monkeyKam

Yikes, man! I granulated from HS in '87. Brian's still older. "I drank what?" --Sophocles

For really easy, reliable, cost-effective ATA or EIDE RAID cards, look here: http://www.promise.com/ I use [insert forgotten model number here] from Promise with 4 250 GIG drives (makes a terabyte) and they're ludicrous-fast and highly reliable. I believe "ludicrous-fast" is a technical term meaning, "doesn't cause slow or jittery video." Hey Cajones!! How's tricks? Later all. Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

[Edit: I guess you have to actually UPLOAD the attachments, huh.] We run the digital photos through a program called "Picture Shark." It can overlay an image onto a folder or just a multiple selection of images. I think it was something like $25 on-line. We set up the overaly image as a "blue screen" thing with the Skydive SoBe logo in the upper left corner and the monkeyKam copyright and logo in the lower right. It works very well and the info we overlay is small enough that it doesn't ruin the photo. I've attached a sample image so you can get an idea (the image was resized from 3072x2048 to 1024x). This works easily and quickly and I don't have to teach my editors how to use Photoshop. Happy videoinginging.

I thought 1+1 = 11. Anyone else with me on this one? I was told there would be no math. "I drank what?" --Sophocles

Hey all, Andy here... I load my Sam 105 at 2.0 and some change, depending on whether or not I'm wearing my camera gear. I jumped Michelle's 95 Sam quite a lot and I find that the 105 is the best choice for me overall. At the end of the swoop on a no-wind day or a downwind landing, the 105 has enough low-end lift to carry my fat ass to a walking pace. In my personal experience, the 95 was just one step too small for me. Fun, but I like to tip-toe or walk out of the end of my swoop. (Getting into shape might be a smart move, at this point, too. ) I do smooth carving 270's, let the canopy bring itself through the arc and then apply very slight outward pressure to the rear risers for landing and brakes at the end to finish. The Samurai rides a long, long way on rears before the toggles are needed. That's one of the things I love about Brian's design. Aside from that, the canopy is boatloads of fun up top. The ride can be a riot, as the lines are short and make for wicked snappy rear riser turns. I've also finally mastered barrel rolls up high. Way, way cool and much, much easier to do with the smaller Sam and my wingloading. Anywho... there's my 2 cents. Hey CHRISSAAYY!!! See ya down here in March!!! Blue skies and safe swoops! Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

Run a head cleaner in your camera once or twice. We get dropped frames in Premiere after a few weeks on the TRV20 we use for capturing. Once through with a miniDV head cleaner stops the problem, most time. Otherwise, the camera person's camcorder (needing cleaning) or lousy tape (Maxell, for instance) tend to be to blame. "I drank what?" --Sophocles

Wags is correct: The 1 GB IBM drive does not function well above 8,000 ft. I got CF errors after about 8K or so. It's amazing those little buggers work at all, they're so dinky. I'm really not sure what the storage system I mentioned will do at altitude. I suppose I could take an iPOD up in the plane on a load tomorrow and see if the drive can bring up a song on jump run. :) Hmmm... Maybe an old laptop is a better Guinea Pig. But then, maybe the drive technology is better lately, so an old laptop wouldn't be a good test subject. It's late. Too much thinking... "I drank what?" --Sophocles

Whacky that this topic was here... I jusdt got off the phone with one of the engineers from the company that is manufacturing my monkeyKamera. They have already built prototype digital video recorders that are basically video iPods. Another VERY groovy thing about this little doo-dad is that it can record multiple video signals at one time (4 at the moment). In other words, you could have 4 or more angles of video recorded at one time and then edit them together as if multiple camera people had shot footage. It turns out that the circuitry to compress raw video signals down to miniDV compression are on just a chip, today (so I understand). The device is slated to act simply as a FireWire hard drive when plugged into your editing system. You copy the footage over to your editing system and wipe the recorder clean for another go. The internal technology is very similar to the drives in the iPod. They're working on the user interface and ports/connectivity options. Not sure if these will look as cool as iPods (I love my 40 gig iPod, BTW!), but they are going to be tiny. Laptop hard drives are rugged and very, very tiny. As for the micro camera and micro lenses, you will be amazed by the quality of the video that comes out of the monkeyKamera. The 480-line 1/3-inch CCD is amazing. The optics are quite impressive, considering their diminuitive size. It is very difficult to see a difference. Every time I show the 4-way footage from Nationals, camera people are wowed at how it looks like a Sony TRV image. Anyway, very exciting times for us tech geeks, indeed! Can't wait to show these things off in the real world. Blue skies and safe swoops! Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

I run the monkeyKam concessions at Skydive Tecumseh in Michigan and the new Skydive South Beach (owned by the same guy) in Pahokee, FL. I pay the camera people $35 per student video. We have editors who build the videos and hand off the VHS (or DVD) and film (or CD) to the student. The editors get $5 an edit. There are two computers that allow the editor to crank through about 6 videos per hour, so the pay is pretty good for the editors. The camera people get just 5 shots: Pre-jump interview, walking to and into the plane, one quick shot and comment on the way up, the skydive, and the landing/post-jump interview. That's it. They shoot the 5 shots, take pictures and hand all that in after the jump. There's a whole process that makes the camera concession run very smoothly. The DZ never waits on camera guys, unless we're just simply short of camera people, which is my problem, not the DZ's. The DZ takes all the money from the student (one stop shopping, one credit card swipe, no hassles). The DZ is already set up to do 1099's for the staff, so the DZ pays the camera people, right into their account, if they wish. Everything that's left over is given to monkeyKam in a check each week as a management fee and an advertising expense for the DZ. The management fee is the operating budget for the concession. monkeyKam buys all the miniDV tapes for the camera people, all the 35 mm film, the compact flash cards (for digital cameras), the VHS tapes, labels, sleeves, video waivers/model release forms, DVD's, computers, software, miniDV decks, DVD recorders, and anything else that is required to make the student videos come out looking kick-ass and in a reasonable amount of time. I think that pretty much covers it, without getting into the nitty-gritty of the processes. Happy camera-ing! Blue skies and safe swoops! Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

