Forum:Video editing

Video editing
Wikia has a demo of Kaltura's collaborative video editing tool here. Kaltura's MediaWiki extension allows you to collaboratively create and edit videos, music, images, and animations directly on the wiki.

Please try it out and let us know what you think of it. We are very open to bug reports and suggested improvements and I will make sure any comments get passed on to Kaltura. See the help page for more details on how to use this.

If you can think of some cool uses for this tool on your wiki, please let us know. This will also help in the development since we need to know how people are most likely to use collaborative video.

I feel this has a lot of potential to enrich the content of many different wikis, so please give it some time and see how you could use it.

Angela (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback so far. One of the main issues seemed to be that there wasn't much in the way of help. There is now a video tutorial and some help pages on wikieducator. There are also some Halo 3 and Star Wars examples to show how this can be used in an article. If you have any feedback, questions, or bug reports, please add those here, or send them to me by email. Angela (talk) 03:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Now that I've seen these videos in action on MA/en, I have a couple of serious misgivings about this tool. I can see some benefits to its use, but there are a few major worries I have.  Specifically as follows:
 * Credit issues. There seems to be no easy way to get from an article with the video in it to the actual page for the video (ie, like Images).
 * Tied to that, hitting "credits" shows the user who added stuff to the video. Not the actual credits for the video.
 * Tied to that, it makes it very difficult to properly note the license of each item in said video.
 * Unrelated, they go into an "Kaltura" namespace? Wouldn't "Video" make more sense, so as to make them more like the way images work?  As it stands, they work counter to everything else we use on MA/en.
 * I personally cannot edit them using Firefox on OS X. I get a blank page when I hit the "edit this video" link.
 * Do the names of the videos have to be as useful as "Video 1234567"? Maybe it's just the examples uploaded by the Kaltura people to date, but with images, we can give them vaguely descriptive names.  Are we unable to do the same with videos?  If not, looking at the list of videos in the Kaltura: namespace with their non-descriptive names makes it pretty tough to figure out what you're looking for.


 * That's it at an immediate first... and that's after only trying to play for a few minutes. -- Sulfur 12:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * My main concern is that of copyright issues. I am worried that if we start to put video on MA, CBS/Paramount may not be too happy. Images I don't think they have too much of a problem with (else we would have been shut down before now), but video would probably be a big no-no, fair use wise. -- Michael Warren | Talk 13:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Written before seeing DH's addition, so some duplicate content.
 * I agree on all of the above points - and, regarding functionality, would like to add that it would make much more sense to add videos to a page using a wikilink like Video:Title_Of_Video than using the *ML syntax that is provided with each video.


 * More important, though, I think we need to talk about the usefulness of collaborative video editing on Memory Alpha. Our topic here is a specific subset ("canon") of something that someone has a copyright on (the Star Trek franchise) - and I feel that most of the potential videos to be uploaded here will either be copyright violations or "not canon". I can't think of either a page that desperately needs a collaboratively edited video, or content that would be free to use in such case. To avoid much administrative overhead to remove unwanted content, it might be best to deactivate this functionality here completely. The few cases that need a video (if any) could still use the youtube plugin. -- Cid Highwind 13:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you everyone for this discussion. I'm Aiden and as a Star Wars fan and a member of the Kaltura team, will be here to answer any questions you might have about this new tool. From what I read, there are several main points being discussed right now:


 * Copyright. Copyright is indeed a key issue when dealing with video. Displaying very short pieces of video, for purposes of critique, education, explanation etc is permissible. As long as we abide by that we should be ok. Furthermore: Apparently,  some of this community members have pointed out, this tool is very useful in combining ,and gathering many images that are currently scattered around the articles, in which case, we are back to the domain of images.
 * Hitting credits does show the users who contributed to the video. If you are not the creator of the clip or photo you uploaded, you can add a simple text slide at the end with credits.
 * Titles - We have found a solution to this issue, and it should be implemented shortly. However, it doesn't seem to be critical, as when you see the video as a part of an article, it has a proper and descriptive title. Furthermore, collaborative video search will be further enhanced in the near future.
 * Technical Problems While the code for this extension is already stable, we are still looking to perfect it, and Thank you Sulfur for the note on the problem with the Mac  OS system - Our tech guy has contacted you.


