Gentoo Forums

Howdy folks,

This may seem like a "shameless plug", but I thought you might be interested in seeing a piece our local CBS news affiliate did on our school's recent switch to Gentoo Linux (I'm the network administrator they interviewed). Forgive my awkwardness in front of the camera . You can download the video clip by going to http://www.ghca.com, currently the news story is our top "headline" on our homepage.

If anyone would like to provide a mirror (the video is a small 5MB mpeg 4), feel free (less stress on our server), just list the link below.

Let me know what you think!

Mike

ps - knowing I'd be representing Gentoo to the general populous, I stayed away from a lot of "technical jargon" - keep that in mind as you watch the interview.

mod edit:
Added links to the mirrors to this post so people can see them immedeately without scrolling down:

Ogg Theora - high quality (15.6MB)
http://download.iansview.com/mirror/ghc ... s-high.ogg
http://lordbob.no-ip.org/video/news-high.ogg
http://www.lovesunix.net/gentoo-high.ogg
http://e101.no-ip.org/mirror/news-high.ogg
http://q-collective.org/funstuff/news-high.ogg
http://www.thecodergeek.com/downloads/g ... s_high.ogg

Ogg Theora - low quality (5.3MB)
http://download.iansview.com/mirror/ghc ... ws-low.ogg
http://lordbob.no-ip.org/video/news-low.ogg
http://www.lovesunix.net/gentoo.ogg
http://e101.no-ip.org/mirror/news-low.ogg
http://q-collective.org/funstuff/news-low.ogg

DivX - Low quality (4.9MB)
http://www.dakjos.de/files/wagm-gentoo-low.mpg
http://download.iansview.com/mirror/ghc ... oo-low.mpg
http://www.beejaysworld.de/static/wagm-gentoo-low.mpg
http://lordbob.no-ip.org/video/wagm-gentoo-low.mpg
http://e101.no-ip.org/mirror/wagm-gentoo-low.mpg

amne, ian!, codergeek42

Mirrored in germany: www.dakjos.de/files/wagm-gentoo-low.mpg
High Quality Link: http://www.dakjos.de/files/wagm-gentoo.mpg

Now that's a nice report!

Dude, you did an _amazing_ job! Really explained everything well.
Now if only the news reader would pronounce Gentoo correctly...

Nice!

Mirror: http://download.iansview.com/mirror/ghc ... oo-low.mpg

Dagnabbit!

That was nicely explained

Beautiful interview. I like how you kept it all in laymans terms so everyone would understand what you were talking about. Hooray for Gentoo in the classroom!

Could someone reencode the file in Ogg Theora format in support for freedom in the classroom as well?

If you tell me the commands, np. Allways happy to help the fully free people!

@extraketchup: Is the Video available in higher quality?

LordMyth wrote:If you tell me the commands, np. Allways happy to help the fully free people!

Ah well, I decided to install gst-ffmpeg (and using an rpm it took only seconds)

http://www.lovesunix.net/gentoo.ogg (5.3 megs) - reencoded in Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis using gstreamer.

I'm curious...

The video file has the MPG extension, yet the article says it is encoded in DivX, which is AVI.

Care to clarify?

Bang-on great interview though!

I'm curious...

The video file has the MPG extension, yet the article says it is encoded in DivX, which is AVI.

Care to clarify?

When I encoded the video, I used the ffmpeg encoder set to mpeg4. I thus assumed I was using a "generic" mpeg4 codec. When I went to view this in Windows (since most our audience does use Windows), it did not work. I went to download the mpeg4 codec, and the site redirected me to the DivX codec website.

So, confession time - I'm no expert in DivX. My understanding is it uses the mpeg4 format, but also includes some proprietary DRM-like mechanisms. I assumed mpeg4 uses mpg extension. Am I wrong? Please educate me

Freaking sweet!! Good stuff man!

--sonik

extraketchup wrote:

I'm curious...

The video file has the MPG extension, yet the article says it is encoded in DivX, which is AVI.

Care to clarify?

When I encoded the video, I used the ffmpeg encoder set to mpeg4. I thus assumed I was using a "generic" mpeg4 codec. When I went to view this in Windows (since most our audience does use Windows), it did not work. I went to download the mpeg4 codec, and the site redirected me to the DivX codec website.

So, confession time - I'm no expert in DivX. My understanding is it uses the mpeg4 format, but also includes some proprietary DRM-like mechanisms. I assumed mpeg4 uses mpg extension. Am I wrong? Please educate me

Yes, please advocate the use of open and free formats not ones that requires a license (which is the case for all mpeg4 derived formats)

playfool wrote:

LordMyth wrote:If you tell me the commands, np. Allways happy to help the fully free people!

Ah well, I decided to install gst-ffmpeg (and using an rpm it took only seconds)

http://www.lovesunix.net/gentoo.ogg (5.3 megs) - reencoded in Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis using gstreamer.

Thanks, the mpg didn't quite work for me, the ogg did a lot better.

Nice interview btw.

