Project setup

Create tracker project (you can also clone a matching project to have prefilled properties)

Import schedule.xml

Set all master tickets from staging to staged via mass-edit

Adjust project properties, recommendations: (full reference at the bottom of the page)

Compare project properties with previous instalment of the same event

optimal properties from current project

Meta.Acronym camp2023
Meta.Album Chaos Communication Camp 2023
Meta.License Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Meta.Year 2023
Processing.Auphonic.Enable no
Processing.BasePath /video/
Processing.MasterMe.Enable yes
Processing.Path.Intros /video/intros/camp2023
Processing.Path.Outro /video/intros/camp2023/outro.ts
Publishing.Path /video/encoded/camp2023/
Publishing.Upload.SkipSlaves speedy,tweety,blade1,blade2,blade3,blade4
Publishing.UploadTarget upload@releasing.c3voc.de:/video/encoded/camp2023/
Publishing.Tags <additional tags>
Publishing.Voctoweb.Enable yes
Publishing.Voctoweb.Path /cdn.media.ccc.de/events/camp2023
Publishing.Voctoweb.Slug camp2023
Publishing.Voctoweb.Thumbpath /static.media.ccc.de/conferences/camp2023
Publishing.YouTube.Category 27
Publishing.YouTube.Enable yes
Publishing.YouTube.Playlists <meep>
Publishing.YouTube.Privacy <one of: public, unlisted, private>
Publishing.YouTube.Token <meep>
Record.Container TS
Record.EndPadding 300
Record.Slides yes
Record.StartPadding 300

Worker Filter Examples

EncodingProfile.IsMaster=no
EncodingProfile.IsMaster=yes
EncodingProfile.IsMaster=
Fahrplan.Room=Servus.at Lab

Please note that the conditions in the “project to worker group” filter are currently evaluated with logical OR.

Specifying a property with an empty value, which is often done for EncodingProfile.IsMaster, will match if this property does not exist at all on a ticket. So for EncodingProfile.IsMaster, specifying an empty filter will match on recording tickets which never have this property.

Pipeline setup during event

During event setup of the pipeline, you have to decide if you want leave the MPEG TS snippets only on the recording cubes or also rsync them to a central storage:

Simple: decentralised classic (Variant 2)

This variant is only practical if you have only one room, or at least one release encoder (aka Minions) for each recording cube. When using this variant with multiple rooms in one Tracker project (like at JEV22), you also have to set room filters in the tracker worker queues.

For every worker:

set room filters in tracker e.g. Fahrplan.Room = Foobar

For every recoding cube:

start tracker worker: sudo systemctl start crs-worker.target

For each minion:

mount filesystems from encoder cube: sudo crs-mount <storage location>

start tracker scripts for encoding: sudo systemctl start crs-encoding.service

centralised storage (rsync) (Variant 1)

The first variant is typically used for events with more than one room. For bigger events we use the dedicated storage server in the event server rack, for smaller events a USB connected hard drive to one of the minions might be sufficient. Each recording cube exposes the files via rsyncd, which are pulled by an rsync process running inside a screen on the storage pc.

For each encoderX start rsync on the central storage: sudo systemctl start rsync-from-encoder@encoderX.lan.c3voc.de

Then, start tracker workers on storage: sudo systemctl start crs-worker.target (only needed if you don't use storage.lan.c3voc.de - worker scripts get started automatically)

Minion setup

To allow the encoding workers to do their job, they need to mount the storage first: sudo crs-mount <storage location>

After mounting, you can start the tracker encoding workers: sudo systemctl start crs-encoding.service

The minion VMs running inside our event colo case automatically mount storage.lan.c3voc.de via cifs and start their worker scripts. You usually do not need to touch them.

Cube as worker setup

At small events, when the talks are finished for today, you can use the recording cubes to encode master MP4 files.

First: Stop voctocore.

