[conspire] CABAL (in-person + Jitsi Meet), Sat. Feb. 12, 4pm - 12m

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Lorne S (salchootchkin at gmail.com):

> Thank you so much for the hybrid Jitsi option.
> 
> I plan to attend. I don't know how the heck you could do this, but is it
> possible to put the device, the screen, speaker and camera at the busy
> table, wherever that ends up,  once people start eating and socializing?.
> Last time there was a hybrid CABAL, at a certain point, I was watching the
> conversation from a distance.

Lorne (and Elise):  I'll see how to better optimise that.

In past hybrid events, I've used a digital projector and a big
expandable screen to project the video onto.  That is awkward to place
in the -middle- of people, so it's been on a second table, slightly away
from the main one.  The good part of that is that the gallery-mode
display, with all of the online participants, then becomes huge 
(around 2 metres x 2 metres), thus prominent and making it easy for
in-person attendees to see everyone.  On the minus side, the projector
generates a fair amount of noise and heat, and the screen's mammoth 
size plus the other gear (laptop, pair of loudspeakers, outboard
microphone, video projector, all of the electrical feed) takes up quite
a bit of a table.  Also, I need to take care that nobody spills anything
into the electronics.

I might experiment with putting a 21" monitor on some part of the main
table, instead of using the projector.  We shall see.  (Some of the
problems would persist, though, and everyone would be seeing a much,
much smaller dispay of the online participants.)

The projector-based setup may be the best tradeoff possible without
spending gobs of money.

(Don't forget, also, that I need to be prepared to power down everything
in a huge hurry and get it under a roof, if rain threatens.)