Yes, please advocate the use of open and free formats not ones that requires a license (which is the case for all mpeg4 derived formats)

Okay, let me ask you this - will the ogg format work in Windows Media Player? Is the codec easy to obtain and install? Understand that almost 100% of our website viewers use Windows, so I have to accommodate the typical Windows user (which can be a pain, believe me). So, give me more than "please advocate free formats" - give me the details

extraketchup wrote:

Yes, please advocate the use of open and free formats not ones that requires a license (which is the case for all mpeg4 derived formats)

Okay, let me ask you this - will the ogg format work in Windows Media Player? Is the codec easy to obtain and install? Understand that almost 100% of our website viewers use Windows, so I have to accommodate the typical Windows user (which can be a pain, believe me). So, give me more than "please advocate free formats" - give me the details

Yes, http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/oggcodecs_0.69.8924.exe - that will add directshow support for ALL xiph formats (Theora, Vorbis, Speex and FLAC) - convincing Microsoft to support an open format out of the box.. is a tad harder.

that took 5 secs.. any other things stopping you from enabling others the use of free formats, I'd be happy to help?

extraketchup wrote:

Yes, please advocate the use of open and free formats not ones that requires a license (which is the case for all mpeg4 derived formats)

Okay, let me ask you this - will the ogg format work in Windows Media Player? Is the codec easy to obtain and install? Understand that almost 100% of our website viewers use Windows, so I have to accommodate the typical Windows user (which can be a pain, believe me). So, give me more than "please advocate free formats" - give me the details

I "almost" say to encode in two formats - WMV (for Windows users) and RM (RealMedia) for pretty much everyone.

Both are proprietary formats, but you'll provide for the widest possible audience without forcing people to go nuts trying to find the right codec to download.

Personally, I'm all about DivX and XviD (OGG just never caught on), but working in a Windows world, there's a lot of people who just assume it will work under Windows Media Player and if not, they shrug and move along thinking the video file is corrupt if it doesn't play.

I enjoyed the video and you did a good job of explaining things.

I wouldn't worry so much about the video format. No matter what format you use someone will be asking for a different format. Most video players in linux can play everything under the sun so being mindful to what Windows users can view made sense (to me anyways). In the future if you want to appease everyone you could encode it in a format that is easily accesible to Windows users and then encode it again in a completely open format for the FOSS advocates. But that would be twice the work.

airstreamliving wrote:(OGG just never caught on)

Seeing as ogg is not yet that old, and theora even less old, that should be ogg has not yet caught on. Actually for the relatively short lifespan of these formats it seems to be catching on quite well

allucid wrote:I enjoyed the video and you did a good job of explaining things.

I wouldn't worry so much about the video format. No matter what format you use someone will be asking for a different format. Most video players in linux can play everything under the sun so being mindful to what Windows users can view made sense (to me anyways). In the future if you want to appease everyone you could encode it in a format that is easily accesible to Windows users and then encode it again in a completely open format for the FOSS advocates. But that would be twice the work.

It's not so much about me wanting to only use Ogg Theora, for many things it's not a good codec - but it's the only one I can LEGALLY use, advocating a workaround rather than explaining the problem and why it is the way it is - and what advantages the open formats do provide, seems insane to me.

BlackEdder wrote:

airstreamliving wrote:(OGG just never caught on)

Seeing as ogg is not yet that old, and theora even less old, that should be ogg has not yet caught on. Actually for the relatively short lifespan of these formats it seems to be catching on quite well

Ogg Vorbis has been around for quite a while. Was once a very strong contender against MP3 if I'm not mistaken and failed miserably during the popularity contest a few years back even though it is a very good format. That is what I meant when I said it never caught on.

playfool wrote:

allucid wrote:I enjoyed the video and you did a good job of explaining things.

I wouldn't worry so much about the video format. No matter what format you use someone will be asking for a different format. Most video players in linux can play everything under the sun so being mindful to what Windows users can view made sense (to me anyways). In the future if you want to appease everyone you could encode it in a format that is easily accesible to Windows users and then encode it again in a completely open format for the FOSS advocates. But that would be twice the work.

It's not so much about me wanting to only use Ogg Theora, for many things it's not a good codec - but it's the only one I can LEGALLY use, advocating a workaround rather than explaining the problem and why it is the way it is - and what advantages the open formats do provide, seems insane to me.

Point taken, I was making a general comment not specifically directed at you. I am curious, though, as to what legal problems you have. Does it have to do with your country or perhaps some laws I am unaware of here in the US?

allucid wrote:

playfool wrote:

allucid wrote:I enjoyed the video and you did a good job of explaining things.

I wouldn't worry so much about the video format. No matter what format you use someone will be asking for a different format. Most video players in linux can play everything under the sun so being mindful to what Windows users can view made sense (to me anyways). In the future if you want to appease everyone you could encode it in a format that is easily accesible to Windows users and then encode it again in a completely open format for the FOSS advocates. But that would be twice the work.

It's not so much about me wanting to only use Ogg Theora, for many things it's not a good codec - but it's the only one I can LEGALLY use, advocating a workaround rather than explaining the problem and why it is the way it is - and what advantages the open formats do provide, seems insane to me.

Point taken, I was making a general comment not specifically directed at you. I am curious, though, as to what legal problems you have. Does it have to do with your country or perhaps some laws I am unaware of here in the US?

For DiVX (and other MPEG4 derived formats as the beloved XViD) the issue is quite clear - it's patented technology and as such requires a for-pay license. And the problem really isn't my country I don't have software patents and the DMCA, I can probably legally _get away: with using open implementations of patented formats.. the problem is your country.