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Hi all,<br>
<br>
There's about four or five of us now on the mailing list, so lets
start chatting.<br>
<br>
PLUG Committee have agreed to purchase a Canopus Twinpact 100[1] for
us for capturing the presentation video (and audio) to DV. I'm also
going to grab a wireless radio lapel mic[2] at the same time. I'm
going to order from Amazon US as its around half the price of local
retailers, but that does mean having it delivered to someone in the
US and then resent to us here. I'm trying to get confirmation from a
friend before I place the order ASAP.<br>
<br>
If you've watched the video[3], you'll see that woring with raw DV
(DIF) video makes the most sense as each frame is individually
compressed, unlink in an MPEG stream where each frame may be
compressed based upon the contents of the previous frame. So this
means DV cameras and Firewire/1394/iLink as a primary video, but I'd
like to be able to use USB web cams as well (if the picture is clear
enough) as a secondary image source. Reason for that is that I can
see us mounting a USB camera on a stick and holding that high, low,
and possibly even mounted on the ceiling, plus means that it opens
up a bunch of laptops with webcams (though built in web cams are
often poor quality).<br>
<br>
I have a DV camera we can play with to start with; it's an old JVC
GR-DVX4 camcorder (10+ years old), and I think Nick - did you say
you had a camera we can play with as well? If we get enough kit
together to play, we can replace parts with "off the shelf" as we
find suitable units, and have experience at what we're looking at.<br>
<br>
Beyond that, here's what I think we should organise:<br>
<ul>
<li>Large crate/box, preferably on wheels, and preferably lockable
for holding our kit.</li>
<li>Bunch of firewire 1394a cables. 6pin to 6 pin, 6 pin to 4
pin, and 4 pin to 4 pin.</li>
<li>An audio mixer, and various audio cables.</li>
<li>Some tripods. Anyone got a source for good, cheap tripods? </li>
<li>Some old PCs or laptops with enough grunt to grab frames from
firewire and punt it out the network (next to each camera &
the Twinpact)</li>
<li>Some gaming headphones-with-mic headsets (3 - 4)? There are
some from Officeworks for between $10 and $50?</li>
<li>A gigabit ethernet switch. Perhaps I should get a cheap 4/5
port one from Amazon at the same time?</li>
<li>I have a reel of CAT 5, perhaps make up some 5, 10 and 20
metre cables?</li>
<li>Some power strips</li>
</ul>
<br>
<br>
I don't think we have enough kit to play with a set up yet, but we
do need to start to gather parts, and research. So, outside of
borrowing the above list of kit, what sources do we have to
purchase. Audio is the most important aspect; it must be clear and
interference free. But not only the audio of the speaker, but of any
audience questions, and outside of the presentation, some audio of
the room.<br>
<br>
I suggest that, when we have two cameras available, and three PCs,
we get together to start plugging bits together and seeing what
happens.<br>
<br>
In the mean time, finding a supply of cameras with firewire ports
would be good. No fancy features are needed on cameras, so long as
video frames come out of the DV port, and cheap computers with DV
port(s). Also, some PCs, preferable also having an mic input and
headphone output so we can run a "mumble" server (teamspeak, Voip)
at the same time. I was trying to find a nettop and work out how to
get Firewire on it. Thre are Firewire USB cards, but they may not
capture video in real time (USB 2.0 being 400 Mbit/s, and Firewire
1394a being 480 Mbit/s -- but I can't confirm if it does or doesn't
work yet).<br>
<br>
Anyway, any ideas for anything else at this stage? I'll talk about
mumble in a separate email...<br>
<br>
James<br>
<br>
<br>
[1] Twinpact 100
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000K3HT1K/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2LXBKOLL3J3K6">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000K3HT1K/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2LXBKOLL3J3K6</a><br>
[2] Lapel mic
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006JPD8/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2LXBKOLL3J3K6">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006JPD8/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2LXBKOLL3J3K6</a><br>
[3] Making conference videos
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://linuxconfau.blip.tv/file/4721989/">http://linuxconfau.blip.tv/file/4721989/</a><br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Mobile: +61 422 166 708, Email: james_AT_rcpt.to</pre>
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