things that will increase the educational value of the video as much as we can given the budget constraints of the event.
We watch the videos we make.
Videos are not as exciting as being there in person. It is easy to get bored.
Watching people talk conveys more information than just listening. It also makes it easier to understand what they are saying, for instance if they are speaking in a language you are not fluent in.
We want the videos available within days of the event. Not weeks. Often we attended a talk and a few days later want to review some details.
We don't want to disrupt the event by imposing restrictions on the presenter. examples:
- Slides must be MS Power Point - This will not go over well with many presenters, especially at Open Source events.
- Must use a laptop supplied by the conference - most tech speakers have software on their laptop they want to demo.
- Wait for us to configure your laptop to work with our equipment - no presenter is going to want to risk their system being broken right before their talk.
- Collect files from the presenters. This is a noble goal that we still encourage so that attendees have as much materials to review, but it is not used for the video.
The above requirements are removed by using a VGA Capture Device. Whatever is projected can become part of the video.
We have developed a work flow tailored around achieving the goals. It maximises the productivity of the staff so that we get the best results in a minimal amount of time.
- Editing takes place as the talk is going on. This means the editor is in the room, watching the talk and everything going on. This gives them an advantage over someone who only has the raw footage to work with.
- Once the talk is over, a significant amount of work has already been completed.
- The post production is not labor intensive. We make sure the video starts and ends at the right place, maybe remove large blocks of dead air. The titling, encoding and upload is done with software we wrote.
The gets a good quality video ready for viewing in a minimal amount of time.