Hi-res video from hearings now available

[carlmalamud]

Hi -

Y'all may remember a bit of a kerfuffle about congressional video
going on-line. I'm pleased to report that the pipeline of hi-res
video directly from committees onto the Internet has started up, and
four committees have begun to make their stuff available. You can
read more details here, including the procedure for private citizens
to order discs:

http://www.archive.org/details/us_congress

Another entry into the data can be found via YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=87B7B6B03894FD24

The fact that the computer pros in the House have signed off on making
the DVD jukebox available on the net as fulll-resolution FTP'able
discs is great news. Their assessment said this was "inexpensive" and
"easy," which pretty much clears the decks for Chairman Brady and
Speaker Pelosi.

Regards,

Carl Malamud
Public.Resource.Org

[Josh Tauberer]

Hey, Carl. That's great. Thanks for keeping us updated (and for making
it happen)!

--
- Josh Tauberer

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation! Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

[selise]

Brilliant! Thank you so much for this... Really fantastic news!

Two questions:

1. any chance of having mp3's of just the audio? To widen the access to
those who don't have the bandwidth to download the video?
2. how's it looking for the senate committee hearings?

Again, many many thanks. Just wow.
selise

[Lou Klepner]

Agreed- this well done. One thing I think public.resource.org / Archive.org has done *particularly well* is the distribution end of things.

Web-based: Flash video is, IMHO, the best way of displaying video in the web browser. It doesn't matter what operating system or web browser one is using, everyone, within reason, can see the video. It starts up almost immediately and there are *very few* compatibility problems. All in all, it seems like "the way to go" when it comes to display video in a web browser.

Offline: For archiving and re-use, the MPG offerings are very nice! OGG/Theora might be a good format to add to the list but otherwise the range of formats and most importantly -- the ability to download and save a copy, as opposed to just streaming, is key!

Great work!

Cheers,

- Lou

-------------------

Louis Klepner

Executive Director

Gateway to Gov

p: 914-456-7243

f: 425-955-8988

e: l...@gatewaytogov.org

www.gatewaytogov.org

[Carl Malamud]

Hi -

> 1. any chance of having mp3's of just the audio? To widen the access to
> those who don't have the bandwidth to download the video?

That's a good idea ... let me see what we can do. The main focus is
getting
the raw data out there on the theory that the net and/or the congress
can
derive the rest. But, good to show the audio-only piece.

> 2. how's it looking for the senate committee hearings?
>

One house at a time, eh? :) I've been focusing on the house.
Suspect
it might take a bit longer to move the senate along.

Carl

[Perla Ni]

Carl,

Fantastic work! You are a stud for pushing this forward. We're so
thrilled these hearing videos will be available.

I'll second the request for mp3 of the audio.

I also want to echo the request for Flash file - ideally hi-res (400 x 300).

And also an accompanying transcript - useful for searching and for
audio impaired.

Thanks again for your great work!

Perla
Perla Ni
CEO, Founder, GreatNonprofits.org
Founder, Voterwatch.org
415-902-2659
Skype: Perlani
ni.p...@gmail.com

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