DSE

You're kidding, right? Mormonism has nothing to do with Christianity. Mormonism was (and still somewhat is) a front for having sex with little girls and marrying them. Joseph Smith and the famous "tar and feather" story that Mormons tell, conveniently leaves out the fact that he was to be tarred and feathered for having sex with a 13 year old girl. He hired a doctor to castrate Smith, but at the moment of truth, the doctor felt it was a violation of his Hippocratic oath. So Smith was tarred and feathered instead. Islam has nothing to do with Christianity. Islam doesn't claim to have a Son of God in it's origins. Only that a man (a MAN, not a diety) talked to God. Judaism founded on Christianity? Who have you been talking to? That's insane. Bhuddism, Hindu, Druidism have nothing to do with Christianity either. Nor does traditional religions of most non-white cultures. Christianity runs a far, far distant third in the world religions. Christianity is screwed. It's screwed our country as well. Anyone of any reasonable intelligence knows that a goodly portion of the bible is false/fiction. But it can never be proven so, because politically, it would end the life of the US as we know it. All great Empires fall, just as Greece, Rome, Ottoman Empire, etc have done. But imagine Christianity being truly exposed for what it is... The rest of the world gets to then say "We've been saying this for centuries, and you're just now getting it..." Politically it would destroy us, because it automatically gives the upper hand morally, religiously, and socially to every non-Christian religion. Therefore it is in the best interests of the US in terms of economics, politics, and military posture to maintain the fact or fiction of Christianity. Watching Anderson Cooper's "What is a Christian" on CNN tonight, I'm more scared of the Christian faith than I ever before. The gall, the arrogance, the attitude these people portray is truly something everyone should be frightened of. If nothing else, the mere amount of money that flows into but not out of these various Christian faiths should be illegal.

60 skydives, 60 years old...impressed me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-1tSZiyO3E

Typo? 240GB seem a bit too much for a pastic disc (at least in this decade...) No. Not a typo. It's expected that both TDK and Samsung will announce yet ONE MORE layer (8 layers) on BD, allowing it to have over 270GB, but the question will be the seek time. TDK claims that they believe they can develop layering structure of BD to hold two terrabytes but that this development won't happen soon ('ll wager never). Note that on the BD FAQ, they only point to 200GB capacity, but that page isn't updated to Samsung's layered announcement of October 2006, adding 40GB more space. http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_capacity_data

The issue of mp3 vs wave is the same as mpeg vs avi; mp3 is mpeg, type three... Glad it worked out. I went to bed not seeing your last post. Using intraframe compression or uncompressed formats such as AVI vs MPEG2/4, and using uncompressed, time-locked formats such as PCM vs MP3, will always yield better results, even if they are a PITA to create from original media. MPEG is not intended as an editing format, even though we all use it as such. It's intended for delivery only. regardless, glad it's working out for you. Editing can be a blast!

1. Yes, there is a significant difference between HD DVD and BD (BluRay). At the moment, the players are not cross compatible. There was rumor that Pioneer was going to build a cross platform drive, but they're very loudly denying this. BD uses blue lasers (BluRay) and HD DVD uses red lasers. BD has a total layer capacity at this time of up to 240GB at 70ms seek times. HD DVD has a max size of 30GB at a 120ms seek time. 2. Sony doesn't manufacture HD DVD burners. They manufacture BD burners. Sony is one of the parents of BluRay. At this moment, only Toshiba manufactures HD DVD burners. Sony, Pioneer, TEAC all manufacture BD burners for both Mac and PC. NEC announced, but is not shipping (AFAIK) HD DVD burners. Only Toshiba is shipping burners. Be real sure about your move, given the cost of an HD DVD burner, and the concerns about access at this time. Only Microsoft and Toshiba support the format, whereas with BD, there are hundreds of manufacturing partners, plus dozens of content providers. Were I in your shoes, I'd wait until CES next week in Las Vegas is over. We'll see who "won" the format war at Vegas, more or less. My money is on BD, or some freebie/cheepie Chinese system that circumvents both BD and HD DVD.

I couldn't say. I just now inserted a freeze frame in the middle of vid in MovieMaker, and nothing goes out of sync. Then again, I'm splitting and inserting. I've tried to repro your problem using an mpeg file converted to avi, and not getting sync issues, but i'm also only working with a 3 minute timeline. Could it be your system is sluggish? Does the rendered movie play back out of sync too? Or just during preview? My laptop isn't all that fast, a 1.83Centrino... Maybe someone else has an idea. It was fun opening and playing with Moviemaker again tho.

Gotcha. I was missing that you were inserting a freeze frame. Can't help you with the editing side of the Movie Maker question; I've only used it for simple editing demonstrations. But, if you're inserting a freeze frame for a specific length of time but not removing identical time from the video portion of the program, I'd expect your audio to then go out of sync.

Exactly. MPEG (in any flavor) is challenging to edit with precision due to I/B/P frames, but converting the mpeg to an intra-frame format such as an interleaved audio/video file (avi) gets away from the issue you're experiencing. you're going to lose a small amount of quality, but since you're just experimenting, it shouldn't matter.

