Recorder

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Hello, mafutrct here.

I use the account "Recorder". I will be recording public lessons available via bittorrent.

I'm currently busy because of some RL stuff and not always able to do my job, sorry about that. If someone would like to help out, please message me.


What I am allowed to record

  • Starthilfe - AmonAmarth's lessons (granted by AmonAmarth)
  • Starthilfe - Xebo's lessons (granted by Xebo)
  • A Death Gods Tale - Chemboy613's lessons (granted by Chemboy613)
  • LGD - Shygost friday night lessons (granted by Shygost)
  • The Enclave - all lessons (granted by Ricky1, Battousai, Meepy)
  • Josekitutorial - all lessons (granted by derPlumps)
  • Ing's Goe Internet Class - sunday lessons (granted by Guo Juan)

I'm especially happy that i am now allowed to upload the weekly Ing lessons. Please see [ext] Guo Juan's site and [ext] Mingjiu Jiang's site for more info on their teachings.

If you want to give me permission to record your lectures, please message me.


Terms of use

Since some sites decided to use my videos in a commercial way, i felt the urge to add this section.

This is a free service. All videos are provided "as is" and may be used for any private, non-commercial purpose. You may upload any video to another site, with the restrictions that you may not alter them without permission, and that you may not charge for them.

This implies that you must not upload or rely these videos to any site that claims money before downloading. On the other hand, sites like e.g. to rapidshare are fine since they are free.


FAQ

Q: Can you record my lesson?

A: Just drop me a note, i'll try my best to help you.

Q: What about copyright issues?

A: I always ask the teacher, the orderer and the room owner before uploading anything.

Q: What about privacy issues?

A: I respect informational self-determination and record public lessons only. You do not have to worry about your privacy at all - i only record what everyone already saw.

Q: Are you planning on making the torrents any smaller in size? (This question refered to the old files, which were about 150+ MB in size)

A: Done. I played around with XVID and LAME a bit and reduced filesize by about 60% with nearly no loss in quality.

Q: Why did you censor me?

A: After years of good experiences with [ext] http://banlist.nl/, i looked for, found and am using a public [ext] censorlist. You are confirmed to be annoying, so you have been censored to avoid your comments in my videos.

Q: What censorlist?

A: see the KGS account "CensorList". After talking to him, i feel that he's quite reliable. He's a respected Northrend Sharing Group member, too.

Q: I encountered some audio lag in your videos...

A: Yes, some old files had corrupt audio. I yelled at VirtualDub until it corrected it's settings and finally uploaded the new video files. If you're having trouble, just get the new, fixed version.

Q: Encode settings?

A: 5 fps, Xvid 1.1.3, 2 pass, 60 kbps. H.263 Matrix. BFrames on. Motion search precision max (+bframes). LAME MP3 44.1 kHz mono, 64 CBR. For videos of Go lectures with KGS sound, this should be nearly lossless ;)

Q: Can't you put the videos on Rapidshare?

A: Nope. I wont, since i dont like Rapidshare. But please feel free to upload the files yourself to RS, i'd be glad to put your RS-link on this page.

Q: I have trouble with the torrent format...

A: There are lots of torrent FAQs and howtos available. A general torrent FAQ can be found at [ext] http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/1.html. Especially if you're using µTorrent, i'd recommend you to have a look at [ext] http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php.

Q: Can you remove stupid kibitz?

A: I'm sorry, i cannot. But i asked censorlist to be more restrictive against stupid comments itf, and i myself will also censor more often from now on. Sometimes, KGS kibitz is really really retarded.

Q: I've noticed that the most recent files available for download are not the most recent lessons held. Are you still recording them for posting to Mininova?

A: Yes, i am. But i'm quite busy so i missed some lectures. :( Also, it takes some time to cut, encode and verify the videos. Sorry for the delay :\


Available videos

Queue info:

  • QA: 19
  • encode: 1
  • cut: 16

You may upload these files to a public, free sharehoster (e.g. rapidshare). Please add your download link below.

Please note that i currently have massively reduced upload capabilities, so i really welcome help with seeding. Thanks! :)

RSS

[ext] Add this RSS Feed

Most recent

2008.08.16 Shygost

2008.04.08 Chemboy613

Complete list

2008.03.27 Battousai

2008.05.27 Chemboy613

2008.03.22 Shygost friday night lesson

2008.03.20 Battousai

2008.02.20 Battousai

2008.02.20 Ricky1

2008.03.18 Chemboy613

2008.03.11 Chemboy613

2008.03.04 Chemboy613

No sound :<

2008.03.01 Shygost

2008.02.26 Chemboy613 (fixed)

2008.02.16 Shygost (fixed)

2008.03.06 Tartrate vs. Gentlerain game (fixed)

2008.02.19 Chemboy613

the audio is not working as it should. sadly there is no way for me to fix this :(

