an update on metadata standardisation, ifiwatch.tv, documentation and subtitling etc - one year on from Transmission in Roma

Metadata standard:
Shiftspace has now been promised financial support from OSI to take forward finalising and implementing the metadata standard across the Transmission and other networks. For a layperson's explanation of what metadata standardisation is, and why it's important, see http://wiki.transmission.cc/index.php/What%2C_who%2C_why_the_standard I'll be working with this process using www.ifiwatch.tv as a test case for feeds in and out, aggregation and sorting and so forth ...using real issues, real information swapping needs to see how the whole thing works.

www.ifiwatch.tv
The other side of this story is that we have nearly completed the recreation of ifiwatch.tv in the free and open source Drupal content management system. we will soon be launching a beta site for everyone to test the feed functionalities, see how the model works, start and if possible keep the sorted video info flowing between our diverse video projects and websites... yay!

Documentation
Extremely useful in this process is the documentation work mick fuzz, adam hyde and others have been doing so consistently and effectively, focused round flossmanuals.org. Making FLOSS software tools as accessible to non techie-minded people as quicktime, windows media player, u-tube etc currently are. User-focused help files are absolutely vital to this whole area of work, so I'm very happy to be involved in the process of idiot-proofing, at the same time as linking to the latest work in this field from the new ifiwatch.tv metadata upload forms.

Translation and Subtitling
what is more lacking so far, imho, is as much attention to translation and subtitling networks. we all seem to agree when we meet that this is a vital set of tools and connections to have working well if we really want to make a useful, international, set of independent video networks, but who, if anyone, is working consistently on this, speccing out tasks, cheerleading, fundraising if necessary, etc... ????

Who Does What?
is it because a few people are committed to advancing too many parts of this project that a couple of the most important collective processes are falling by the wayside? I guess we all need to be realistic about how much we can really achieve, let each other know when we are over-committed and have to roll back a bit, and inspire, encourage and support new people to take on some of the most urgent tasks...
go for it! we need you.... and thanks!

Good. more news soon.