[Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[The Cunctator]

Given that allowing mp4 would be an act of commercial expedience at the
expense of core Wikipedia principles, let me make the modest suggestion of
introducing mp4 in concert with a name change to Encarta.
On Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM, "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great post Manuel, and I wholeheartedly agree, including the final
> recommendation. I, instead, voted for full MP4 support on the RfC to draw
> the center of gravity towards accepting MP4, but I would be happy even with
> a partial solution.
>
> Some points:
>
> 1. The video project in English Wikipedia is:
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video]] We certainly welcome more than
> just English Wikipedians there! We've had several university classes use
> this, and I think a pretty good set of example videos and guidelines
> including many videos shot by journalism and media studies students:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video
>
> 2. I talked recently with the Mozilla Popcorn folks, and they seem to have
> the best OSS, online video editing system today with Popcorn Maker. You can
> actually paste in URLs of Commons video and start splicing them together.
> Just make sure to use an Ogg/WebM friendly browser. I encourage you to try
> it out.
>
> https://popcorn.webmaker.org/
>
> They said they would be thrilled if Popcorn became part of the editing
> solution for Wikimedia. One problem is that they right now only manage an
> EDL of edits, so embedding an edited video together requires an online
> Javascript environment -- there is no provision for re-compressing and
> outputting the video to a standalone Ogg or WebM file. But this is OSS so
> adding this functionality should be possible with the right resources.
>
> 3. Perhaps we should do several sessions at Wikimedia in succession,
> including a workshop on how to shoot and make video? I teach video shooting
> and editing to students each year, so this would be quite an easy thing for
> me to pitch in on.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Manuel Schneider <
> manuel.schneider at wikimedia.ch> wrote:
>
> > Hi Fabrice,
> >
> > interesting question!
> >
> > I'd like to remind of a discussion we had at last year's Wikimania in
> > Hong Kong concerning tools for the video community.
> >
> > Yet we do not really have a video community but scattered small groups
> > or individuals doing some work. I try to coordinate this in the
> > german-speaking world and we do this via Wikipedia, then there are
> > people in the Czech Republic doing videos on national parks, Andrew did
> > some great stuff in the US, there is a british initiative as well. We
> > all face similar challenges. One things - which is off-topic here - is
> > that I have in mind to connect these groups to an internationl video
> > community, maybe by having a WikiVideo (or whatever the name might be)
> > project.
> >
> > But back to the RfC: One of the challenges is that we need a solution for
> >
> > * storing the raw video material allowing people to re-use, re-edit
> > etc., also most volunteers don't have the storage capacity to store all
> > their raw material
> >
> > * collaborative editing - hard to do technically and it mostly implies
> > that raw material is being shared - hard for people that can meet each
> > other as these files are big, fast storage is needed etc. and it is even
> > harder for people working online
> >
> > * upload of high-quality, finished video projects is a pain. They mostly
> > have more than 1 GB, you need to have another server to upload and share
> > it, make a bug report, find a server admin who downloads and imports it
> > etc.
> >
> > My idea which we talked about briefly at Wikimania was a server where
> > people could upload there raw material, it gets transcoded into smaller
> > "proxy clips" everyone can easily download, edit and then upload the EDL
> > (edit decision list = video editing project file, which just holds the
> > operations). The server would then use the EDL on the raw material
> > stored there and render the final video. The upload process can then be
> > automated between this server and Commons.
> >
> > The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent
> > trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw
> > material.
> >
> > So my take on this topic is a compromise:
> >
> > * allow MP4 / H.264 as a source codec
> >
> > * deliver everything in WebM / Ogg Theora (or other free codecs)
> >
> > Especially with WebM I see no reason why people really need H.264. Ogg
> > Theora is somewhat exotic but WebM isn't.
> > And once we have solved the legal problem around this RfC nothing is
> > stoping us to implement the video editing server, right?
> >
> >
> > /Manuel
> > --
> > Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> > Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
> >
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