 * I hope this discussion continues, and look forward to seeing the video-wikis you create using this new feature. AidenS 11:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, images are typically "scattered around" the article because each one has a specific relation to the bit of text it accompanies, not because we just like to have them around in a random fashion - I doubt that merging them to a video will make the article better in most cases.
 * However, for that to be useful at all, the resulting videos would need to be able to "blend in" with the existing formatting - that means, no additional border/UI, resizeable to thumbnail size, preferably no need to press a play button, usage via wikicode instead of XML-like syntax. -- Cid Highwind 14:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As I just found out:
 * Deleting the local video description page doesn't delete the video itself. This is bad, because we most probably want to delete a video for a reason, be it porn spam or "just" a copyright violation.
 * All Wikia wikis using the Kaltura extension can display ALL uploaded videos. For example, you can just go to a video description page here, grab the tag code and use it to display the same video on Uncyclopedia - without the video having a description page there, without changes to that video showing up in their recent changes (probably, haven't tried), and without anyone there being aware of the fact that the video was created here using a different license.
 * -- Cid Highwind 16:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * And another point - it's true you can copy the tag and paste it in uncyclopedia, or other wikia community that implemented the extension. But you can do the same thing with the text you have here in the articles. I believe that no one will actually do it without linking to the original source, unless he/she has hramful intentions (and in that case, will be banned by the community). AidenS 12:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you're missing the basic point here. With your new extension on this wiki, you tell people that they can upload and edit videos just like they upload text and images. Our contributors will (and have to) assume that this means that their video contributions are published using the same license as everything else here (which is CC-by-nc/2.5, and, should you choose to make this available on other Wikia wikis, GFDL). Not surprisingly, though, you can find the same video via your site, kaltura.com, and there it says "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.". This looks like licensing trouble in the making. -- Cid Highwind 21:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

"Moratorium" - no videos in main namespace
There are still many questions open (see above) - do we want these videos at all; if we want them, do we want to pose any restrictions on their use; can any of the implementation details be fixed; etc.

For the moment, it would be nice if we could agree on not using videos in main namespace until the remaining questions are resolved. I think this is necessary because, among other things, included videos can't even be found easily, should we decide to drop that feature. -- Cid Highwind 15:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's amusing to see all these new users suddenly come out of the woodwork, just to post videos.
 * As for the future of the feature, I can see it as being useful if you wanted to effectively show scientific or special functions that can not be accurately depicted in a single image: like the Picard Maneuver (which is currently represented by 4 consecutive images), or an alien morphing, or a starship going to warp or firing phasers. I don't necessarily like the idea of it being useful just to show someone's personal favorite or most amusing scene or as a homage to their favorite character.
 * I'm a little hazy on this, but wasn't there a time when we had issues with posting animated .gif files for fear of copyright issues, or something? --Alan 21:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there's something in the image use policy about animated graphics not being as accessible as single images - which still holds, and should be even more true for flash videos used to show previously "scattered" images. ;) -- Cid Highwind 21:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Example
We can already see a nice example. As Alan suggested, it's a technical video demonstrating the Warp Drive. AidenS 10:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This is all nicely done, it has no place on Memory Alpha, in my opinion, however. We don't allow graphics /be it pictures or videos) that somebody has made, to illustrate how warp drive etc. works, only screencaps are acceptable. This video contains too much speculation. We'd only be able to use actual dialogue snippets with actual clips from the episode to showcase how things work. That approach would look strange as well, I guess, so I'd say we shouldn't include a video at all. Now, I do think there are cases were a video would work to illustrate things that cannot be properly shown on screencaps. Two examples: Photonic fleas are so small that they are hard to capture on a proper screencap. They are only really visible because of their movement (moving yellow dots of light), so in this case a small video from the episode, showing the moving fleas might be a good idea. Another example: B'Zal is a moving, visual phenomenon. We could include a video to show what it looks like. Before people start uploading more and more videos, we should really discuss how we want to implement those videos. I think, there are many "rules" we can carry over from screenshots. We shouldn't upload a collage videos with shots from different episodes. We don't need a video of Picard saying "Engage" twenty times. We also don't need videos that purely illustrate bloopers. Also, videos of people saying funny things (Merde...) are not necessary. Only when a video is the best way to illustrate an article, when screenshots don't work properly, or when the topic of the article is a visual, moving phenomenon by nature, we should add a video, IMHO. --Jörg 13:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * the idea to make the flea video sounds great! do you know where can I find a clip showing them? JustinMason 14:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but no thanks.
Let me reiterate:
 * There are massive problems concerning licensing of the videos - starting from the use of copyrighted material, over the crediting of the various editors, to the question of what license exactly is used, at all.
 * There are massive problems regarding administration - it is not possible for MA administrators to remove content that has been created for MA, and it seems to be possible for videos to be changed off-site after they have been added to an article (by visiting their existing Kaltura page, for example), without the MA community (admin or not) being made aware of these changes. It is not easily possible for MA contributors to see where exactly a video is being used - among other reasons, because it is possible to add videos that don't even have a description page on this wiki.
 * There are problems regarding the way videos are being added to pages (via XML, instead of a standard wiki code), there are problems with the resulting page layout (videos stick out with their borders, colors, blinking thingamajigs and all that), and there are problems with the strange names videos and their description pages have.

