Coming from the “Chaos”, the recording quality on media.ccc.de for bigger events is often higher than that of EAG(x) recordings. (E.g. small details like normalizing / boosting audio levels.) That makes a large difference in the “watchability” of recordings.
I agree that the talks being recorded has a huge impact on my behavior during events – e.g. at CCC events, if a talk is being recorded I generally don’t bother trying to go there in person unless I’m really interested. Watching it later at home is easy / possibly more convenient than at the event (no standing in line, no crowd noise in the room, known good recording quality), while talking to the people at the con can’t really happen later. (E.g. at the last Chaos Communication Camp just a few weeks ago, I checked the schedule ahead of time, picked 4 events for “maybe live attendance”, then went to none. By my current estimate, I’ll probably watch about 20-30% of the recordings over the next weeks / months at least partially – don’t have to stay / keep watching if I’m not interested.)
Zoom is not a good way to record talks. (Compressed audio and bad picture quality / often just using a cheap webcam makes for a bad experience. I often have trouble understanding low-quality recordings or streams, and might as well skip that.)
Small changes in any one category can make a huge difference in the result – so e.g. even with a good camera, not enough light will produce bad results. (See e.g. this recording – knowledgeable people, good equipment, etc., but not enough light in the room. Grainy image, looks slightly blurry even if properly focused. Throwing a bunch of extra lights in the room would fix it, but we didn’t get around to it yet… there’s other more pressing problems.)
So even if you go the “no live talks in person” route and skip big halls, you do want a decent recording studio. (Good light, sane sound design, proper equipment, one or two people that know what they’re doing.) Having your own team (like the VOC at CCC events) is good for consistency (same people, same setup, very similar quality results) and can make sense if there’s sufficiently many things to record. Not sure if EA is already in that category, probably hiring local A/V techs & equip per event is still cheaper.
Coming from the “Chaos”, the recording quality on media.ccc.de for bigger events is often higher than that of EAG(x) recordings. (E.g. small details like normalizing / boosting audio levels.) That makes a large difference in the “watchability” of recordings.
I agree that the talks being recorded has a huge impact on my behavior during events – e.g. at CCC events, if a talk is being recorded I generally don’t bother trying to go there in person unless I’m really interested. Watching it later at home is easy / possibly more convenient than at the event (no standing in line, no crowd noise in the room, known good recording quality), while talking to the people at the con can’t really happen later. (E.g. at the last Chaos Communication Camp just a few weeks ago, I checked the schedule ahead of time, picked 4 events for “maybe live attendance”, then went to none. By my current estimate, I’ll probably watch about 20-30% of the recordings over the next weeks / months at least partially – don’t have to stay / keep watching if I’m not interested.)
I too agree that recording the talks is great, and affects behaviour.
One way to save costs could be to record the talks ahead of time (on Zoom). Reduce the costs of huge halls and recording infra in one go!
Zoom is not a good way to record talks. (Compressed audio and bad picture quality / often just using a cheap webcam makes for a bad experience. I often have trouble understanding low-quality recordings or streams, and might as well skip that.)
Small changes in any one category can make a huge difference in the result – so e.g. even with a good camera, not enough light will produce bad results. (See e.g. this recording – knowledgeable people, good equipment, etc., but not enough light in the room. Grainy image, looks slightly blurry even if properly focused. Throwing a bunch of extra lights in the room would fix it, but we didn’t get around to it yet… there’s other more pressing problems.)
So even if you go the “no live talks in person” route and skip big halls, you do want a decent recording studio. (Good light, sane sound design, proper equipment, one or two people that know what they’re doing.) Having your own team (like the VOC at CCC events) is good for consistency (same people, same setup, very similar quality results) and can make sense if there’s sufficiently many things to record. Not sure if EA is already in that category, probably hiring local A/V techs & equip per event is still cheaper.