Comments on: General Assembly on sex and singleness

By: Kennedy

Kennedy — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:43:48 +0000

The video update that Douglas Aitken does is a copy of his audio update with appropriate video material behind it ie you don’t get any actuality from the chamber.

We would still need editing and coding time before the video could be uploaded to an external server.

By: Kelvin

Kelvin — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:07:03 +0000

Rob Warren already does do digests in audio format – video may well be the next step, though it is quite a big step to take.

By: David Campbell

David Campbell — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:28:50 +0000

Thanks Kelvin – all this stuff is quite amazing really – especially Kennedy’s informative and knowledgeable material about what is actually needed. I agree about the Primus’s charge being essential, but if live streaming (if that is what it is called) is too intensive an operation in all kinds of ways for an admittedly small audience, why not do a twice daily edited digest of each day’s business like the one the Revd Dougkas Aitken does for the CofS?

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:24:31 +0000

Maybe it’s just me, but I have always found the potential confusion between pisky and piskie immensely pleasing (by ‘always’ I mean, since I discovered the term – not too many years ago!). It’s one of the (many) reasons I’m pleased to be on the pisky/ie side of the pond.

By: kelvin

kelvin — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:28:38 +0000

My only problem with piskie is that in some parts of the UK a “piskie” is one of the little people, and not necessarily a nice one.

See for example:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/cornwall/folklore/the-piskies-of-cornwall.html

“Some people saw them as the souls of pagans who could not transcend to heaven, and they were also seen as the remnants of pagan gods, banished with the coming of Christianity. In tradition they are doomed to shrink in size until they disappear. “

By: Kennedy

Kennedy — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:16:55 +0000

No, I suppose a general ‘piskie tag would work just as well, but I’m with Kimberly and would prefer #piskie

By: Kennedy

Kennedy — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:13:47 +0000

Or another thought-

We start having Synod on the Th/Fr/Sa after the Assembly on the Mound and share the costs of the setup.

By: Kennedy

Kennedy — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:11:33 +0000

DCampbell writes:
Wow, Kennedy – I hadn�t realised there was so much or so many people to it, but surely it is not beyond us to have some kind of webcast of the more important sections of the proceedings

Webcasting from Palmerston Place presents a number of challenges:

resourcing the camera crew, vision mixer and director (kit and people) and integration with the projection system to carry any slides and visuals
looking at the lighting to allow good pictures but without interfering with the projection system (which suffers from light spill from the windows already)
Network and machine infrastructure in the building to capture and code the video.
Dedicated bandwidth (with Quality of Service) to transfer the video and audio stream out to a distribution server. (We currently piggyback on Palmerston Place’s own internet connection).

An alternative would be an audio stream with a general shot webcam updating every 30 – 60 secs but again would probably need a dedicated connection to the net to ensure that there was no breakup.

This is not a litany of reasons for not doing things – it’s just a realistic assessment of the resource requirements.

Kennedy

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:04:28 +0000

I like #pisky as a catch all tag. very useful indeed if we all join in. (though I’ll need to learn not to spell it piskie)

By: kelvin

kelvin — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:14:41 +0000

It takes maybe an hour of human time to edit a 12 minute clip and a further hour or so of computer time whilst the clip is rendered and uploaded, David. What seems effortless is in fact far from it.

Whilst it might be possible to put up some bits (as I said, the Primus’s Charge would be my first aim), getting reasonable video coverage of the proceedings is quite a long way beyond our resources.

I’m still interested in what other bits you would select and want to see online. Which bits of General Synod would you want to see and which bits would you want the world to see?