There is a PAL version due out in December (hoperfully by the 1st) that will cost only slightly more than the NTSC. "I drank what?" --Sophocles

> ...lenses are specific to the monkeyKam... Yes. They're actually part of what makes the camera waterproof. As a matter of fact, you can dunk your monkeyKamera camera head into a glass of water and it's happy as a clam. :) The waterproof feature is to about 9 meters, which means you can safely mount it on your foot for pound swooping. Waterproofing your camcorder is a different story. We're working on a water RESISTENT monkeyPal belly pouch. Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

IMHO... 6.5 megapixels is enough to create very clear photos up to 18 x 12 inches. At 6.5, your photos are 3072x2048 pixels. When printed on late model photo inkjet printers, 166 dpi is plenty for beautiful photographs. Also, there is a program out there called, "Spline-2." It uses a new algorithm for upsizing and enhancing resolution on photographic images. It produces images that look like they were taken at twice or sometimes 4 times the original resolution without appearant loss of quality. It's truly amazing! Also, also, people have the misconception that all photos must be printed at 300 dpi. It's overkill. Take a digital photo and print it at 166 dpi and see what it looks like. Unless you shot it at ISO 400 or higher (more grainy), it will look fantastic. So, 6.5 megapixel is perfectly fine for larger prints. Craig O'Brien out in Perris was creating beautiful 11x17 posters for people several years ago with a Canon D30. They were amazing. That camera is only 3 megapixels. So, technique has something to do with, not brut force with the DPI. :) My 2 cents worth (and years of experience in print and design)... Andy "I drank what?" --Sophocles

Hey JB, Troy pretty much got it all. Here are the answers I give when people call and ask about the monkeyKamera: Re: Wide angle lens... The monkeyKamera ships with a 2.5 mm wide angle lens. That lens is similar to a 0.3x or 0.42x on a Sony camcorder. If you want it *not* wide, you have to order a special lens. Re: Breaking the digital chain... The monkeyKamera provides an analog NTSC signal that is pretty much as clear as the original camcorder image (better than microMV cameras, but not quite to the maximum quality of miniDV's capabilities). It uses AA batteries, so the power source is clean and doesn't mess with the video signal like power from the wall can. The bottom line is the final quality that is played on the television and the high end bullet cameras like the monkeyKamera are clean and look like a normal camcorder. Re: Stabalization... If you've noticed on wider angle lenses, camera shake is not as noticeable. The stabilizing technology in most camcorders is either mechanical (some Canon cameras) or electronic (Sony and others). Also, as you become more experienced at camera, you learn to fly your head steadier. The camcorder does not stabilize incoming video feeds, if you're wondering. Hope that helps... Fly your cameras safely! Andy monkeyKam.tv "I drank what?" --Sophocles

At Tampa Digital Studios, the post production house I just left in Tampa, tons and tons of experience tells us this about DVD compatibility: - For reliable playback on just about any *set top* DVD player, DVD-R general media at 4x works very well. - The recommended brand of DVD-R media listed most by companies that build DVD-R duplication towers or system is RITEK. Generic DVD-Rs tend not to be very reliable and I've heard that upwards of one third of customers will come back complaining about generic media. - For playback on computers with DVD drives, we've only had great success with "authoring" media (a bit more pricey than general media, but worth it for compatibility). - The recording decks of choice for professional duplication and replication houses (like Tampa Digital and it's replication service providers) varies. We've found that *media* is more to blame than the deck. You can't go wrong with Pioneer, Panasonic, or Phillips. And remember, those big name brands tend to be the names behind some of the popular drives and deck you buy at Best Buy or Circuit City. FWIW, there's the two cents from the broadcast and post production industry.

For those airfoil techno-geeks out there, the statement below should be corrected (I just wanted to be sure that the actual physics of the system were properly understood): > The faster you fly, > the more drag there is on your steering lines,... > bowing them back and pulling down the tail. First of all, the drag on the lines is not at all greater than that of the drag on the bottom of the tail of your canopy, therefore, the lines cannot pull the tail down. More than that, the direction of the relative wind striking the control lines (and the whole parachute system, for that matter) is more upward relative to the bottom surface of the canopy (due to the nose-down trim of the airfoil). If it were even possible that the lines had more drag than the bottom surface of the tail, the vector of the drag on the lines would need to be downward in order to pull the tail downward, which it is not (see attached diagram). If the tail is being pulled down during static or clean flight (no inputs), there is something mechanical at work, not something relating to drag. That is to say, something is pulling the control lines and it isn't drag. Sorry for the goofy diagram, but it definitely helps illustrate the point. Andy [email protected] "I drank what?" --Sophocles