2008.02.13 Xebo (german)


Schedule

Just for myself to keep track^^ Since i'm too stupid to remember, here the gmt-local conversion: winter: local = gmt + 1 summer: local = gmt + 2

weekly

  • So 2000 chem
  • Mi 0000 agitoakito
  • Mi 2100 Yithril
  • Sa 0200 shygost
  • Sa 2200 Masek
  • So 0000 xliu
  • So 1500 ing
  • So 2100 Yithril

uniquely


Guide to recording go lessons

Recording go lessons is actually not difficult in itself, but it's easy to mess up in several places. I'll describe the steps i learned to take when recording.

Nonrecurring preparations

1. Install the [ext] latest Java runtime. Make sure to update (uninstall old version, then install newer version) from time to time.

2. Install the [ext] latest KGS client. Do not use the browser applet, since it's known to be less stable than the offline version.

3. Become very familiar with KGS. You should know [ext] all available options so you understand what happens all the time.

4. If you're not a native english speaker, it's useful to have a dictionary close at hand. I'm using the BabylonPro software. This way it's easier to understand and respond to questions directed to you. This may sound silly at first, but you have to be able to read all the kibitz and answer simultaneously.

5. Install [ext] Camstudio. The best available version is [ext] 2.0. Newer versions are less capable and/or not free. If you want to use some other screen recorder, that's of course also possible, but then you have to work the process out yourself. You have to install the [ext] CamStudio Lossless Codec (1.0) for best video quality. As a sidenote, i'm a programmer myself and imho CamStudio is retarded and it's programmer should be punched in the face. But it's still the best free software i found :) Version 2.5 which is going to be released will probably fix most of the issues.

Recording

First of all, you'll need some time to set up your PC for recording. The first time you record, i suggest preparing at least an hour before the actual lesson starts. Later this setup time will decrease. I'm quite experienced now and need about 1 minute to check the following stuff. Make sure you have enough disk space.__

Note that Camstudio will record the sound on the Windows drive first and copy it to the destination directory afterwards. The video stream is directly written to the destination. After finishing the record, both files will be merged, needing twice the space. Usually you're safe with >= 3 GB on your Windows partition and >= 5 GB on the destination partition.

Remember that if you're using FAT32, you're limited to 4 GB per file. So always calculate the current resulting filesize and make sure to stop recording before you reach the critial point.

It is possible to repair corrupt audio or video streams (and it's easy to get those because Camstudio sucks). But this is difficult and unless you enjoy playing with a hex editor, just keep an eye on your files and disks.

2. Make sure KGS works.

Start the client and log in. Is there lag?

Options: Sound on, Alarm for tells off. This is to avoid the annoying KGS ringtone in your videos. Coordinates, Textures and Kos on. You might think about turning textures off to save space in the encoded video, but it looks quite ugly and i recommend it to be left checked.

3. Make sure Camstudio is using the correct settings.

Since you might change setting for some other record in stead of Go lessons, you might have changed them. You'll learn how to abbreviate this soon ;) I'm using these:

  • Video options:

Compressor CamStudio Lossless Codec v1.0. Quality 100. Key frames every 20 frames or so. Capture frames every 200 milliseconds (means, 5 FPS). Playback rate 5 fps :)

Configure: I'm using GZIP, level 7. This shrinks the visual part of the video massively.

I played around a bit and 5 fps came out to be a reasonable tradeoff between size and quality. If you increase the fps, the video file will grow, but if you decrease it, fast played moves will appear together in an instant without distinction.

  • Cursor options:

Hide cursor. Highlight cursor unchecked.

  • Record audio from speaker checked.
  • Audio options for microphone:

I'm not sure but i strongly assume this actually affects the processing of speaker input as well. Recording format 44.1 kHz, 16 bit. That's plain old PCM format :) Interleave every 100ms is fine. If you're having troubles with recording and nothing else works, play around with this options page a bit. The reason we're not recording directly to MP3 is to save processing power and avoid possible spikes. This applies to up-to-date machines as well.

  • Audio options for speakers:

Select the correct input device and recording line. Depends on your PC :) Sadly some (older) PCs do not allow recording the speaker output. This happened to me once. I used the free [ext] Audacity, the only software i know to record speaker output even with old soundcards. Disadvantage: You'll have to manually sync the audio and video stream later if you use 2 programs instead of 1.

Hitting "Adjust Playback Volume" brings up Window's Volume Control. If you own a microphone, make sure to uncheck the microphone input. If you miss this, you'll hear yourself in the video later.

Since you're recording the speaker output, you have to avoid any unwanted sounds. Close your instant messager program and all software you dont need to get rid of random windows popping up.

