I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania.
Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes,
some only played the first minute and then stopped. I don't think
the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems. Video is
new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with
still images.
How can we learn to make better videos? Are there some good
instructions? Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a
video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we
need. In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video
Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it
doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with
discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in
different operating systems.
There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg
Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain.
Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate
"good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality?
Is the Commons village pump enough for this? Commons has a
separate graphics village pump. Do we also need a separate video
village pump?
Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards,
instead of tape cassettes. Many new models cost less than 300
euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps
not included). Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
that kind of usage is what drives the price down. What models are
good, and what should one watch out for?
We can find free still photos on Flickr and copy them to Commons.
Is there somewhere we can find free videos and copy them? Yes, at
the Internet Archive. Somewhere else?
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
Hello everyone,
I think it is important to let you know about the following crowdfunding campaign from February, which was started to support one of our contributors, photographers, and administrators, User:Rehman.[1]
The campaign is currently at 21% (after 9 donations), with the last donation over 4 months ago.
If succeeded, the funds from this campaign will enable Rehman to contribute high quality content from Sri Lanka and elsewhere. You may wish to see Rehman's photo gallery [2] for some of his current photos uploaded to Commons.
I'm sure that Rehman will deeply appreciate even the tiniest of donations or help with spreading the word, if anyone is willing to support the campaign.[3]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rehman
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rehman/Photos
[3] - https://www.generosity.com/volunteer-fundraising/a-camera-and-workstation-f…
Thank you,
User:Azeez
_Sunset_View_2158.JPG){kind=link}
