Welcome to the official blog of the TV review team for WordPress.tv
We approve and publish all videos on WordPress.tv as well as help WordCamps with video post-production and captioning and subtitling of published videos.
We use this P2P2“P2” is the name of the theme the blogs of make.wordpress.org use. When asked to post or view something “on the p2” by a member of the WPTV team, that usually means you’re asked to check https://make.wordpress.org/tv. to post our progress, status reports, and occasional geeky video debates. Use the “Subscribe to Blog via Email” widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. to follow along!
Want to help us?
Video Editing — You can see what videos we have that need editing in this spreadsheet. No special credentials are needed, just download the raw video file, and use your favorite app to edit.
Subtitles/captions — You can help us extend the reach of of WordPress.tv by adding captions or subtitles to any published video. Just find your favorite video, and follow the steps here to create a caption/translation file and submit for review.
Weekly meetings
We use Slack for real-time communication. As contributors live all over the world, there are discussions happening at all hours of the day. We have weekly team meetings every Thursday at 17:00 UTC, and they are open to the public!
When the WordPress.tv team receives video from a WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. that needs editing, it is added to our central spreadsheet found here.
At the bottom of the spreadsheet you can find tabs for each WordCamp that submitted video, and within each sheet you can see a list of video that need to be edited. To “claim” a video to work on, add your SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. username to first column (if there is a name there already, then it is taken) and the date you are claiming the video in the second column. To the far right there is a link that you can click on to start downloading the file to your computer.
Once you have downloaded the video to your computer,. The edits needed for WordCamp videos are basic, so you can use any video editing software you are already familiar with. If you do not have any editing software, you can download Shotcut, which is a free open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. video editor that is cross-platform.
To start, add the raw video to your video editing software, and trim unnecessary footage at the beginning and at the end. This will remove any extra footage from before the presentation starts, and after it has ended. Note that some videos may need to be trimmed in the middle if there are any inappropriate comments or technical issues that need to be removed, so you will want to watch the entire video when editing. cross-fade transitions can be used to indicated the break or passage of time.
Some camps will include intro and outro graphics that can be edited in (these will be in the master spreadsheet) but if not, then slides will need to be created for this purpose.
We have slide templates here that you can use in our Google Docs account here.
To use intro slide you will need a Google account, as you will need to make a copy of the Intro Panel into your Google account to edit; he master slide at the one at the above link cannot be edited. Once you have a copy of it, you can open the Intro Panel copy in Google Slides and add the following information:
Speaker’s first and last name
Title of the presentation
WordCamp name
Once you have edited that information on your copy of the slide, save the completed Intro panel as a JPEG image (.jpg), and download it to your computer.
Unlike the Intro panel, which needs to be edited to add info about the presentation, the Outro panel can be used as-is without any edits. As with the intro slide, save it as a JPEG image (.jpg), and download it to your computer.
Once you have your panels created, add the Intro panel at the beginning, making sure it does not cut off the point you want the presentation to start. Plan to have the slide on the screen as long as it takes to read at a comfortable pace. A good guideline is 7-10 seconds
Add the Outro at any point after the end of the presentation. Remove any blank space between the presentation and the Outro panel, and leave it on the screen for 10-15 seconds
Adding Transitions
It’s not necessary, but you can add a simple cross-fade transition between the title slide and the start of the WordCamp presentation if you are able. A one second cross-fade is a good guideline. A cross-fade transition can also be added to transition from the end of the video to the Outro slide. For consistency, simple fade transitions are preferred for any transitions over other transition styles
In some cases it may be necessary to add presentation slides to a WordCamp video. This is usually noted in the download spreadsheet in step 1. If you add presentation slides to the video, make sure each slide is available as a single image file file.
If the slides are provided in a single PDF file, you will need to convert slides into individual JPEGs. Instructions for how to do that can be found here.
Watch the presentation, and insert the appropriate slide when the presenter begins referring to it in their talk. Slide duration should be 5 seconds minimum, but the amount of text on a slide can vary, so if there is a lot of text, make sure the slide is visible long enough to allow viewers time to read the slide, but not be so long that the video feels too slow.
If the slide has multiple bullet points the presenter refers back to, you may need to add the same slide more than once (as the presenter refers back to it) for effectiveness and readability.
If the presenter screen is visible within the WordCamp video itself, you can use this a guide for when to edit in a new slide. If a visual cue is not available, then you may need to listen carefully to determine when it’s best to show the slide. Use your best judgement or ask a moderator in the #WPTV Slack channel if you need any advice.
There is a 1 Gigabyte upload limit for files submitted to WordPress.tv, so you when you are done editing your WordCamp video, you may need to compress it when saving it in your video editor. Encoding time and quality will depend on your system resources and may require some trial and error to get a nice final video.
Be sure that the final size of your video is at least 1280x720px, also known as 720p. This is an HD video standard that is a good compromise between file size and the quality of the video itself.
If your video editor cannot compress during encoding and saving, you can use Handbrake, which is a free open source transcoder. Instructions on using Handbrake can be found here: Download links for Handbrake and short how-to video found here: https://make.wordpress.org/tv/handbook/video-editing/compressing-video-for-upload-to-wordpress-tv/
Once you have your videos properly edited and compressed, please go to http://wordpress.tv/submit-video/ and upload your WordCamp video.
Fill out all the required fields. It may be necessary to Google the information page for the talk, which can be found on the related WordCamp site. If you are unsure of how to fill any of the fields on the form it is OK to that field blank. The volunteer moderators at WordPress.tv will make sure everything is formatted correctly when the video is published.
Next select your video file using the file chooser, and start your upload. Be sure not to power down your computer or disconnect from the internet until the upload is complete.
And that’s it! thanks for helping to make WordPress.tv awesome! 🙂