  • Autospan unchecked.
  • Program options:

Minimize off. Hide off. Save on. Capture on. Play avi: Do not. Temporary: Select what suits your needs. I'm using installed directory. Priority: Normal works fine. Name of avi: auto, since we don't have time to figure out a name when the action started. Camstudio is a bit stubborn about directories sometimes, we cant change some of them sadly.

Make sure to actually "record to AVI", not SWF. Keep the Camstudio window open while recording (but outside the recording area, of course), so you can keep an eye on it's output.

  • Region:

This is very important. Select Fixed Region.

You have to decide on the size of the final video beforehand. I'm using: Fixed TL Corner: checked. Left: 6 Top: 25 Width: 760, Height: 510. I sometimes change these settings slightly, it is not actually very important. It's easier to use multiple of 2 for width and height since XVID does not like odd numbers, but you can easily crop the video later.

If you're usually using a maximized game window, bring it back to normal size and resize it so it fits in your recording area. Note that after closing cgoban, the game window will always appear in your screens TL corner, so dont worry about the window offset, but just about the actual window size.

The only thing important is to include all important parts of the KGS game window. That is: the board and some of the side numbers and the kibitz. Start recording so you see the flashing rect. Now resize your game window until the important stuff is visible. Note that the game window looks different for normal games, demos, demos with audio and KGS+ games, so you have to adjust the window slightly for each kind of game. It's very useful to practise this a few times before actually recording something important.

After you set all the options, close Camstudio so your choices will be saved. Restart it then and keep it open until the lesson is over.

4. Opened windows:

Open a window of your favorite file manager (i'm using the standard Windows Explorer) and resize so it's not in the recording area. Use this window to keep track of your free disk space. I sometimes have to move files around while recording to make sure there is enough space. If you open this window while the lessons is going, you might cover the goban with the new window for a second, so open all windows before the lesson starts and resize and move them out of the recording area.

The windows i have open when recording:

  • KGS Main window. I usually close it, but it's good to keep it open when recording because you can reconnect to KGS faster in case you disconnect.
  • KGS Rooms. Open some room where you can spam a lot, since you will have to type in something about every 20 minutes (not sure about the actual time) to prevent KGS from disconnection you.
  • KGS Demo window. Well, we obviously need this.
  • File Manager (here: Windows Explorer).
  • CamStudio :)

Next will be the actual recording process followed by encoding the streams, then checking and releasing the final video. I'll added these and a section about legal stuff (privacy, copyright, agreement by involved parties) later. Too tired to keep writing now xD

Please tell me your opinions on this guide so far, so i can improve it. :) Thanks.


Feedback

Downloads are corrupt? Any links broken? Just want to say you like or dislike this service? Suggestions for improvements? Or do you feel like just quickly saying "thanks" so that i know my work is appreciated? ;-)

Please add your comments below!


I'm getting confused xD ... SL badly needs wikipedia's --~~~~ feature to sign one's posts. I reformatted this section a bit, hopefully i did not mess up o.o

For those who don't have the chance to be KGS+ members, providing an audio record service is really appreciated, Thanks a lot for sharing those and filling the weak point of Teaching accounts, i.e recording the voice.

Bigphenix

91.19.70.200: Bigphenix: This has nothing to do with KGS+ at all. There are no recorded KGS+ lessons provided as torrent and you can listen to these free lectures as a non KGS+ member too.

Bigphenix : You misunderstood me. KGS+ offers the possibility to attend lessons and review them later, which is not possible for non-kgs+ users. My point is that those recordings are an excellent idea because they allow anyone to review audio lessons thanks to torrents.

67.34.189.230: Thanks for doing this! I really appreciate it. I was wishing there was a service like this, and then I found this! Thanks!!!

Recorder: Thanks, i'm glad you like it.

Batavia?: I like your recordings. Any new ones you're working on? if you need help with the editing/reformatting (or anything else) let me know and i'll be glad to help out.

Recorder: I've actually got a big queue of files that are to be finished. I added a small queue overview earlier on this page.
Also thank you for your offer, but my ridiculous upload bandwidth thwarts all attempts of sharing even small parts of work :-(

75.28.74.159: Do you have shygost lesson on Friday 9/12/08?

Recorder: Idr. I can't access my external drive atm, but i'll make sure to check it soon. Sadly i lack both time and ressources at the moment, so even if i find it, it will take some time until you can actually watch it :-(

Suicide: Just wanted to tell you that KGS disconnects after an hour of inactivity, so 1 spam every half hour to 45 minutes is playing it quite safe. Best not to go to 50, as a popup message will come up, and possibly ruin a good recording.


This is a copy of the living page "Recorder" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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