Wikinews talk:Audio Wikinews/archive 1

Hey i would like to help out with this, do you have a streaming server, if not i can get my hands on one free, and also i have an idea, you should run it simular to a tv news channel with several shows, one of wich i could do weekdays....so let me know what you all think.--Ryan524 21:56, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey guys, I'd really like to get this project started ASAP. I think it has great potential and we can really attract a large number of listeners, and who knows - perhaps get picked up by some independent radio stations out there :D.

But we'll need a few things to get started, so here it goes:

- Anchors, perhaps figure out a time that's best for us all to broadcast a short clip at a certain time each day. We could also take turns on a chat on Skype and see how that works, but I'm not sure on how good the quality would be.

- Primary audio format, I'd like to use Vorbis but not many DAP's support this, so MP3 would have to be used if we were to set up a podcast-like feed. Anything at 64kbps or higher seems to be compatible with most DAP's (at least from my observations) as well, so no need to have uber-great sounding clips. We could also encode in different formats as well.

- Jazzy sound bytes, maybe music licensed under the PD or CC to incorporate into the clips (something to keep them interesting).

- RSS feed updater... I have no clue here, a podcast feed isn't much harder to set up than a regular RSS feed, but I have no idea to start one from a wiki like this.

After that, we'll be up and running. I'll wait for some more feedback here, but I really have high hopes for this project! --Mrmiscellanious 00:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great ideas...

Anchors

I'm not sure we need to get too scheduled yet. Whoever has time and equipment should be doing this, I think. We should aim to update the hourly playlist at least twice a day, probably at 0600 and 1800 UTC (1400 and 0200 in my timezone.)

• I could probably release one around 6 a.m. Eastern (1100 UTC) and again at 3 p.m. (2000 UTC), but I can't guarantee one every single day. --Mrmiscellanious 19:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

File format

Wikinews must be available in free codecs, of course. Commons.wikimedia does not support hosting sound files other than in .ogg. Wikinews does not need to be hosted exclusively on commons, though. I would personally prefer to only support .ogg simply to force more support of this free format from webcasters (our target market, imo) and Macintosh. Supposedly it is possible to play .ogg with iTunes.

Jazzy sound bites

I've been putting out feelers looking for a jingle maker to brand us with, but not getting many bites. I will continue to look, but maybe you have better sources?

The software I'm using, Audacity, would allow me to add background sound tracks, sound clips, and so on. I strongly suspect this is a good idea, but frankly my time is so sucked up during the day I can rarely put enough time into this to get 4-5 brief news headlines written and recorded. Should I ocus on fewer tracks, but adding sound layers?

I'm thinking why music? Nature sounds. A bird call landing close by for Wikicast intro ... voice-over dubbed to ocean surf sounds ... bird sound flying off = 3 segments -Edbrown05 02:41, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A little bird whispered in my ear... -Edbrown05 02:42, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Way cool idea! <goes looking for such sound streams> - Amgine/^talk 02:43, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Glad you like it! Sits well with me. -Edbrown05 02:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk about a way to set us apart from the competetion :) There is an australian bird that is called the magpie (very different to european magpies). Its a damn aggresive, and not particualy good looking bird, but it produces a very destinctive sound. I'll see if i can record one and upload it. Quite possibly its not appropriate, but, hey ill let you guys decide that. ~The bellman | Smile 07:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here's news. I can get all the ocean sounds we need. The bird stuff is trickier. (A zoo?) Many sound clips are readily available for purchase. No needto go anywhere! -Edbrown05 02:54, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I found this nice one, "Rave Wave" from musicloops.com that would be a great background/opener for our sound clips. The clip is a loop, unsure of the license, but I was able to have permission from them to use it on my own podcast. I'll send them an email and see what they'll say about the possible usage here. --Mrmiscellanious 19:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RSS feeder

This is a technical item I will need to do research on. I do have some ideas though...

Collaborative scripting and segments

I would like to see the daily news brief being regularly updated and used as the script for an hourly update. We need to keep the hourly update to no more than 5 minutes. And it can be continuously updated through the day, if we'd like.

The way to do have the podcast continuously updated is to keep uploading files as they are recorded, and adding them to the play list (subtracting, too, to stay in the 5 minute time frame.)

