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Wikipedia Gears Up For Explosion In Digital Media
jbrodkin writes "Wikipedia is gearing up for an explosion in digital content with new servers and storage designed to handle larger photo and video uploads.
Until early 2008, the user-generated encyclopedia's primary media file server had just 2TB of total space, which was not enough to hold growing amounts of video, audio and picture files, says CTO Brian Vibber.
'For a long time, we just did not have the capacity [to handle very large media files],' he says.
Wikipedia has raised media storage from 2TB to 48TB and the limit on file uploads from 20MB to 100MB. Ultimately, Wikipedia wants to eliminate any practical size limits on uploads, potentially allowing users to post feature length, high-quality videos.
'The limits will get bigger and bigger to where it will be relatively easy for someone who has a legitimate need to upload a two-hour video of good quality,' Vibber says."
And youtube may withdraw them or restrict their audience at any time.
Infuriate left and right
Seriously, half the pages I view on a daily basis these days are wikipedia pages. Any time I want to learn about something, it's the first place I go.
MABASPLOOM!
...video editor
Am I going to the Wikipedia page on France, and watching a video, complete with caption in *My* language, of France - like a mini-documentary or travel brochure or promo? Who produces that? Who edits it? Is there a standard narrator? Can we get that guy with the cool voice that does Frontline to do them all? Will they have any standards in how they are produced? How they are credited?
There is a fundamental and critical difference between Youtube, which is a Bazaar, and Wikipedia, which is a Cathedral - to brazenly steal Eric Raymond's title.
A video on say France is the authoritative video on the subject. Unlike say a picture, which may be used or copied with permission that may show a city or a map, videos require much more work. Will Oliver Stone get to do the video for George W Bush? Will it be like the BMW series with Clive Owen, having a bunch of guest directors? Can we have Marty Scorsese do the video for New York City?
Multimedia is cool, but it opens up alot of problems.
This is out of scope for Wikipedia. It sounds like this should be an entirely separate project. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias should not have video:
I don't mean that because traditional encyclopedias did not have video, but because it doesn't fit with the type of content that an encyclopedia presents. It is similar to how newspapers should not have video. Wikipedia is not a teaching tool. It is not meant to provide functional examples. It is a starting point: a dictionary-style explanatory description.
An entry on the Hindenburg does not need a video of the Hindenburg disaster. It needs technical specifications, historically accurate statements of what happened, and a link to a museum who DOES house the video.
An entry on Calculus needs a historic description and a mathematical overview. Not a 2-hour lecture.
Now --- that doesn't mean that a video repository is not a good project. I think that would be awesome. Youtube kinda has that, but it has garbage thrown in. But maybe Wikipedia is not the place for it.
Except that theora isn't all that good. Yes it is free but the quality isn't as good as many other codecs out there. I wish that Dirac would get more attention as a codec.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If they increase the storage, it means that the traffic will explode.
Who will pay for the bandwidth ?
This year, it was 6 millions of dollars, but with videos, at least 10 times this amount will be needed.
Does this mean that ads will appear ?
Any time I want to learn about something, it's the first place I go.
It's the second place I go, because the Wikipedia Search "feature" sucks unless you know exactly what you're looking for. If only Wikipedia would either fix their broken "search" or simply integrate Google search into it?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
First, presumably the article probably means Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia itself. That said, one of Wikipedia's biggest goals is to have all media content as open and accessible as possible. They accept only free, open, and unencumbered file formats.
YouTube is pretty much the exact opposite of Wikipedia. That is, you cannot download the content for your own use or to redistribute it, there is no open source software that can easily view YouTube content, there is no intelligent discussion of said content (only "omfg americas r soooo dumb"), and nobody except YouTube employees are allowed to express an opinion on whether or not the content is suitable for deletion. And finally, there is no certification that the content being viewed is in the public domain or is being used within the bounds of fair use.