[Bf-webcontent] RE: Convincing people to use BitTorrent for Video Tutorials

[Glen Moyes]

Bart Veldhuizen wrote:

> Hi Glen,
>
> personally, I'm not a big fan of popup windows but I see what you're 
> getting at. The current Typo3 templates that we use also do not 
> support popups, so I would favor an alternate solution. Do you think 
> it would be a problem to offer *only* bittorrent files? We could have 
> a good central page that explains BitTorrent on the site anyway, since 
> the new Conference Videos page 
> (http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Blender_Conference_Videos.481.0.html) is 
> also BitTorrent-only.
>
> I can help you to get started with the siteitems, but I would prefer 
> to do this online with you. Do you ever use IRC, or some kind of 
> instant messaging? We could use that to work on it. Before we do so 
> though, let's decide on which model to choose. How did the suggestion 
> I made the other day sound? (Combining the regular and video tutorials 
> by adding a new category for video tutos)

The *only* problem I have with only using BitTorrent is that there are 
some people that, for whatever reason, actually can't use it. It is a 
small number, but I'm not ready to leave them out just yet. The other 
issue with only using BitTorrent is thaty we have to make sure that we 
can have enough seeds for each file. There was only one seed when I 
downloaded the Conference videos. I just want to find some way to make 
it harder for people that don't want to use BitTorrent, even though they 
can, to get these files. We can try and only offer BitTorrent to see how 
many complaints we get :).

I can use IRC. I also have GAIM installed and a jabber account 
(metsys at jabber.org). I actually prefer Skype for collaberation just 
because voice is so much more efficient (you can send text messages with 
it as well).

Merging the video tutorials with the standard tutorials is a good idea. 
It would make them easier to find. Most people search for learning 
material by category rather than by method, so this will be better for 
users. Of course, eventually I want to merge all education material from 
tutorials, videos, and documentation tog.


Compman wrote:

> I don't know what format you use for video but it might help to find a 
> smaller format.

I'm using DivX. I've found it to compress the best in windows, and any 
lower quality setting the stills are messed up. If I didn't have ATI 
drivers in Linux I would be using xvidcap and transcode. The compression 
was a bit better and had a better frame rate. The smallest format that I 
can think of besides an MPEG4 based codec is doing them in Flash. The 
problem with that is the ammount of post-production involved. And I 
learn better with live audio and video. I'm much more convinced that 
something works when I see someone do it instead of screen shots, an  
fake cursor, and annotations.