Can this be done with DynamicPageLinking? Perhaps DPL could be done where the headline + first 2 graphs would be enough to take care of it for Wikicast purposes, it wouldn't necessarily have to be specifically for News Brief page. -Edbrown05 02:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no it can't be, unless we write a separate news brief artice for each regular article. - Amgine/^talk 19:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Advisement

I am getting some excellent advice from a radio person, and the suggestion is to improve our voices, first. Secondly, we should aim for a small, tight news format. Here's an outline:

• radio news are shorter than 3 minutes - 2 news + weather forecast
• 1st news - about 2 minutes (if it's very important), 2nd news - +/- 30-40 seconds and weather forecast - max 5-10 second

Such a short time will mean really really shrinking our news down to just the shortest bullets. - Amgine/^talk 22:37, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It depends really. Here in aus (on abc local radio at least) news goes for different lengths of time at different times of the day. We have the kind of news you describe above every quater hour. But we have longer news on the hour. before at 07:45 -08:30 we have 45 mins of news (first fifteen mins is officially news and the next half hour is current affairs program AM, but really AM is not like comercial current affair programs (at least in aus) because it really is just more in depth news - like wikinews articles, and anyway they are both read by the same person, and tend to merge into each other). Again from 17:45 - 18:30 we have the same thing (though now it is called PM). So basically, in conclusion, i presume our target audience is ppl who listen to podcasts, not radio, and even if it was radio there is still a lot of room for movement. I think we should develop a range of podcasts each with specific timelimits, purposes and audiences. Sorry if i sound like im coming back and trying to tell ppl what to do, but im just so excited by this, words really cant express it. best of luck to everyone. ~The bellman | Smile 07:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Submissions through Skype?

I've found a great way to set up an answering-machine like setup for Skype. I think if we organized the Audio page a little more, and included ways of how users can submit their own bulletins, our project can really get off the ground.

Anyways, back to the Skype machine... if anyone would like to test it out, send a short audio message to wikinewsmachine. I've nicknamed it AWAM (Audio Wikinews Answering Machine), and this will record all incoming Skype conversations. --Mrmiscellanious 04:08, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comments

I just heared the latest edition. It's very complete, though probably a bit long. And what happened to the tunes? I believe I heared some tunes on a previous edition. To be frank, the current format seems to me a bit monotone. -- Redge (Talk) 17:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I do agree about the broadcasts being a bit monotone, try and listen to a news broadcast from the Beeb and try to listen to the pauses and how the newsreaders gentley speak in a relaxing mood but being serious and the same time. 159753 15:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I am interested in reading Wikinews articles for the Wikinews network and/or Audio Wikinews. How do I do this, where do I send it, and where do I get that backgroud music? --206.45.170.232 01:02, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your interest in WikiNews Network, we are currently testing out an easy-to-use system to submit a show and get broadcasting. We expect this system to be ready within the next couple of weeks. I greatly appreciate your interest in WikiNews Network, and hopefully you will still be interested in doing broadcasts when are system is ready. NGerda 02:13, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Transcripts?

I just listened to the latest release. Are there transcripts? What is the source that says "the US military has admitted that the koran had been mishandled"? I'm referring to: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/20050528-1800UTC.ogg

I read it off the Wikipedia Current Event section, which links to a BBC article that says the following: "The demonstrations came after the US military admitted some of its guards had mishandled the Muslim holy book." --Mrmiscellanious 21:45, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

This has been a very confusing issue in my mind. I'm not sure what to make of the BBC statement. If I look at the ACLU's official website, I can't find any such claim: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18320&c=206 seems to be current and relevant. All I can find are documents that mention detainees allegations.

I agree, that's the only bit I could find (BBC) that claimed the soldiers had to do anything. I was reading it straight off the page, and didn't catch myself until the episode was already published. This whole item is a mess, I'll stop reporting on it alltogether, it'll be much easier to stick to the facts that way. --Mrmiscellanious 00:39, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I actually think this is a place wikinews could shine, by trying to objectively catlogue and sift through the various claims in MSM.

Metric system

Just a minor detail : since this is an international endeavour, shouldn't we provide metric numbers for all measures?

