Free Online Sign Dictionary - NEEDS YOUR HELP

jamielee said:
Hi Calphool

ya it seems to be coming along now! good work! Its great you have your daughter doing some signs!! Sorry I did not get back to you about my camera and everything. I dont know much about it except that its a low end one i got for cheap. its made by dynex and the program it uses is called video impressions 1.6 - on the box it only list the avi format. is there a program that i could download to compress the files?

Jamie
Click to expand...


Hi there Jamie!

Let's try something. Go here:

Labtec.com > Support > Downloads

And download the Labtec camara software. I've used it with my Creative Webcam and my Labtec, and it seems to work with both, so there's a good chance it'll work with yours also. It has a program called "QuickCam", and that program lets you record video (and also set the start and stop time so all your movies can be the same length--it also gives you a countdown before it starts recording so you can get ready), and it also lets you select a compression codec when you save the video.

Hopefully the Labtec software will work for you. It's what I'm using.

I think this is kind of fun! Hey, by the way, keep copies of your .AVI files. If for some reason Simon's sponsors end up taking the site down, we wouldn't want to lose all these videos--it's a big investment in time!

I'm really surprised how almost all of your signs are the same as here in Iowa. I thought that there'd be a bigger difference between Vancouver (I think that's where you're from) and Iowa.
 
Hi Jaime,

I will delete 'fire' now... Your videos are excellent now, the compression you are using is way better, thanks for that!

Calphool, that's a good idea to keep copies of your signs. Not so much if I loose funding, there will be warning of that, but if there is a technical error on the site it is possibly (very rare though) that files could be lost... I will be backing up the site myself every few months (it's a very time/power consuming task), but I can't do that for a little while because it isn't a simple one-click task on this server and I don't have the time to spend doing it at the moment.

Keep up the good work!

Simon
 
Simon,

Do you want any "off color" signs? Words like "fart", or "belch", or things like that? Should we stay away from those? It would be kind of funny to see them, because they are probably quite different from region to region. Still, I wouldn't want to put anything like that up there without asking first.

--Cal
 
Hey Calphool. Thanks for the link I will try it. It seems like so many of our signs are the same, I was expecting some differences too !. I am on vancouver island which is a hour and half ferry ride from Vancouver.

Jamie


Calphool said:
Hi there Jamie!

Let's try something. Go here:

Labtec.com > Support > Downloads

And download the Labtec camara software. I've used it with my Creative Webcam and my Labtec, and it seems to work with both, so there's a good chance it'll work with yours also. It has a program called "QuickCam", and that program lets you record video (and also set the start and stop time so all your movies can be the same length--it also gives you a countdown before it starts recording so you can get ready), and it also lets you select a compression codec when you save the video.

Hopefully the Labtec software will work for you. It's what I'm using.

I think this is kind of fun! Hey, by the way, keep copies of your .AVI files. If for some reason Simon's sponsors end up taking the site down, we wouldn't want to lose all these videos--it's a big investment in time!

I'm really surprised how almost all of your signs are the same as here in Iowa. I thought that there'd be a bigger difference between Vancouver (I think that's where you're from) and Iowa.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Calphool,

I don't have a problem with 'off color' signs. - They are a part of the language so it would be good to have them in the dictionary - as long as the images to go with them are carefully selected!

Thanks

Simon
 
jamielee said:
i downloaded the labtec softwear but it didnt work with my camera.
Click to expand...

Darn! That's too bad. The software is great for doing this kind of thing, because it does the count down. Oh well. Yours are fine anyway, I just thought you might find that software easier.

Keep up the good work! :)
 
Hi Jamie,

Just a message to check you realise you are posting some clips into the Australian section... that's great if you know some AUSLAN, but just thought I'd check that you hadn't uploaded them to the wrong section by mistake.

Thanks

Simon
 
Hi Guys,

Just a quick note,

When you upload a clip, even if you are not adding any additional info, please can you press the 'save' button because it is this which assigns the language for the search engine, if you don't do this then the search engine doesn't know what language the clip is from.

I'll fix this when i get time so that it does it automatically on the page before.

Thanks

Simon
 
I need to know if there is a seperate sign for weenie as in the weenie of a hotdog.

Also, is a hotdog bun considered just "bread"? or is there a seperate sign for bun?
 
Hey Simon
yes Im aware that I was in Auslan section. But thanks for checking with me.
 
Eliotj
there is a couple sign for hotdog that i know of and I will post it on the site right now. www.dictonaryofsign.com under hotdog. And I have added a sign for bun under B IMO I beleive that this sign means hambuger bun so if you wanted hotdog bun you could sign it with hotdog sign insted of hamburger.
 
Hey Simon!

I think I may have found the tool you're looking for to solve the codec situation.

There's a GPL tool called "ffmpeg". It can convert from almost any codec to almost any other. So, you should be able to use it to convert from almost anything to SWF (Flash).

I successfully used it to convert several of my AVI files into SWF, and they look and play just like any normal SWF file.

ffmpeg is a command line tool, so I would presume you could spawn it from PHP to do the conversion. It's very fast too.

Here's the command line I used to convert one of my AVI files:

ffmpeg -i add.avi -an -r 8 -y add.swf

Translation: "Convert add.avi to add.swf, remove any audio track, convert to a frame rate of 8 frames a second, and stomp add.swf if it already exists."

You can get the windows binary of ffmpeg here:
*unofficial* FFmpeg Win32 Builds

The *nix distributions are available using SVN (Subversion) from:
FFmpeg Download and SVN

Hope that helps! You'll effectively have a "YouTube" kind of solution if you are able to convert to Flash with ffmpeg!

See ya!

--Cal
 
Hi Guys,

I have added the feature so that you can delete your own signs... unfortunately I don't think it will work on signs that you have already uploaded (you might just end up getting an error message), but it will work on all new signs... so that will make things a bit easier if you make a mistake, or want to re-record a sign.

Thanks calphool for the info of ffmpeg. I already use ffmpeg to capture and resize thumbnails and am looking into using it to convert to flash... that would make things much easier. I'll keep you informed.

Thanks

PS - I have created a swf (not flv yet) player in the dictionary... so if you feel you'd like to convert your clips and upload them as you go along until I can come up with an integrated solution that would be great! - don't worry if that's too much trouble though. (at the moment you must add a thumbnail image with swf files because they aren't automatically created)

Simon
 
Hi!
Some really exciting news! (for those technically inclined anyway).

After 48hrs of hardcore coding (and i'm supposed to be doing uni work.... oh well!) I have managed to get ffmpeg integrated with the dictionary and now when you upload most video types they willl be converted into flash... unfortunately I can't convert what you've already uploaded, but from now on it will work...

JAMIE: this means you don't need to worry about changing your format, it will do it for you automatically.

It works with: avi, mpeg, mov, mpg, and qt (not wmv)

Let me know if it works... there will be a few errors pop up because of cache issues and I'll fix that in the coming weeks...

Simon
 
Calphool... forgot to say thanks for pointing out that ffmpeg could be used in this way! - Thanks a lot, you've saved lots of frustration down the road... cheers!
 
This dictionary is awesome! I check it daily to see how many new signs have been posted!

My question, what if a sign is different regionally, how will you handle it?
 
Hi, good question...

There is an optional field that can be edited by anybody who is logged in (not just the person who posted the sign) which is called 'Regional Usage'. In this field I hope that people will add their region if they use the sign. That way we will build up a good picture of which signs are used where.

Simon
 
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