Commons:BBC voice project/Snippets
This page contains guidance for people attending the "Speakerthon" event at the BBC's Broadcasting House on 18 January 2014.
Signing in edit
If you have it, please use Google Chrome as it's been more thoroughly bug-tested than the other browsers.
- Go to http://www.bbcsnippets.co.uk
- Log in using the username and password you will have been given.
- Click the blue TV logo (pictured) in the top navigation bar and change it to the radio logo.
You are now able to search through six years worth of radio programmes.
Finding a programme to snip edit
- To search for a particular programme (e.g. Desert Island Discs) start typing the programme’s name into the text entry box marked ‘Radio programme’.
- As you start typing the title will autocomplete - click to select and then hit the green ‘go’ button. This will bring back all episodes of that programme.
- You can make a more precise search by using the ‘Keyword’ box in combination with the ‘Radio Pogramme’ box. For example searching ‘Desert Island Discs’ for the keywords ‘Ed Miliband’, will bring back just the show he was in.
- If needed, you can also filter by date using the date icon in the top navigation. This will allow you to narrow down all the episodes of that show to a particular month.
Snipping a clip edit
To start snipping drag the playhead to rough start point of your clip and click the orange 'Make Snip' button (pictured). The snip tool will open up.
The snip tool (pictured)allows you to navigate by dragging the in and out point by hand, but the quickest way to use the tool is via the keyboard.
You may like to use the following workflow…
- Navigate to rough start point of the bit you want by clicking in the audio timeline.
- Click the orange ‘Make Snip’ button (pictured). The snip tool will now open up.
- Click the play button on the green tab (pictured). The current in-point will start to play. As the audio plays out, adjust the in-point using the left and right keys to move in one second increments or shift + left or right for 10 second increments. This allows you quickly set in point ‘on the fly’ without having to constantly start and stop the audio.
- When you’re happy with the in-point press the ‘Tab’ key on your keyboard to move to the red out-point (pictured) and use the same process. For the out point you’ll need to keep an eye on the orange ‘clip duration’ indicator on the left hand side of the page. Clips should have a maximum length of 40 seconds and a minimum length of 20 seconds. The closer you get to 40 seconds the better as this will improve the accuracy of voice-identification systems.
- When you’re happy with your clip press the orange ‘Snip’ button in the middle of the clip, your clip will now be ‘Saved to Clipboard’
- Open up the clipboard by clicking the blue clipboard icon (pictured) on the right hand side of the page.
You can give it a name by clicking the ‘enter title’ box and listen to it again it by mousing over the image and pressing the play button.
Requesting extraction of audio edit
Once you've identified suitable audio, send the details over to the BBC Editorial team for checking. To do this go into your clipboard, select a clip and click 'options' (pictured), then 'share'. Click the green 'copy' button (pictured) and then paste in to one of the shared Google Drive spreadsheets made available on the day, and which we'll be using to track progress
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Options -
Green 'copy' button
The editorial team will then extract the audio, convert it into a FLAC format file, then upload it to Wikimedia Commons. They will then add the filename to the spreadsheet. You can then add templates and categories, and use the files on Wikipedia, as described at Commons:BBC voice project/what to do#Uploading files to Commons.
While you wait for the file to be uploaded, you can work on identifying your next clip, or processing a previous one.