Battlestar Wiki talk:Think Tank/Audio Project

Comments and Discussion

Great idea! It might be of great benefit if we can identify one or more actual users who could take advantage of this, so that it can be implemented in a way that is useful to them (and not how we THINK it would be useful to them). There is likely a template to eventually be developed that could link to the audio of a page (or otherwise navigate to the audio), indicate that the page does have an audio version, and possibly indicate versioning/etc. so that the audio people would be able to identify clips that are out of date so that they can be updated. (This audio was created from Version XYZ.) To such an end, it might be useful if the recording were done in sections where appropriate, so that a particular section could be updated instead of having to redo the whole article. I'm not sure about the usability implications of that, though.

Any ideas on where we could id some audience members? Would this (if approved) merit a Skiffy broadcast seeking interested parties (if we don't get banned for "advertising").

Also the Podcast project volunteers to transcribe all the audio clips. And... *waits a beat* we're done. Whew. That was tough. --Steelviper 12:00, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

That's a good idea. We can do it like the podcasts. If we are to use the podcast method, we would have an mp3 for each section, then there's an overall mp3 that combines them all. I rather like that. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:24, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

Not a bad idea. However I do see a problem. I being doing templates for a while, and I would think this would be a problem. Inside the "header" we would have to place the template. This could potenially make the TOC very cumberson. We could do both. Overall and Sectioned audio files. I can make the templates refer back to the "diffid" that they were spoken of so people can go back and compare versions so they can see how out of date it is. However, I would like to see the project and orginized over at the "media" wiki since it's an "upload". We should for sure though add a *beep* after each section. (Darn. I wish I had a good enough mic). Anyone suggest a "test" article once we get this off the ground? I suggest Elosha. One more thing... we should not read the "infoboxs" or "captions". Just the stright text. Forget external links sections. Offical statements. etc. Stuff that is not from us. Questions? No. They change to much.

How would we do episodes because they are not in prose format. They are items. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:12, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Well, those are good points. Here's what I'm thinking:

• Templates are not to be read but summarized all depending on the template, obviously. For instance, at the start of an audio version for an episode, the person would say something along the lines of: "This is an entry for the episode "33", which was episode one of the first season. "33" was written by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. The episode first aired..." and so forth. This is, essentially, a summary of the episode template that the speaker would have to turn into prose.
• For the episode pages themselves, they would read off the bullet points. I know it isn't exactly pretty, but it is and audio version of the page itself.
• I think the project needs to be organized at both the home wiki and media. The home wiki, in case the English Battlestar Wiki, would have to organize which articles are to be focused on. The media version would set up the guidelines to be done across all the wikis and coordinate how the files are to be catalogued and so forth.
• We would need a small template to be inserted at the end of each section. It wouldn't be a box such as {{WPBOX}}, but a one-line thing linking to the section's audio file, as well as a permanent link to the revision that was read.
• As Shane said, we shouldn't read external links and image captions, since these would be useless in an audio version. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:37, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

We would have to develop "scripts" for each type of article then. So we can be uniformed. I am though processing on how we can do a template by each section and keeping it on the bottom and tot he right, but small enough that if there are to many it doesn't look to "envasive". Invasion of the Speakers per sa. An overall "audio" link button can be done with {{titled-click}} for sure be it be {{sound file}} so I can add the extra parmated that {{titled-click}} has. Manily the diff links. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 22:05, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

mp3 v. ogg

• mp3 - Very large; Can play almost anywhere even iPods
• ogg - Smaller File Compacted; Need custom codecs to listen.

--Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:12, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

I would prefer mp3 because its more versitile, but i can see why the ogg format has many pro's. I however have an iPod so cannot listen to ogg files apart from on my pc. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:25, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Wikipedia uses ogg for philosophical reasons that I don't hold particularly dear. From a practical standpoint, mp3 is the obvious choice. --April Arcus 12:57, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

MP3 requires the (generally) $$$ codec in order to encode into mp3, but once it is in that format it is pretty much the accepted format for audio interchange. As long as our "readers" have a means of producing that format, then I'd favor mp3. --Steelviper 13:08, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

There are free mp3 encoders. The problem I don't know of any recorders that go directly into mp3 format. it might have to be a WAV to mp3. Maybe we should ask RDM how he does it. :) --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:11, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Well, he does have a digital voice recorder. it already encodes in mp3, as most of them do, so I don't think he really does anything other than send the files off to Sci-Fi's webmaster. Oh, and as for mp3 vs. ogg, mp3 is obviously the more logical choice as ogg is more of a hassle than mp3. (Do also keep in mind that we don't have to record the voice in high quality, as the human voice doesn't really have too much in the way of range, particularly when reading text out loud.) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 14:29, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

[INFO/TOOLS]: Not sure if this is where I should be posting, but anyway... (Audio Wikinews) Everyone here uses ogg / (JOrbis: Javascript Ogg Player) I saw this enabled in a wiki page / (Tiny Player - MP3) Seems like a decent player. -- Ovinnik, 19 September 2006

Podcast Hosting

Can't we technicily also store the podcasts already on the wiki if we wanted to?. there open source. We can convert them to the ogg format. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 14:51, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

I don't know if the podcasts are open source (our transcriptions are "fair use", and they're publically available, but I believe they're copyrighted material). Besides, if scifi is willing to host them, I'm not sure what value we'd add by hosting our own copies... --Steelviper 15:00, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

Reduncency in-case they disappear. Two, Three years after a show they might get rid of them. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 15:12, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

The podcasts are copyrighted, unless otherwise noted. I would imagine that if we obtain permission to host them then we'll be ok. But let's get back on subject here, shall we? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 15:15, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

Would it not be a good idea for somebody to save all the podcasts on their HDD just incase? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:24, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Obviously, a personal archive would be a good idea. The issue here isn't so much archiving to your hard drive, CD or whatever storage medium, but rather distributing the podcasts through the wiki itself. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 14:30, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Vote

• Date Started: Monday, August 28, 2006 at 12:00 (UTC)
• Date Ending: Monday, September 4, 2006 at 12:00 (UTC)

1. Joe Beaudoin Jr. - Support per creator
2. CalculatinAvatar - Support I'm going to preemptively beg for a draconianly uniform media file naming scheme and explicit standards, though. --CalculatinAvatar^(C-T) 02:25, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
3. Day -
4. Mercifull - Support definitly
5. April Arcus - Support no objection --April Arcus 17:31, 10 September 2006 (CDT)
6. Spencerian - Support Not too versed on this, but it sounds useful. --11:44, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
7. Steelviper - Support I think some more details remain to be ironed out, but enough is there to get a project started. --Steelviper 08:20, 28 August 2006 (CDT)

Note: All users are welcome to partake in the voting as well. -- Joe Beaudoin

1. Support --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 08:17, 28 August 2006 (CDT)
2. Talos - Support
3. SuperMMX Support Very good idea, but a lot of details should be discussed later. And what about multilingual version? As long as there are enought articles of that language.
4. Ovinnik - Support - As a Voice Actor (*cough* shameless plug *hack*), I think this is a great idea! (-:

I say there is a clear concensus for this project without any objection. Peter and Day have been absent for a while. Talked with peter about it a while back. Said he was still thinking about it. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 19:58, 9 September 2006 (CDT)