Good idea :>) NGerda 16:47, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

Oh my fucking god

This is brilliant. You guys have done so much while ive been away. My mind is reeling with the posibilites. WOW. Ok, so ive almost finished my exams and should be on holidays soon (back in a place where the internet connection is free and my ports open (so i can use IRC)) so hopefully ill get involved again.

Questions:

1. Does anyone know if most players that understand the vorbis codec would understand the speex codec? They are both ogg, but speex is designed specifically for speech so can be compressed a whole heap better than vorbis, and is also automagically gets rid of some of the background noise. Through the miracle of ogg packaging however, it is possible to include both speex and vorbis in the one file (if we ever needed something other than speech). Anyway, this isnt really important, just something to keep in the backs of our minds for now.

• Most, if not all, can properly decode Vorbis and Speex. I have had trouble in the past finding a decent Speex encoder, though - and it is even lesser popular than Vorbis (plus, I don't know if Commons supports Speex files [they're in the OGG container anyway, but I think there's a rule against Speex]). In any way, we can just recommend VLC to those who can't play back the files. --Mrmiscellanious 04:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1. What about regional variations? i presume that at some point in the future we want multiple casts, from different regions and the like, how are we planning on handling this? Are we going to have one 'official' cast, and then multiple casts with different accents. What if two people want to be the voice of Australia (for example)? If this has already been discussed just point me to where.

Then they can sign up on the schedule.

1. What basic hardware/software does one need to set this up?

Icecast or Nicecast.

1. Who was the driving force behind this (i know DV was trying to get it up and running before he left)? Whoever it was i vigorously shake your hand.

Ryan proposed the initial idea for WikiNews Network, and we're working on a new broadcasting system. Think of it as wiki for radio.

Congratualtions everyone, now: to infinity and beyond.

~The bellman | Smile  07:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh and i forgot, hows about including the quote of the day in there too (if ppl think that it would fit in), just so wikiquote doesnt feel left out ~The bellman | Smile 07:21, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lol NGerda 18:26, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Development, issues, and discussion

So you want to do a show, huh?

I now have a specification from at least one webcasting group who would like to have Audio Wikinews in their daily schedule. This specification will require hard work from people in this project to meet the demands:

• An hourly news update:
  • 5 minutes long
    • Short stories a minimum of 20 seconds
    • Long stories a maximum of 90 seconds
  • Updated at least daily
    • If possible, two different news updates, so they can be alternated (even hours have track A, odd hours have track B)

Another optional item is a full news show. This could be a half-hour or a full-hour show. If full-hour it would be in two 29 minute segments with no over-lap.

• A daily news show
  • 29 minutes
    • Short story minimum 90 seconds
    • Long story maximum 330 seconds
  • Weekly schedule
    • Can be two stories per week (weekend show) or 5 stories per week (weekday show)
  • Format may be multiple broadcaster or single announcer

For each of these we would want to use a single URL so the webcaster may automate the system. I think this can be done on commons; will test to make sure. - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Issues

The current Audio Wikinews page top section excludes people who want to do work on this project. It needs to be changed to be inclusive, so the information about where the program is recorded must be removed.

The project scripts, where they are developed and where they are archived, needs to be prominently advertised so people can get involved in editing them. Can does not mean will, but it needs to be an option. In general, the entire set up is not very public; it needs to be more accessible, more sunlight and less shade. - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would like to start converting all of the Ogg Vorbis files to MP3 files, which are much more widely used. Any comments? --Munchkinguy 30 June 2005 00:14 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Commons does not accept mp3s if I recall correctly. It's one of the reasons we started with .Ogg - Amgine/^talk 30 June 2005 00:17 (UTC)

Discussion

I've been going back through some of the tracks which have been recorded, and we have a great start here! I'm looking for places which would be interested in carrying the feed, so we can get as many audio stations using the material as pl.wikinews has. One thing everyone is looking for is some standards of production (how long it is, etc.) so they can work their schedules around it. What do you folks think? are you interested in making material which will be webcast/broadcast on non-commercial and commercial stations? - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why don't the Wikinews Newsbriefs play on the Wikinews Network at the beginning every hour? --Munchkinguy 29 June 2005 23:24 (UTC)

Hello? --Munchkinguy 1 July 2005 18:00 (UTC)