Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Autodesk University Virtual ~ Sound Engineer Lynched?

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I was very keen to attend the virtual session by Steve Stafford, Autodesk Revit Collaboration: Shared Coordinates for Projects Big and Small.

I watched Tour of the AU Virtual Player with Lynn Allen and got computer checked over to ensure that I had all the software installed to make it happen. Due to the time zone difference the 1pm presentation at AU2009 is 9pm at night here in the UK.

I made myself a cup of coffee and settled down for a little bit of late night CPD (Continuing Professional Development).

My internet speed was great for that time of night, there was no buffering going on and Steve started his presentation, then after a few minutes the sound became very distorted and it just got worse and worse, until in the end I just had to give up on it.

Steve had pre-recorded the session and was watching it with us, then spent most of his time answering questions about the poor sound quality and kept apologising and saying that it would be fixed for the later session and uploaded.

It would not surprise me to read a Twitter report that a Sound Engineer has been assaulted or lynched at AU2009!

I know from reading his blog that he spent an awful lot of time on his presentation and Autodesk really let him down.

If they can get the video and audio sorted it would be great to have these presentations on demand or for download immediately after the actual presentation for those of us in other time zones.

There is a link to download Steve’s screen cast but at the moment it just produces an error message!

This all seems a bit like the Subscription Advantage Pack 3 all over again!

Lots of effort, but let down at the last minute on delivery.

Let’s hope they have checked the sound on the session I’ve booked for tonight!
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2 comments:

The Revit Kid said...

I noticed this on a few other recording as well...

Steve said...

Hi,

The recording for the second airing was much better, they had enough time to fix it for that one. The screencast link will not work until after the conference when it will be hosted by AU Online.

Surely it was a bit of an embarrassment for all concerned but we got through it. I hope that those who gave up on watching will find time to watch it when it becomes available after AU concludes.

Cheers!