We are recording the convocation ceremonies in two different formats. One is completely digital and will be archived. Please contact me if you have any questions regarding the recording. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Hello, Karen,
Would you mind forwarding the following part of Stallman's info packet to
the people who will be handling the AV? (Stallman is the leader of free
software movement and it would be a cruel irony for us if people had to
use proprietary software to listen to his speech.)
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Recording my speech:
Please do record the speech if you can. We are always looking for good
recordings of my speeches, both audio and video, to put on line.
The GNU Project keeps an on-line audio and video collection of speech
recordings in
audio-video.gnu.org. If you are making an audio or video
recording of my speech, please write to
address@hidden in advance for
advice on how to make a recording that is good for further use, and
subsequently to arrange to install your recording on our site.
When you are making a recording, please make sure to tell me when the tape
needs to be changed. I will pause. Please help me help you make the
recording complete.
Recording formats:
Please make sure that your recording is not compressed with a
substantially lossy codec (unless it is an Ogg codec). If we have to
transcode the file, starting from a lower-quality base will reduce the
quality of the result.
It is best to provide audio recordings in the original recorded sample
rate, up to 44100Hz. Monophonic is generally adequate for speech
recordings and saves a lot of space over stereo.
For video recordings, please save the master recording, which will
probably be in miniDV format.
Please don't transcode recordings from one format to another before
sending to us, unless they have such a high bit rate that files are
impractically large. If you do need to encode or transcode, please convert
audio to 64Kbps mono Ogg Vorbis (or you could try Ogg Speex), and convert
video to Ogg Theora with video quality set to 5 or more. If you need
advice for how to do this, please ask
address@hidden.
Putting my speech on the net:
If you would like to put my speech on the Internet, or distribute it in
digital form, I insist on using the formats of the free software
community: Ogg Vorbis or Ogg Speex format for audio, and Ogg Theora for
video. Please do not distribute my speech in any other format.
Please do not ever broadcast or publish my speeches in formats that are
not good for free software. I will not speak to make a recording or
broadcast that requires non-free software to be heard or viewed. Don't use
RealPlayer format, or Quicktime, or Windows Media Player format, or a
patented format such as MPEG2, MPEG4, or MP3.
This requirement is very important, because if it is not followed, viewing
my speech will require people to do the exact opposite of what I ask them
to do. The medium's message would contradict my message.
Because this is so important, please make sure everyone who might be
involved in broadcasting the event, or who might be directly or indirectly
involved in planning such a broadcast, knows this requirement in advance
of the event.
Remote speeches by video connection:
I can do a speech remotely through a videoconferencing system. This can be
done by Internet or by ISDN. For good quality by Internet, we need a
maximum of 100msec response time for ping between your site and where I
am, and 100kbytes/sec transfer rate.
Using two or three ISDN lines gives good quality but the calls cost money.
If I am at home, there is a facility I can use at no charge; you would
have to pay for the ISDN calls and for the facilities at your end. If I am
somewhere else (which is true more than half the time), then we will need
to find a videoconferencing facility for me to use; most likely you will
need to pay for that.
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Thanks for everything,
j.