371145 - Upload Seneca-Mozilla Lectures to MDC

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[David Humphrey (:humph)]

The guest lectures delivered by Mozilla developers are done and ready to be uploaded to MDC (perhaps to /presentations?).  The .mov files can be found here:

http://sparc.senecacollege.ca/pub/mozilla.lecture/

Comment 1

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

I hate to be a nag, but would it be possible to post the files in Real format?  It's the only video format I know (well, aside from YouTube-style Flash, but that's neither downloadable nor do I know of off-the-shelf software to make it work) that will consistently play on all the major-ish platforms, no questions asked, without having to install esoteric, non-mainstream software to view it.

This *is* actually relevant to me.  My laptop's currently broken, so I don't have access to Windows on a personal machine.  MIT's computing environment is probably 80% *nix-based (Windows machines exist, but they only exist in a few of the computer clusters), and I've found no applications in the system which will play MOV files.  The system also makes installing something like VLC or mplayer a prolonged exercise in compilation and dependency tracking, and disk space limitations might very well make it infeasible for me (and probably others).

Comment 2

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

If we had the movies in that format, I would make sure they went up.  If there are many people who would prefer them be that way, I'm sure that _one_ of them can arrange a quality transcoding.  I don't know anything about that process myself, and don't have the tools or the time.  And I'm not going to keep the .mov versions going up just because there aren't Real (not MPEG? really?) format ones to accompany them yet!

Comment 3

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

I'll get the current versions uploaded ASAP.  I also have a ton of transcoding software and will look into getting them into some other format.

Comment 4

[David Humphrey (:humph)]

Thanks Eric.  I forgot to mention that on Beltzner's recommendation, we used CC-BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/) for these.

Comment 5

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Would MPEG be an acceptable alternative format that would be playable widely cross-platform?  I can also create Flash video (both .FLV and .SWF), Divx, and a wide assortment of other formats.

Comment 6

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Why not make the videos available on video.google.com and/or YouTube? That would make them easily accessible to most people.

Comment 7

[David Humphrey (:humph)]

The videos are already available in streaming form (see http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Guest_Lectures).  Uploading them to MDC was about giving people a download vs. stream option.  I've had complaints from people who can't watch them streaming for various ISP/bandwidth reasons, but want to download.  We could host them at Seneca, but I thought they made more sense in a Mozilla context.

Comment 8

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Why not make the videos available on video.google.com and/or YouTube? That
> would make them easily accessible to most people.

Will video.google.com or YouTube take videos of that length?  They're CC-SA, you're certainly welcome to upload them there and see how it works.

Comment 9

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> And I'm not going to keep the .mov versions going up just because there aren't
> Real (not MPEG? really?) format ones to accompany them yet!

Agreed.  I'd just like to see reasonable format support not be an afterthought, even if getting up alternate formats takes a little longer than getting up the one we have.

(In reply to comment #5)
> Would MPEG be an acceptable alternative format that would be playable widely
> cross-platform?

Maybe.  I know little enough about video formats to not be able to say whether it's acceptable.  I have a vague recollection that at least some types of MPEG are a container format, which would muddy the waters a bit, but I could be (and probably am anyway) totally wrong.

Comment 10

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

MPEG 4 is basically a container format (it's actually based on QuickTime's file format).  MPEG 1 and 2 are actual file and data formats that should be pretty universal; my only question is if the support for playback is broad enough for you (a pretty rhetorical question; don't know any modern OS that won't play MPEG 1).

Comment 11

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

After much consideration and futzing with video conversion tools, I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth the trouble of trying to convert these into another format (every attempt to do so resulted in files that some popular platform would quite simply refused to play).

So for now, I'm leaving them in QuickTime format.  We can revisit this later.

The videos have been uploaded and are all linked to from our Video Presentations page: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Video_presentations

Comment 12

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Postscript:

I took a look at both YouTube and Google Video. YouTube has some rather limited support for the size, length, and quality of the videos. Google Video, on the other hand, don't seem to have such limitation. From their FAQ:

==========
If possible, we suggest uploading the original source file. However, we recommend the specifications below for maximum quality and reasonable file size:

- MPEG4 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 2 mbps
- MPEG2 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 5 mbps
- 30 frames per second
- 640x480 resolution
- 4:3 frame
- de-interlace
==========

I've uploaded almost all of the existing Video Presentations, and will link on DevMo shortly. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=mozilla+lecture&hl=en

I'd be happy to handle future videos as well.

Comment 13

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Thanks, Justin.