Month Of Screencasts 2007
Month Of Screencasts 2007
Submitted by Alan Pope on Wed, 2007-08-29 17:54.Ubuntu Month of Screencasts is a mad plan concocted by the Screencast Team to produce one full length screencast per day for the whole of one month. That month is September 2007.
The goal is that each video will go into one subject in some depth, to help educate new users about Ubuntu. We will cover a wide range of topics which should answer some questions that new users to Ubuntu often ask. We aim to go into enough detail to be interesting, hopefully without being baffling or boring.
We can of course not go into infinite detail on every topic, there are limits to our time and resources. So don't expect these to teach kernel hacking or C programming, but there should be enough information to get a new user from "zero to hero" in one month. That's the goal anyway.
Each screencast will be made available through the Ubuntu Screencast site in three sizes and two formats (OGG and Flash). The screencasts are licensed under the permissive Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License, so you're free to modify, pass on, sell or otherwise distribute them so long as the attribution to us stays intact.
Update: We now have feeds which work in popular podcasting clients. Use the links in the box on the top right "MoS2007 Podcast Feeds" with your favourite podcatcher. This has so far been tested with hpodder and miro (previously known as democracyplayer.
Update: We are behind schedule, but still plan to put out 30 screencasts, although they won't all be finished by the end of September. We are hoping they will all be available before Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) ships in October.
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This is great!!!
Can somebody add a screencast of how to do a screencast from start to finish including exporting it to the different video formats?
That would be even better!
mdawkins
Heh
You wouldn't believe how many times I've been asked to make a '"how to make a screencast" screencast'. It's not actually as easy as it seems, but it's definitely on my to-do list!
Thanks.
screencast ain't easy ;)
you right it isn't easy.
One must install gtk-recordMyDesktop , and start the recorder by clicking the entry in menu Application > Sound&Videos > gtk-recordMyDesktop
wow, so difficult :/
...and converting the ogg into avi is even more difficult:
mencoder out.ogg -ovc lavc -oac lavc -ffourcc DX50 -lavcopts acodec=mp3 -o traget.avi
:)
hmm
I think you may have missed my point.
It's not the screencasting itself that's difficult, it's recording the screencast whilst you are already recording a screencast. So that would mean running one screen capture tool (like gtk-recordMyDesktop) to record yourself recording something. Otherwise you're just making a screencast (in your example) not a "how to make a screencast, screencast".
Having two capture programs running at once somewhat kills my machine.
I guess there are other ways of doing it, like point a video camera at the screen :) and I'd love to hear them.
VM
hmm> what you're looking for is called a Virtual Machine ;) ... then you just have to capture everything on it. VMware does it fine.
Again, you're missing the
Again, you're missing the point. It's not the capture that is the problem. It's doing two sets of captures at once. We currently use QEMU as the VM of choice, as opposed to that nasty non-free VMWare ;)
Why would you like to do
Why would you like to do something like that, recording a screencast while you recording?Whats the point?
Do it in three shots.
1.[START] Show all the pre recording setup, and make a mouse movement as you would started the recording [CUT]
2.[START] While you recording show the visible icon and how to stop the recording [CUT]
3.[START] Record all the post recording stuff.
At the end join the movies, and here the mencoder might come handy again :)
use VNC and vnc2swf
you can use VNC and vnc2swf for this purpose.
We do use vnc in some
We do use vnc in some recordings and record the vnc window using xvidcap not vnc2swf. I don't use vnc2swf because it creates swf files rather than "proper" video files like Ogg/Avi, and as such they add an extra level of conversion.
licencin
Ah, wouldn't the screencasts be derivative works of the applications and themes and so on?
No.
I don't believe so.
Nice Project
Here a nice "Ubuntu-Switcher" called project i found for the german speaking audience.
Techview-Podcast
Would be nice to have something that good for the international users too.
Ubuntu Screencasts Project
This sounds like a great idea. For the sake of new Ubuntu users (new to Linux), it may be advantageous to explain how to install a package directly from the terminal and/or as the root user. The end user will be able to get a better understanding for what goes on behind the scenes rather than have a completely automated GUI experience.
Ubuntu is the best Linux distro of all time!
RSS for video players
Would be great if you guys could fix the RSS to work on video players such as Miro (getmiro.com). It would be easier for people to follow when a new episode is released not to mention that Miro is cross-platform. :)
No sooner said..
..than done.
You will find in the top right a box labelled "MoS2007 Podcast Feeds". These links should work in podcast clients such as bashpodder, hpodder and so on. I have not tested these in miro/democracyplayer because I don't have that installed here.
They work..
I just tested them in democracyplayer and they work.
Screen cast of upgrading from Fiesty to Gutsy
Can someone please give us the correct procedure for upgrading from CLI from one Version of Ubuntu to the next, there is a lot of different ways proposed on the ubuntu forums, surely there has to be one correct way for it to be done.
Excellent idea
I'll certainly think about how to do that. It's not too difficult to show. Thanks for the suggestion.
access to screencasts
Imagine a newcomer to Ubuntu who has been using windows for internet, email word processing and playing games. How does that person access the screencasts? I believe there is a need for clear instructions on the website otherwise all you will probably be doing is preaching to the converted.
Norman
great idea
I'll put a page up later today detailing how people can watch the screencasts.
subtitles translation on launchpad
I have an idea. What about to create a project on Launchpad and import to it transcript of screencast every time a new screencast is released (or before)? You could use Rosetta to get translations! Every screencast could be displayed as a separate translation template. It would be very easy way to create subtitles (timing would be done only once, by you) and I think a lot of interested translators would participate. I would.
I don't know if translations can be incorporated directly into ogg file, but you can always publish them as external files on these pages, even after screencast release.
What do you say?
Well.
As I understand it launchpad uses .po files for translation. The .srt files which totem (and other media players) use is not something we can directly import into launchpad for translation. I could file a bug against launchpad (if that's the best thing to do, to see if we can get .srt files supported in Rosetta. This would definitely make translation easier.
Also, have a look at the conversation I started on my blog:- http://popey.com/Multi-lingual_Video_and_Audio
Awesome
I just started using Ubuntu a few weeks ago, and these screencasts have been a great help. I look forward to seeing the rest. Thanks for bringing this great resource to me and all the other newbies.
Quality
I'm quite disappointed by the video quality (OGG, 1280 x 720). Things looks like a JPG image which ought to have been PNG.
Thanks for the feedback
Is this in relation to one specific screencast or all of them?
This is possibly due (at least in part) to the fact that the videos are encoded at a relatively low bitrate. We have to juggle file size, quality and encoding time to get the best quality at the smallest size without using too much CPU time.
In addition to which I may provide a DVD and/or Torrent link to download the original versions of the videos which are much larger and are higher quality.
All of them. I hope some
All of them. I hope some potential Ubuntu users don't get the impression that this is how the Ubuntu desktop actually looks. Perhaps we could have some high-resolution PNG screenshots along with each screencast? Of course there are lots of screenshots out there, so this may not be a big cause for concern.
Surely people are used to
Surely people are used to watching compressed video. Youtube, google video, break, liveleak, miro and so on.
We are just providing another compressed video. If we made the videos available uncompressed or with very little compression the files would be massive and as such unwatchable by the majority of computer users due to the bandwidth requirements.
Flash download
When I click on Flash Download link (FLV file), my Firefox browser starts to display binary contents of FLV file inside browser. Instead it should pop up and offer me to download the file. I think that on your webserver there are wrongly configured mimetypes or something like that.
if you click the stream you
if you click the stream you can view it
if you click the download yep it is hosed
BUT if you just right click and "save as" it will save it to where you have firefox set to download to
i have ran across that problem a few times with different files on different servers in the past and that seems to work ok for me ?
Of course the "save as" will
Of course the "save as" will work for you. But the screencasts are intended for common users. They don't know that.
Second problem is, not only left click will show you binary mess, but it also freezes slower computer for even minutes. With fast internet, you will be glad to stop loading even on powerful CPUs.
screencast are great !
i've been using Ubuntu for a year now and thought i knew a lot about the basics of it.
BUT i have watched the screencast and pick up new bits each time i watch them !!!
i know it is not easy to do them so i really appreciate them, keep up the great work !
one small suggestion would be to have a few links related to the topic on the download page
i watched one 3 times to get this url
http://futurist.se/gldt/
to see a flow chart of the history of linux distro's
i cheated and used it to check out some of the other distros and it did make me
decide that the Ubuntu distro is the best !
the.phantom
Sorry about that
The links are only on the main page for the screencast, and not on the pages for each size and format. So for example http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/MoS2007/02_Linux has the link you mention, but http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/MoS2007/02_Linux_Ogg_Large doesn't. Sorry.
feedback
what is missing:
Installing Ubuntu next to windows:
like "in c i have 35g 15 free in d i have 50g 20g free, i will take 10g from the free space from drive d so no data will be erased..."
create something like this for samba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad17kma8rNM
add to the list
http://ubuntuclips.org/videos/11
More Screencasts?
Dear Screencast-Team
I like youre Screencasts. I've watched them all and I found many things I didn't know before about Ubuntu and GNU/Linux. I tried many things on my own after watching them and looked around at the GNU- and Free Software Foundation-Site. I also like the Screencasts about getting and installing Ubuntu. Thank you very much for this very good work.
But why did you stop? There are no new casts since over one week? Isn't this the Month of Screencasts? Or was it only the one-and-a-half-week of Screencasts? Do you need more topics?
What's about gaming with ubuntu? Presenting the different Desktop Enviroments like Gnome, KDE, ... ? Ubuntu as Server? Showing the Shell? Remotecontrol with SSH? Media-constructing/editing/gathering/designe with audacity, Sound Juicer, EasyTAG, Gimp, Blender, ... ? How to make a Screencast? How to make a Backup? .......
I hope you make more of them soon
posted by Muunleit
What happened to the MoS?
I loved watching the screencasts, but there hasn't been a new one in over a week. Has the Month of Screencasts ended already?
Month of screencasts?
Am I missing something or have the screencasts dried up?
No new screencasts?
...and I was really enjoying them, too. Perhaps a little too much? At any rate, I'm beginning to feel a bit of a twitch in my hands. May we have an update at least?
Thanks for the comment
Yes, there are more screencasts being made, and there will be 30 in the "month of screencasts", but they won't all be out before the end of September unfortunately. They should all be done by the time Gutsy releases.
Gimmee more !!!!
Great work on those screencast !!! really helpful for us newbies...err I know you probably got lot of request,but how about one for.
How to Install.tar.gz/ .rpm archive files etc,
where does the files get installed? ,which directory etc.etc!!
It's a nightmare!! for newbies...anyway can't wait Gusty Gibbon release :) keep up with those screencast thx !!
Thanks for the kind comments
I have considered doing one about installing applications in a "non-standard" way. Needs more thought. Watch this space.
Submitting Bug Screencast
How about a screencast to show how to submit a bug. I dont know if this is in your scope of screencast this month but it would definitely help users.
what do you say?
I say it's a great idea
It probably falls under the banner of "contributing", so reporting bugs, editing the wiki, translating, all those things could be talked about. I'll give it some more thought, thanks.
Thanks for the screencasts, Alan!
I just watched the fast user switching one, and now have a better idea of what that's all about. Thanks!
Suggestion for a future podcast: show how to install an alternative to one or more of the default apps (VLC for Totem, for instance) in order to take advantage of either extra features or an interface that the user prefers. Then show how you can change the default program used to open an associated file (using the properties dialog for an .ogg file, for instance). For some programs, you might need part of the podcast to show how to add a new repo (or ensure that a particular repo is already included), and then how to update the package lists, locate the latest version, and install it.
(One practical reason I do this: I find that .avi files taken by my digital camera play back correctly under VLC, but with great color distortion with totem. I don't know why, but I know I'm more likely to watch the movie correctly with VLC than I am to personally fix Totem!)
That directly "competing" programs can happily coexist on a system and in the software ecosystem of F/OSS is one of its strengths, and worth crowing a bit about, I think :)
Cheers,
timothy
Thanks for the comments and kind words
It's certainly a good idea to show that there are alternatives to the standard programs that Ubuntu ships with. Maybe also showing non-GNOME (KDE) apps under GNOME such as Amarok which is an insanely popular audio management app.
Don't tell me how, show me how
Many thanks for the visual lessons, you've given me the confidence to dive right into Ubuntu. I'm certainly a long way from 'hero', but I'm no longer a 'zero'. The screencasts talked me through my fears at installing Feisty one month ago and also through the process of upgrading to Gutsy a few days back. Alan Pope gets my vote!
Awesome, Great Project
It's a great project, of course I want more. Would b great to have it with translations, subtitled, second language channel (SAP).
I love to see a screencast about file sharing, between Ubuntu boxes and with Windows boxes (any, XP, Vista).
I'll keep tunning. Keep up the good work.
Victor
Alan Pope
Alan Pope is the god of screen casting. Very clear visuals and an excellent commentary.
Sam
Note: I am not Alan's mother or related to Alan in any way
THANK YOU!!
Because of your screencasts I have managed to install Ubuntu 7.10.
Good job!
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