The rest is very similar to above, but with different mounts so /video/capture is not hidden:

sudo mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/fuse /video/fuse sudo mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/video/intros /video/intros sudo mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/tmp /video/tmp sudo mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/encoded /video/encoded

decentralised pipeline (Variant 3)

The “decentralized pipeline (Variant 3)” should not be used by inexperienced users. Use the information above to find out how to get this variant working, then adjust/improve the documentation here.

Similar to variant 2, but the release encoder (minion) only mounts the /video/fuse/$room/ from each recording cube. The encoded and tmp files life on one minion, the secondary minions mount /video/encoded and /video/tmp from the primary minion. [Reason: It is not guaranteed that the minion which encoded a talk also does the postprocessing (upload) step.]

You have to set the room filters only for the recording cubes, the minions can process talks independently.

On recording cubes: start systemd units for steps A crs-recording-scheduler, B crs-mount4cut, and C crs-cut-postprocessor

On release encoders: start systemd units for steps D crs-encoding, E crs-postencoding, and F crs-postprocessing

New example with systemd units and case 1 and 5:

optional: configure 10.73.0.2 (aka storage.lan.c3voc.de) on the master minion as secondary ip

on recording cubes, mount or copy the intros from their source – here storage.lan.c3voc.de

sudo mount -t cifs -o password= {//storage.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/intros
sudo systemctl start crs-recording-scheduler # A
sudo systemctl start crs-mount4cut # B
sudo systemctl start crs-cut-postprocessor # C
# check if everything is running as expected – you might have to disable/stop the other CRS workers D-F
sudo systemctl status -n 0 crs-*

on master minion (in this example storage.lan.c3voc.de)

mkdir -p /video/fuse/jev22/{Ahlam,Bhavani}
mount -t cifs -o password= {//encoder1.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/jev22/Ahlam
mount -t cifs -o password= {//encoder5.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/jev22/Bhavani
sudo systemctl start crs-encoding # D-encoding
sudo systemctl start crs-postencoding # E-postencoding-auphonic
sudo systemctl start crs-postprocessing # F-postprocessing-upload
# check if everything is running as expected – you might have to disable/stop the other CRS workers A-C
sudo systemctl status -n 0 crs-*

(ensure that samba is installed on this master minion aka storage)

on other minions

mkdir -p /video/fuse/jev22/{Ahlam,Bhavani}
mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= {//encoder1.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/jev22/Ahlam
mount -t cifs -o uid=voc,password= {//encoder5.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/jev22/Bhavani
mount -t cifs //storage.lan.c3voc.de/encoded /video/encoded
mount -t cifs -o password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/encoded /video/encoded
mount -t cifs -o password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/tmp /video/tmp
mount -t cifs -o password= {//storage.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/intros

Old example with custom screenrc and case 5 and 6:

on recording cube, without intros either copy or mount the intros from their source

sudo mount -t cifs -o password= {//storage.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/intros
cd /opt/crs/tools/tracker3.0/
sudo ./start screenrc-pipeline # with steps A, B and C

on master minion (in this example minion5)

mount -t cifs -o password= //encoder5.lan.c3voc.de/video/fuse/podstock2019/Aussenbuehne /video/fuse/podstock2019/Aussenbuehne
mount -t cifs -o password= //encoder6.lan.c3voc.de/video/fuse/podstock2019/Innenbuehne /video/fuse/podstock2019/Innenbuehne
mount -t cifs -o password= //encoder6.lan.c3voc.de/video/intros /video/intros
cd /opt/crs/tools/tracker3.0/
sudo ./start screenrc-pipeline # with steps D, E, F

(ensure that samba is installed on this master minion)

on other minions

mount -t cifs -o password= {//encoder5.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/podstock2019/Aussenbuehne
mount -t cifs -o password= {//encoder6.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/fuse/podstock2019/Innenbuehne
mount -t cifs //storage.lan.c3voc.de/encoded /video/encoded
mount -t cifs -o password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/encoded /video/encoded
mount -t cifs -o password= //storage.lan.c3voc.de/tmp /video/tmp
mount -t cifs -o password= {//storage.lan.c3voc.de,}/video/intros
cd /opt/crs/tools/tracker3.0/
sudo ./start screenrc-encoding-only # only step E