Setup Tips

Webcam

• Lighting is your friend! If you’re using a webcam for your session, make sure your environment is well lit, you want the light in front of you, not behind you. Using a lamp like a bedlamp can make a big difference.
• This YouTube Video has some additional helpful tips if you want to make your webcam image look as good as possible.

Audio

• If more than one participant is giving the talk (or it’s a BoF), remember to wear headphones! Otherwise your audio will feed back and make nasty echoes or audio artifacts.
• Most web browsers don’t let you share your desktop audio directly. If you want to do that, you can use something like pavucontrol to set it to your audio device monitoring device if you’re streaming a video during the talk. Remember to set it back to your microphone after displaying the video, otherwise your audience won’t hear you.

FAQ

How long should my talk be?

Talks should be 20 or 45 minutes in total, including time for questions. Lightning talks should be 5 minutes in total, including time for questions.

How will I present my talk? Will it be live or recorded?

You can choose whether you want your talk to be live or recorded. For recorded talks, you can still do a live Q&A at the end.

What software do I need to live stream my talk?

We use Jitsi, a free web-based video-conferencing tool to capture speakers and their slides. You can try out Jitsi at the upstream instance or the Debian instance (the Debian instance will be used for the conference).

Both Firefox and Chromium works with Jitsi, although if you’re using Firefox, make sure that you’re using a recent version for best performance (version 76 or newer).

How will my question session work, what if I have pre-recorded my talk?

Whether your talk is live or pre-recorded, every talk will have a talkmeister assigned to the talk by the video team. This person will gather questions from the audience via IRC (and possibly do some deduplication and filtering) and read you the question inside the Jitsi call.

What if I need support or have a question that’s not covered here!?

We use the IRC channel #minidebconf-online-speakers on irc.debian.org (oftc) for coordination and testing with speakers. This is probably the quickest way to get an answer (although please be patient since we’re not always awake). If you can’t hang around on IRC, email will be better, you can reach the content team at online-cfp@debconf.org

What aspect ratio should I use for my slides?

Videos will be streamed with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Even if you have a fancy 16:10 or 3:2 display, it will look better to participants if you stick to 16:9.

• In LibreOffice you can set this by clicking on Slide and then on Properties.
• In LaTeX/beamer you can include the following snippet in your beamer template: \documentclass[aspectratio=169]{beamer}.

If I want to pre-record my talk, which software should I use?

You’re welcome to use any tools you like, here’s a list of software that we find useful:

• OBS Studio: lots of features for recording video and audio along with your desktop (or parts of it). Lots of great tutorials and help available, although all the nice features means that it has a slight learning curve. Probably worth the time! Debian package: obs-studio
• Simple Screen Recorder: Records your desktop and audio. Easy to use, will run better on older computers. Its default settings are quite good so no need to tweak anything. Debian package: simplescreenrecorder
• kdenlive: easy to use and powerful tool for stitching together video, adding effects, fixing audio glitches, etc. Debian package: kdenlive

Can people who attend the talk take notes?

If you’d like the audience to collaboratively work on notes during your talk, please tell the content team. We’ll set up a pad and announce the location at the beginning of your talk.