After those problems are fixed, we then could talk about how we want to include inline videos, and if we want that at all. For the time being, it seems to be the best idea to deactivate this feature on MA. This is not just my personal opinion, but seems to be shared by many long-term contributors I talked to in the last days (especially on IRC). In the same time, I haven't heard much opposition. -- Cid Highwind 13:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's play it fair
I respect everyone and everyone's opinions expressed here. But let's make it an open and a fair discussion. Titles no. 2 and 4 give me the impression that an admin is trying to direct the discussion according to his personal opinion. Let's give other people the chance to express their opinions (Not on IRC. Here) as well, without "thanks but no thanks" titles. When we go back and read the whole thread, we can see that some ideas for possible usage of this feature were metnioned. So the potential exists, and we shouldn't hurry to deactivate anything before we fulfill that potential. Licensing - this is a guide to fair use practices. Regarding the differences in this wiki's license and kaltura's, we are aware of that and working with the wikia staff to coordinate. Administration - the access to videos off the wiki (on kaltura.com) will be disabled, so changes can't be made off-site. Also, and again with coordination with wikia staff, the videos' tags on MA will be coded, so changes can be made only from MA, and not from uncyclopedia or other wiki that uses the extension. Layout - will need to see examples of this, as these things tend to change according to the browser. As this widget can be in large/medium size, aligned to left/center/right and doesn't have flashing bulbs, I think it can be integrated smoothly to the text. Pictures also have borders that don't disrupt the article in any way. So, the massive problems are now reduced to solvable technical difficulties, typical of every innovative feature, and we can move on with the discussion and hear some other members' opinions. Thx. AidenS 15:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As a quickie response... if you'd read some of my initial and original comments... in terms of licensing "fair use" is good and all, but we already walk that grey line with Paramount and CBS. As such, we go out of our way to be very careful when it comes to licensing.  I'd invite you to take some time and check out our image use policy to see what I'm talking about when I mention "licensing".  Check out any number of images we have here on the wiki.  Seriously.  Take the time to investigate.


 * The administration thing is heavily tied to the "bug" that Cid noted above... you can delete the video page here on MA/en, but you can still use said video. Without any apparent credit.  With no obvious links to show what is even using it.  It doesn't use a standard wiki style of markup, which everything else does use.


 * Sure, these are technical issues that can be solved. But to this point, no effort has been made to understand the way that MA/en works and how we might like to use these videos.  Only an effort to bulldoze them into place.


 * As an aside, I also find it amusing that someone from Kaltura is accusing one of the MA/en stalwarts of "trying to direct the discussion". After all, I'm certain that (s)he's absolutely neutral regarding the use or non-use of a tool the company (s)he works for created.


 * Yes. I'm also an admin here.  Yes, I've brought up a number of issues with the tool.  I can see value in the tool.  I cannot see value in the tool the way things stand at the moment.  I would've preferred to see this tool rolled out (with more hoopla here) on a smaller wiki. -- Sulfur 15:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

"Votes" to keep/remove the extension
Seeing that all of this discussion is going in a nice circle now, let's put up the options available to us:
 * 1) Keep the tool as it is now, and hope that Kaltura will actually respond to our issues and solve them to our satisfaction, so that we can then discuss how to use it.
 * 2) Remove the tool for the time being until the technical issues are sorted out and during that time discuss how inline videos can be used here on MA/en.

Those see to be the two options I can see. I personally fall under the camp of #2. -- Sulfur 15:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Seeing that #1 would mean much administrative overhead for us (to see that things don't fall apart while we're waiting for anything to happen), it's #2 for me, too. -- Cid Highwind 16:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2-- Regarding application issues, and I realize this is a vote and my reply is kind of long, but since this discussion is flowing downward, I just wanted to add that the only value I can see to having video, in general, on MA is to show things that screenshots alone cannot show, as Jorg mentioned, or to demonstrate something, that again screenshots along cannot effectively describe, as I mentioned above. Essentially really basic video "clips". Viewing the example created to support my warp drive example model mentioned above...there are several issues, and with cheesy (IMO) graphics and questionable accuracy aside, that was nothing like what I had in mind, which was, simply, a clip from the show of a ship going to warp. Period. Something like was used in the old Star Trek Omnipedia. Everything I've read thus far about copyrights tells me that that really isn't an option anyway. Comparing what I had in mind and what was created on the behalf of that idea, it pretty much tells me that this whole collaborative thing Kaltura offers goes way above and beyond our necessities...--Alan 16:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #1, Hi guys. My name is Shay, and I'm Kaltura's co-founder and CTO. Thanks for a detailed and productive discussion. As you're voting on this matter, I just wanted to let you know that we're very attentive to the concerns some of the members have voiced, and that we are in a short-cycle to fix most of the problems and address all of the points. As all of you that have been involved with any sort of software development know, innovation comes at a price. That price often includes bugs and glitches as well as a certain degree of uncertainty around the technical and social norms that surround a new technology. At Kaltura we are great proponents of open source and open standards, and one of the take-away messages form that style of software development calls for 'releasing often, releasing early'. This means that we will be able to address issues 'on the go'. but it also means that we need real-world feedback like we can find on this thread. Disabling the extension will be very counter-productive. Leaving it on, and responding to a rapid development cycle, is the way to go. We are committed to solve ALL of the issues above, and to make it work, and I honestly think the benefits out-weigh the risks. The main risk is copyright infringement, and I can give you my professional opinion based on my academic work at YLS, that the uses we see here fall squarely within the realm of fair use. It would be a pity to give up on a new tool, just because of some 'growing-up' pains. I'll be happy to expand on any of the points above. --Davidshay 18:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2, remove it. The problem that I don't think half of the people pushing for this (particularly people who have just arrived on MA to try and get us to use this) realize that the problems aren't all technical. A CTO and a development team can't change copyright laws, for example. This video capability, in any form, does not fit the needs of this project. --OuroborosCobra talk 18:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2. I agree with all that has been said above. While I can think of ways that videos can be included, at the moment it's just not right. --Jörg 20:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2. I was never big on the idea of including video clips, anyway, but we certainly don't need another bugged tool here at the moment. We're still dealing with MediaWiki's screw-ups and the laziness that's keeping them from fixing it. --From Andoria with Love 23:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2. Agree with Shran. No more new buggy features. Fix the old buggy features, first, please. Like Cascading protection. And Google Maps. And Query.php. --Bp 23:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey all. So we have a strong "remove" so far... you all done with this decision? or is more time needed for more votes? (I'm at the wikia meeting, so limited access this week, but I will be in and out to get this sorted) -- sannse (talk) 21:04, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, sannse. I think we're done discussing this, and the decision is to have the tool removed. It's unlikely community opinion will change much in the next few days. So, I don't think waiting for more votes is necessary. --From Andoria with Love 22:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * #2. I am also for removing these videos. I think images are ok, but videos will cause problems because of the copyright issues. Personally I don't like them and don't know how they could contribute to MA. There is nothing we cannot show with pics and I had several problems with some videos...they did not work. – Tom 07:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

HOLD ON THE FIRING SQUAD!!
Hello friends,I'm the "criminal" who created those two videos you're all arguing about. I admit I'm pretty new to this community; and I admit I don't understand the complexity of fair use. I don't underestimate those issues and understand their importance to a serious community such as this. But I think they are not the main issue. As a new member of this community and someone who just enjoys video editing, I was thrilled to find that feature here. I think that it captures the true essence and basic conecpt of Star Trek - exploring new and unknown possibilities. Star Trek was one of the first programs to depict advanced technology in an era technology was feared from and degraded. Right here, right now we have the chance to do the same - use new and advanced technology that can take us to the next level.SO IT JUST MAKES SENSE WE'LL GIVE THIS NEW VIDEO FEATURE A CHANCE, remembering that no one HAS to use it unless he wants to. I hope the Kaltura people will fix what has to be fixed (obiviously, there are main issues to be dealt with - both in the copryright aspect and the technological one). In parallel to them fixing all problems, let's keep on "going where no man has ever gone before".NurielZuaretz 08:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * NurielZuaretz, you are missing the point. No mount of development by Kaltura people will fix the base problem, that this does not fit with the copyright laws we have to follow here. Remember that our focus here is a wiki of a copyrighted product, and our media have to squeak by under "fair use". These videos, no matter the development, no matter the solving of the technical issues, no matter the work by Kaltura, will not meet "fair use". It isn't that we hate videos. It isn't that we hate bugs. It is that we are law abiding. --OuroborosCobra talk 07:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it would be wrong to identify copyright concerns as the only concern this community has. While it is true that it is a really serious one, it should also be clear from the lengthy discussion above that there are several others. Even with copyright issues resolved or ignored, we'd still have implementation issues. And even with these bugs and glitches fixed, we'd still have a situation where a) the community is unsure whether it wants videos AT ALL (because, in all that trouble of the last few days, we didn't even have the time to discuss that part of the problem properly) and b) if it wants videos, then in what form (as has been stated above, we're avoiding anything that is "not canon" (aka "fan-created")). If we don't want to have self-made graphics and stories, why would we want to have a video that shows anything but a clip directly from the show, for illustration purposes?
 * That is the basic problem - the Kaltura plugin fails to address the needs and wants of this existing community on many levels, because this community hasn't relied on videos during the last 4+ years of its existance, and much less self-made ones. That doesn't mean that collaborative video editing is a bad idea per se, it just means it is a bad idea at this point, for this community, especially if it means that the contributors here are forced into a beta-tester role for a product they didn't ask for in the first place.
 * To the Kaltura team: As someone who knows a little thing about software development, I really can see where you're coming from, and know that it's necessary to have new technology "out in the wild" to be better able to work out possible problems with it. I wish you luck with that, but if you are using Wikia wikis as your testing ground (which isn't a bad idea, of course), it might be a good thing to ask first, and identify wikis that actually want or may need such technology. By just browsing through the list of existing Wikia wikis for a minute, I found the Cities Wiki, where people might be interested in adding videos about their home town, the Fan Fiction wikis, where fan fiction might, in the future, include self-created videos, or the Theatre Wiki, where short snippets of individual groups' performances could be added. These are just individual examples, there are dozens more. -- Cid Highwind 10:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Is the Kaltura feature not already on Wikia wikis besides MA? I thought it got rolled out to all at once, like so many Wikia features. If not, then, how did MA become the beta candidate? It seemed like it was pushed out to MA without anyone here saying "OK, OK, we'll try it". Is that how it happened? TribbleFurSuit 11:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I don't know - last time I tried, the video "tag code" did work on Wikia Central, but not on some of the individual others. As far as I'm aware, not even the other MA versions have the feature yet, although I might be wrong about that. And, yes, basically that is how it happened :) - the two comments by Angela at the top of this page are everything we got before the activation of this feature. -- Cid Highwind 11:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

GIVE US A CHANCE!- All the technical problems will be solved by the end of next week. Considering canon - this tool can be perfect for depicting canon. It's much more than just copying a clip to an article, since it gives the user the opportunity to edit - which means that you can take short clips and use them to illustrate a certain point (innovative weapons, for example) and not just show them for the sake of showing them. Fair use is exactly that - taking short copyrighted material and showing it in order to illustrate something (you can go to the link at the upper section of this thread). We are not forcing anyone to use this extension (BTW, it's live only on Halopedia and Uncyclopedia at the moment), but think it deserves a chance and may serve this community well. We will be solving the issues raised here and hope we'll get a fair trial period afterwards, to see if it meets this community's needs. AidenS 15:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

21 gun salute
The battle is over. None of the "HOLD IT" messages affect sannse's instructions. Do they? Fare thee well, Kaltura. 198.49.180.40 18:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Farewell, indeed. --From Andoria with Love 20:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Its got to go the Kaltura people just don't seem to get the general idea of copyrighted. Bye--UESPA 20:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

OK folks, it's off. Sorry for my slowness this week by the way, I've been at the big Wikia meeting. -- sannse (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)