XSLT encoding templates

Children tickets

Releasing tab

Check encoded file

Released!

Setting a new conference

Go to Projects, then Create.

In the project area we'll need to import the Tickets. Tickets will come from the schedule file, which is a XML as generated from frab. With a minor hack we've been able to make the schedule XML from DebConf Summit quite compatible to it (kudos cate!):

Importing tickets

By importing the schedule from https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15.xml we'll be asked from which rooms we want to import the events. Usually those that have video coverage will be selected:

Choosing rooms

Then, we may want to exclude some talks that we won't provide video:

Choosing talks

We're also required to adjust some Properties for a given conference. An example with some explanation of these properties is availabe at https://c3voc.de/wiki/c3tracker. For my initial tests the ones below seem to be enough:

Setting properties

The backend: basic understand

The screen UI mentioned above will run a set of scripts in background which will automate most of the tasks, preparing videos for cutting to deploying them in different online services.

Tab 0: A-recording-scheduler

Each 30 seconds it will check if there's any ticket in the state scheduled or recording. It's based in the start/end datetime of the talk, so the ticket will be kept as scheduled (current < talk start), or marked as recording (start => current =< end) or recorded (current > end).

Tab 1: B-mount4cut

Each 30 seconds it will check if there's any ticket in the state recorded. That means the talk is already finished, and the raw video file is available in the path which has previously been set as a property (Path.Capture) in the web interface.

For each ticket marked as recorded it will try to find the related video file in the capture path. The file format should be <room>-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.<extension>. The script will then use fuse-vdv to create a custom filesystem with some needed files for human interaction (fancy stuff!).

Here's an example of talks in a room called Heidelberg, after being recorded and auto-mounted by the B-mount4cut script:

Mounting custom fuse FS

The human interaction is just a short review process using Kdenlive. The reviewers will access these files via a glusterFS network share. There's even a Debian Virtualbox image provided for that, including all the necessary tools. I'm going into this right now and will report what I get in the next hours.

Hopefully the following scripts will also be covered, very soon-ish :)

Tab 2: C-cut-postprocessor

Tab 3: D-encoding

Tab 4: E-postencoding (auphonic)

Tab 5: F-postprocessing(upload)

DebCamp is fun.

Some context

DebConf has provided live streaming and recordings from talks since 2004. We used to work with a set of scripts which worked together with Pentabarf for most of videoteam tasks, including volunteer shifts coordination, reviewing process, encoding and deployment.

Things has changed since DebConf14, when Pentabarf was replaced by Summit as the conference management system. Without those old Pentabarf features and hacks we had to invent new ways of dealing with the video workflow in DebConf. We gave veyepar a try in 2014, and we will probably do it again in DebConf15. However, for a long term solution we are considering the software stack from CCC Video Operation Center, which so far I see as a free, solid and community-oriented mix of Debian-friendly tools.

I will be reporting the progress on setting up and testing the CCC software strucutre for DebConf. Having the opportunity of being in DebCamp together with other videoteam folks will certainly make things easier :)

Setting up the CCC Ticket Tracker

C3TT is a ticket/tracker system used by CCC for reviewing/encoding process.

The web side of C3TT is written in PHP and can be cloned from http://git.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/cccongress.git. Some documentation is available at https://repository.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/trac/c3tt/wiki and from https://c3voc.de/wiki/c3tracker.

What I've done so far to get it working:

Installing some dependencies:

$ apt-get install postgresql-9.4 php5-pgsql php5-xsl postgresql-contrib-9.4 php5-xmlrpc php5

Creating database and users:

$ su -s /bin/bash postgres
$ createuser -DRS dc15
$ createdb -O dc15 c3tt
$ psql
postgres=# ALTER ROLE dc15 WITH PASSWORD 'xxx';

Basic site config using lighttpd:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "c3tt\.your\.host" {
  server.document-root = "/var/www/c3tt/Public/"
  alias.url = ("/javascript/" => "/var/www/js/")
  url.rewrite-once = ( ".*\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$" => "$0", "^(.*?)$" => "index.php/$1",)
  }

Running the installer script:

$ php -q Install/install.php

This will ask you some questions, then will create the config file and populate the database. At this point you should be able to access the ticket track system from your browser.

The set of scripts from C3TT doesn't need to be installed in the same host as the web side, they communicate via XML/RPC. In a next post I will report the installation and initial setup for these scripts.