FOSDEM 2021 - guidance for speakers

Speaking at FOSDEM? Here’s what you need to know

Thank you to all speakers who have put themselves forward to speak at this year’s FOSDEM.

As it’s a virtual event, all talks need to be pre-recorded by the speakers. This is the first time FOSDEM has operated in this way so please be aware that there may be some bumps along the way - everyone is working this out as they go!

On the day your presentation is aired, you will be required to join an online Matrix chatroom with delegates as they ask questions during your talk - further details below. Afterwards, you will also be able to answer questions in a live video conference room.

To make sure you, and anyone listening or asking questions, get the best out of this event, here are some guidance notes to support your planning.

Perl Devroom video's should be submitted by 22/01/2021

Deadlines

All pre-recorded talks are expected to be uploaded by 17th January 2021 to Pentabarf - the upload link should be available by the time you read this, if you don't have it, contact your devroom organiser. After this date, there is one week scheduled for you to review and if necessary, to re-upload to fix problems.

Please do not plan to run right up against these deadlines - you and FOSDEM need the contingency for things that genuinely go wrong.

UPDATE: Recordings will be locked in on 27th January ready for FOSDEM team to test during the weekend

Recording your talk

You can use any tool that you prefer to record your presentation. Open Broadcast Studio (OBS) is a powerful tool and recommended by many speakers. Some useful documents here:

• How to Use OBS Studio to Record or Stream Live Presentations
• FOSDEM 2021 : How to configure OBS to record your talk

Another option is to deliver your presentation through a video conferencing platform to a colleague who can then record the session. Either use the built-in recording of the conferencing platform or ask your colleague to remotely record the presentation.

For example, you could use Jitsi to present your talk to a colleague, with picture-in-picture mode so that the speaker is in the corner of the slides, and, on Linux, use Simple Screen Recorder (SSR) to capture the talk in the appropriate format.

Please bear in mind these tips for a good quality presentation:

• Test your recording process first to make sure both video and sound are captured in the recording
• Make sure the video fits comfortably into your time slot - FOSDEM is on a strict time schedule and you will be cut short if you over-run
• Don’t overload your slides. Make sure everything is readable when scaled down slightly
  • The 1280x720 video you send in may be scaled down to fit onto a FOSDEM template
• Make sure you use a good microphone for your presentation, ideally a headset
• Have a suitable background during recording and live Q&A
• Dress for the occasion

Uploading videos

Videos should be uploaded to https://penta.fosdem.org (through your account). Technical requirements for your presentation video are:

• resolution: 1280x720
• frame rate: 25 fps
• video codec: h264 video codec, main profile
• video bitrate: <= 2Mbit/s
• audio codec: aac audio codec
• audio sample rate: 48 KHz mono
• audio bitrate: 128 Kbit/s
• media container: whatever is easiest for you

When you upload your video, the system will verify that it meets these requirements. If it does not, the video will be transcoded first (but this will take longer).

A 'review' link will be available so you can confirm that you have uploaded the correct video.

If you want to change the video, you can overwrite by uploading a replacement. However once you have confirmd the video,