[UK-CONTEST] Convention Contest Forum

[Ian White GM3SEK]

We went through all of these arguments ahead of the Moonbounce 
Conference on Cambridge. After some discussion we decided to go ahead 
and ask BATC to record it... and they did us proud!

As soon as each lecture finished, the recordings were speedily edited 
and then streamed out onto the Internet, only an hour or two behind real 
time. People around the world were grateful for the opportunity to take 
part in the event from a distance, but there was no evidence that the 
video streaming decreased the numbers attending. The people who followed 
the event over the Internet would not have come anyway - they would 
simply have missed out on it completely.

But that was only ONE lecture stream, with perfect conditions for BATC 
to work in: a purpose-built lecture theatre with good lighting, radio 
mics on all the presenters, two roving radio mics for questions from the 
floor, and a superb on-site AV team. BATC had plenty of room to set up 
their cameras without getting in the way of the audience, room at the 
back for their editing desks - and above all, always a choice of good 
clean sound and vision feeds.

It gave BATC the perfect opportunity to show the world what they can 
do... and believe me, those guys are seriously good.

But NONE of those facilities exist at Horwood House. One way or another, 
every one of those rooms is an awful environment for video and sound 
recording. This was proved two years ago when an individual volunteer 
recorded a few sessions from the back of the room, and the quality 
wasn't fit to publish. Not his fault, just the awful recording 
environment for images and sound alike.

And finally, BATC certainly doesn't have the resources to cover five 
streams. I doubt if they could cover even two, especially at a place 
like HH that would be fighting them every step of the way.

This is an area where half-measures are even worse than nothing at all, 
and HH is not the place to try it.


Not that you'd have missed much at the contest forum anyway...



-- 

73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek