Creating Audio Versions of the episode

[Dan Vega]

For those who want to take the conversation on the road, is there an
easy way to create an audio version of the recording? Is this
something people would be interested in? If so we have to remember to
announce questions for people who have no video. Really anything that
happens on screen we would need to describe.

[Charlie Arehart]

This is an age-old problem with Connect-based recordings. Yes, you can (as
of about 10 months ago) create a downloadable recording (Audio and Video),
but only in FLV format. No MP3, MP4, Mov, etc.

Now, you may think, no problem. Just use any of many free or commercial
conversion tools. But it's not that easy. I've tried many for months. If
they work at all, the files are huge, and the conversion takes forever
(whether audio, or audio and video formats). I've had others try it, with no
better luck. The problem seems to be the Codec that Adobe's using.

I will note, at least, for you Dan that the process of creating the
recording is done from within the Connect admin page (where you login as
organizer and see the recordings listed). On that page you can choose to
create the offline FLV version. But another annoyance is that it takes as
long to create the recording as the presentation runs. So an hour-long
Connect session will take an hour to create the recording. It's all the more
annoying for me with a weekly (and sometimes twice-weekly) session.

And as you note, the other key problem for other than an MP3 is that the
video will be too tiny to be useful in an ipod, etc. All these things make
me not in a hurry to offer the offline recordings. But you may want to at
least do an MP3. I find they end up about 50meg per hour in the testing I've
done. I'm torn about just going ahead and offering at least that, but the
meetup is so visual that I wonder how useful it will be. In your case, it
may be worth it.

FWIW, I've started chronicling these challenges on the meetup site, at
http://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/pages/Challenges_creating_downloadabl
e_recordings/. The problem is one that many Connect users suffer. Just
google it and you'll find many complaints.

/charlie

[Dan Vega]

Thank you Charlie! I have the Adobe Media Encoder that comes bundled
with CS4, have you tried that product yet? I was just thinking that
since it was Adobe maybe it will have better luck converting the
connect episode.

[todd sharp]

FFMPEG can extract MP3 from FLV pretty easily - I've done it with CFExecute - but it sounds like a lot of work in this case.

--
Todd Sharp
Sharp Interactive, LLC
http://slidesix.com -- Multimedia Enabled Presentation Sharing
IM:  cfsi...@gmail.com
Blog:  http://cfsilence.com
Twitter: cfsilence | slidesix

[@mjhagen]

Hi Charlie,

Where can I find the FLV so I can experiment a bit with encoding/
quality, because I would be very interested in a podcast like delivery
of these (and the CFMeetups) panel discussions.

Thanks,
Mingo.

On Jul 28, 8:59 pm, "Charlie Arehart" <char...@carehart.org> wrote:
> This is an age-old problem with Connect-based recordings. Yes, you can (as
> of about 10 months ago) create a downloadable recording (Audio and Video),
> but only in FLV format. No MP3, MP4, Mov, etc.
>
> Now, you may think, no problem. Just use any of many free or commercial
> conversion tools. But it's not that easy. I've tried many for months. If
> they work at all, the files are huge, and the conversion takes forever
> (whether audio, or audio and video formats). I've had others try it, with no
> better luck. The problem seems to be the Codec that Adobe's using.
>
> I will note, at least, for you Dan that the process of creating the
> recording is done from within the Connect admin page (where you login as
> organizer and see the recordings listed). On that page you can choose to
> create the offline FLV version. But another annoyance is that it takes as
> long to create the recording as the presentation runs. So an hour-long
> Connect session will take an hour to create the recording. It's all the more
> annoying for me with a weekly (and sometimes twice-weekly) session.
>
> And as you note, the other key problem for other than an MP3 is that the
> video will be too tiny to be useful in an ipod, etc. All these things make
> me not in a hurry to offer the offline recordings. But you may want to at
> least do an MP3. I find they end up about 50meg per hour in the testing I've
> done. I'm torn about just going ahead and offering at least that, but the
> meetup is so visual that I wonder how useful it will be. In your case, it
> may be worth it.
>

> FWIW, I've started chronicling these challenges on the meetup site, athttp://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/pages/Challenges_creating_down...

[Charlie Arehart]

No, I have not tried that (never have yet installed the CS4 set yet). Let me
know how it goes, for sure, if you do try it. Thanks.

/charlie


> -----Original Message-----
> From: cfp...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfp...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Dan Vega

[Charlie Arehart]

Well, the work is first getting the FLV out of Connect. But then when you say you’ve done it, was it with an FLV created from Connect? My point was that people who have said they had transformed FLVs into other formats then tried it with an FLV from a Connect recording, and it just didn’t work as easily as they expected.

 

If you’d like to try one, if perhaps you’ve not yet created an offline version of the panel discussion, I do list the URLs to a couple of CFmeetup FLVs in that page I mentioned, http://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/pages/Challenges_creating_downloadable_recordings/.

 

/charlie

[Charlie Arehart]

Your help would be appreciated Mingo. I'll assume that by now you've seen my
last note pointing out that the meetup page I created chronicling the
problem does also list URLs to example FLVs to try out. Thanks.

[Mark Mandel]

Is there somewhere we can download a short Connect recording, so we
can play with converting it to MP3? I would also like to have this on
a podcast.

I'm happy to try and throw mencoder at it, and see if I can get an mp3
out of an FLV.

Mark

[@mjhagen]

I already posted a message to Charlie on Twitter, but for the sake of
completeness I'll post it here as well:

I made some additions to the 'Challenges creating downloadable
recordings' page on CFMeetup. With a flv converted to mp3 at 32kbps,
For me that is more than enough for a podcast and it's 19.1 MB so I
think that's great for more than an hour worth of audio.

You can download the file at http://mingo.nl/cfmeetup/test.mp3 Just
turn down you volume for the first part because of an over-modulated
mike (I'm guessing.)

This is pure audio though, so great for the CF Panels I think, but not
so much for the regular CF Meetups.

Hope this was of some help,
Mingo.

[Charlie Arehart]

Thanks, Mingo. That does sound compelling, at least for MP3s. I'm curious:
how long did it took to do that conversion? I should set up a table on the
site to prompt people for the info to offer in their tests.

Too bad about that Railo show sample having me with the overmodulated mic.
Sadly, the connect interface offers no help in seeing how your mic is
(unless you run the audio setup wizard). I don't think of that because I'm
usually using the same setup each time. I think in that show I may have been
on the road and using a poorer quality portable mic that I've since ditched.

/charlie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cfp...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfp...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of @mjhagen
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 5:53 AM
> To: cfpanel
> Subject: Re: Creating Audio Versions of the episode
>
>

[Charlie Arehart]

Mark, I have just added a new smaller (2 minute, 30 second) demo video for
testing purposes: http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/p24599720/ (and now listed
on the
http://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/pages/Challenges_creating_downloadabl
e_recordings/).

[Mingo Hagen]

It took about, I don't know, something like 3 to 5 minutes on my 2008
MBP. Not long in any case.

Sent from my iPhone

On 29 jul 2009, at 17:30, "Charlie Arehart" <cha...@carehart.org>
wrote:

[Charlie Arehart]

Really? That's not been my experience at all. It's good to hear, of course,
especially for the CFPanel guys. Let us know if you experience the same in
turning the recording into an MP3. Or have you done it already perhaps? I'll
certainly revisit things for the CFMeetup.

/charlie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cfp...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfp...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Mingo Hagen
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:19 PM
> To: cfp...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Creating Audio Versions of the episode
>
>

[Mark Mandel]

Stupid question.. but how do I download this as an FLV?

Mark

--
E: mark....@gmail.com
T: http://www.twitter.com/neurotic
W: www.compoundtheory.com

[@mjhagen]

Where can I find, or how can I create the FLV version of the CFPanel
01 session? Then I can create the mp3 version for you.

Mingo.

On Jul 29, 9:15 pm, "Charlie Arehart" <char...@carehart.org> wrote:
> Really? That's not been my experience at all. It's good to hear, of course,
> especially for the CFPanel guys. Let us know if you experience the same in
> turning the recording into an MP3. Or have you done it already perhaps? I'll
> certainly revisit things for the CFMeetup.
>
> /charlie
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: cfp...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfp...@googlegroups.com] On
> > Behalf Of Mingo Hagen
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:19 PM
> > To: cfp...@googlegroups.com
> > Subject: Re: Creating Audio Versions of the episode
>
> > It took about, I don't know, something like 3 to 5 minutes on my 2008
> > MBP. Not long in any case.
>
> > Sent from my iPhone
>

> > On 29 jul 2009, at 17:30, "Charlie Arehart" <char...@carehart.org>

[Dan Vega]

You have to do it from the connect console. I have tried about 10x now
and every time connect crashes. I will see if Todd can try and
download it.

[Charlie Arehart]

My bad. In my haste to get a test up there for you, I forgot the vital next step of converting it into an FLV, something that can only be done by the owner of the meeting room where the recording was made. I’ll go do that and post it ASAP and will let you know here.

 

/charlie

[Charlie Arehart]

That's interesting. I've never had a crash while creating the offline
version from Connect. And I've done it on both Mac and Windows.

/charlie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cfp...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfp...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Dan Vega
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 7:09 PM
> To: cfpanel
> Subject: Re: Creating Audio Versions of the episode
>
>

[Mark Mandel]

I've downloaded the Mura CMS .flv, will try converting it with mencoder.

Mark

[Charlie Arehart]

OK, here’s the correct URL:

 

http://www.carehart.org/20090729_CFMeetup_2_minute_test_to_help_w_offline_recordings.flv

 

Thanks for any interested in trying to convert it. Again, if you are a member of the CFMeetup, you can document your findings on the meetup page:

 

http://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/pages/Challenges_creating_downloadable_recordings/

 

Anyone can view the results (it’s just that only members can edit the page), so the guys here with the CFPanel will learn from your observations as well.

 

The issue is the speed and ease/success in creating alternative audio and video formats, since Connect only lets us create FLVs. Mingo has demonstrated success with MP3’s. That’s great. Let’s see if anyone tries creating an MP4 or MOV or other a/v format. The challenge is that over the past several months, several have and have not had success. If things work well with this short test, you may then want to try a longer test file (as offered on that 2^nd URL above.) Thanks.

 

/charlie

[todd sharp]

The recording tool keeps crashing my browser too (like Dan) -- no matter what browser I try.  Charlie - is there a special trick?

[Mark Mandel]

Well, I just did a straight to mp3 rip from the flv using ffmpeg (was much easier than mencoder), of the Mura CMS

Took maybe 5 minutes, and kept the default bitrate @ 64Kbit.

29.1MB. Works very nicely.

Dunno what you were doing Charlie, but it worked really easy ;o)

ffmpeg -i mura.flv mura.mp3

Presto :D

Mark

[todd sharp]

OK, I found a fix for the 'Connect' crashing issue when trying to record:

http://www.connectusers.com/forums/cucbb/viewtopic.php?pid=7859

Installed the add in per that forum and it works.

Charlie - you might want to document that on your other thread?

Now - i'll try and record a full episode of cfpanel.

[Charlie Arehart]

Thanks, Mark. I added a note to the comment Mingo had made on the CFMeetup page chronicling things, saying that I wonder if perhaps what’s up is that creating the MP3’s works better now because perhaps something in the codec being used by FFMPEG has been updated since I (and others) tried things a few months ago.

 

The bigger question will be to see if anyone gets a chance to try creating a video as well. If that runs quickly (no longer than the hour it took the FLV) and it comes in about the same size, that will be great. IT was running for hours for me and created a huge file (10 times larger than the FLV), done on multiple machines (and with others trying it too, including Gert who tried Railo’s cfvideo tag that also uses ffmpeg.)

 

If we discern that some updated codec now included in ffmpeg is the solution, we’ll want to document that on the page (and Gert will want to update Railo).

 

Thanks again for the efforts so far.

 

/charlie

 

PS Mark, can we assume you are using a recent (or perhaps indeed the latest) version of ffmpeg, of others want to try things?

[Charlie Arehart]

Good to hear, Todd. I added a comment to the bottom of that meetup page chronicling these challenges (and crediting you for the find). Thanks.

 

/charlie