Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

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jrh53
 
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Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by jrh53 »

I was just wondering why Ask an Engineer was on Saturdays? It seems like a night where most people go out and aren't home maybe to watch it. Ever think of moving it to Sunday nights, maybe more people would be home so you'd have more viewers? Just a thought.

adafruit
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by adafruit »

JRH53 wrote:I was just wondering why Ask an Engineer was on Saturdays? It seems like a night where most people go out and aren't home maybe to watch it. Ever think of moving it to Sunday nights, maybe more people would be home so you'd have more viewers? Just a thought.
good question. a lot of people ask about why the dorkbot meetings are on weds around the world, why other meet ups are on certain days... their answer is usually the same as ours, it's because no time/date ever works for everyone. it will always and forever be on saturdays at 10pm ET.

there isn't a day and time that works for everyone worldwide, so we picked the one that works for the most people and for us since we've committed to do it every week, forever :)

right now we have up to 500 viewers and "more viewers" isn't a goal, just making a better show each and every week for the folks who are there is our goal.

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chankster
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by chankster »

I also agree, Saturdays nights are usually pretty busy for me. Maybe a compromise would be posting recordings of the chats online.

adafruit
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by adafruit »

Chankster wrote:I also agree, Saturdays nights are usually pretty busy for me. Maybe a compromise would be posting recordings of the chats online.
there isn't a good way to record 1 hour of video and the text from the chats and publish them in a format that makes sense. it's almost 2010, but this is still something that's not solved. if and when there are solutions that do not take hours of post-processing, hours of uploading (multiple formats, etc) we'll do them of course - right now there just isn't anything available.

that said, we have some ideas and we're not afraid of experimenting soon.

chumbud
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by chumbud »

adafruit wrote: there isn't a good way to record 1 hour of video and the text from the chats and publish them in a format that makes sense. it's almost 2010, but this is still something that's not solved. if and when there are solutions that do not take hours of post-processing, hours of uploading (multiple formats, etc) we'll do them of course - right now there just isn't anything available.

that said, we have some ideas and we're not afraid of experimenting soon.
I believe you guys use a Mac there, why not use something like iShowU HD Pro which will allow you to record the video, audio, and text window session all in one video. It also supports different codecs to save the video as such as H.264 which should make it a reasonable size for upload as well. It is $60, $30 for non-pro version.

I like to view the chats and have been there for the past couple months but for whatever reason UStream on many occasions just starts getting really choppy and it makes it impossible to follow what is being said.

adafruit
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by adafruit »

chumbud wrote:I believe you guys use a Mac there, why not use something like iShowU HD Pro which will allow you to record the video, audio, and text window session all in one video. It also supports different codecs to save the video as such as H.264 which should make it a reasonable size for upload as well. It is $60, $30 for non-pro version.
we use a pc to broadcast, the mac solution you mention has been tried, it does not work for a 1 hour chat show, or to capture text transcripts at the same time and the files are huge taking hours to compress and upload.
chumbud wrote:I like to view the chats and have been there for the past couple months but for whatever reason UStream on many occasions just starts getting really choppy and it makes it impossible to follow what is being said.
it's clear for 99% of the folks who view it, it could be your connection. unfortunately, there isn't anything more we can do.

chumbud
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by chumbud »

Even the audio alone would be helpful especially since Phillip is having you repeat the text questions and should be fairly small in file size.

adafruit
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by adafruit »

chumbud wrote:Even the audio alone would be helpful especially since Phillip is having you repeat the text questions and should be fairly small in file size.
if someone were to do this, we'd welcome it - but again, there isn't an easy way to do this, manage the files, tag, sort, compress (folks will want multiple formats, snark us if we don't have time for orb versions...)

GeoJap
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by GeoJap »

We used to run into this issue for raiding in World of Warcraft. In the guild I ran, we raided the big instances on Friday and Saturday night. This was where you got the best gear in the game. We were always hearing how BANNED would be better for those who liked to go out on the weekends, but those of us who work real jobs during the week didn't find that arrangement tenable. We did exactly what Limor is doing. You have to make a decision that works best for most people and realize that it's impossible to satisfy everyone's needs.

It would take a long time to transcode and upload an hour's worth of video. If you were to make fonts legible, the file size would be enormous. Someone else could record and upload somewhere. Just use a video capture card in your computer. I would use a Hauppauge HD-PVR recording device, but the output file size would be enormous in order to be legible.

adafruit
 
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Re: Why is Ask an Engineer on Saturdays

Post by adafruit »

thanks! exactly!
GeoJap wrote:We used to run into this issue for raiding in World of Warcraft. In the guild I ran, we raided the big instances on Friday and Saturday night. This was where you got the best gear in the game. We were always hearing how BANNED would be better for those who liked to go out on the weekends, but those of us who work real jobs during the week didn't find that arrangement tenable. We did exactly what Limor is doing. You have to make a decision that works best for most people and realize that it's impossible to satisfy everyone's needs.

It would take a long time to transcode and upload an hour's worth of video. If you were to make fonts legible, the file size would be enormous. Someone else could record and upload somewhere. Just use a video capture card in your computer. I would use a Hauppauge HD-PVR recording device, but the output file size would be enormous in order to be legible.

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