If the content from Skydiverradio is mpeg, it likely is losing sync due to the way the audio is referenced in i frames. You don't need Premiere or anything better if you just wanna cut loose vids for giggles and laughs. If you wanna be serious, then you need to at least step to one of the entry level versions of Avid, Premiere, Vegas. Back to point however, render the content as an avi (DV codec) first to fix timecode reference, then edit that. You won't be losing sync.

Saskia, are you saying you cannot see the difference between 50i/60i on playback? NTSC does lose a bit of clarity on the upsample to PAL, PAL has greater resolution at a cost of smooth movement (50i vs 60i). NTSC is only 480 lines vs 576 of PAL. Upsampling those 480 to a 576 line image creates a little softness, but that can be somewhat managed with unsharpmasking and a little sharpening.

A discussion this subject was had a few months ago; you'll find a lot of opinions in both directions. My opinion is that accessing as much information as possible is only a good thing, but not implementing it until you've got a good instructor or mentor to help you to best implement what you've learned through books/DVDs/forums. You can easily develop bad habits that are difficult to break. I know I did. Nothing beats a face-to-face with an experienced skydiver, but books/DVDs/forums help you know what questions to ask, and also give you some on-ground, visual references to what you should be doing in the air.

I'd mentioned in another thread, how I'd allowed myself and my jump partner to be rushed out by some screaming freeflyers at a DZ in Australia. Had my first off-landing ever (and haven't experienced another one yet), and damn near hurt myself trying to avoid water, powerlines, and a busy road. Next time it happened, I just turned and smiled at them, and offered them my hand by way of suggesting "After you..." When it *did* happen, the S&TA came up to profusely apologize for the spot, apparently the pilot misread the GPS. You're the one jumping out. You're the one responsible for *your* safety. Just as no one else is responsible for you saving your ass when you've got to pull silver....do what you think is right. If you're wrong, you'll figure that out too. Just today, had a VERY long spot due to the pilot not noticing we had a tail wind. Could have been disastrous if we hadn't all pulled a tad high. Pilots, electronics, whatever can make mistakes. Don't let their mistakes become yours.

coupla thoughts... You'll need to complete your A before you can jump Spaceland (or most any other DZ) without spending extra... Closest year-around to you is Mesquite, NV. You've GOT to have good accuracy, because if you miss the smallish landing area, all the out points are nasty sharp lava that will cut through the sides of most kinds of shoes, and will shred any jumpsuit, assuming you don't break anything on landing. hard to run out, too. I'd consider Perris or Eloy long before Florida. Cheaper, closer, and the manifest and S&TA teams at both Perris and Eloy know Brian, and if you don't have your A, can talk to him about your proficiency. No free bunkhouse at Perris, but Elsinore has a bunkhouse that's cheap. Plus it's driveable for you if you want to save $$. Only 12 hours from Sandy...

Vegas auto-sizes the footage correctly for either format. 720 x 576 properly becomes 720 x 480, and when going from NTSC to PAL it goes from 720 x 480 to 720 x 576. Framerate doesn't matter; any NLE should properly insert or remove frames, and do so intelligently by resampling the 50 or 60 frame cadence and create a new one, blending both quite nicely. 50i should never become "slow" when converted to 60i anymore than 60i should become fast when converted to 50i. The only caveat is if you manually zoom, it's quite possible to flip fields (which is seen A LOT on skydivingmovies.com), which if done, will guarantee that you'll experience interlacing artifacts and issues.

Both the $89.00 version of Vegas and the 599.00 version come with DVD Authoring tools.

Sony Vegas, both the "lite" consumer version and the professional version, can manage importing either format and both to the timeline at the same time, and export to either/both.

I've had one good experience with them, but communication wasn't as good as I'd have liked. This one...I made it clear in my purchase that I needed it overnighted (2+weeks ago now) and I have since left on the travel for which I needed this lens. While I'm sure they have the best of intentions, they really need to communicate better. I ordered a similar lens from Diamond just in case Royal royally screwed me, and they had it to me in two days (from Europe). Maybe they've got a good explanation for why they've left folks hanging. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Mac or PC? I'll wager PC since it's an AVI format to start... Windows Media Encoder, is free, does a great job. Any video editing system can encode the file to a wmv format as well, and that's likely what you'll want. 512kpbs for high quality, 100kpbs for low quality, 256kpbs for in-between. HTH

The picture quality is irrelevant to the type of tape used, it's not like an analog cassette where the image degrades over time. Digital media is 1's and 0's. Either it's there, or it's not. Error correction simply helps keep all that in line, but it has nothing to do with the actual visual image quality, but rather how well the deck can "read" when the information becomes "foggy" if I can use such simple terms.

JVC have measured a greater carrier of +6dB, but they don't market it as such. Haven't tested it, but bottom line is with a greater particle density and 1 error correction unit per 16 tracks of data, having a higher density makes sense. The error correct unit does make a difference during playback/decode, that, I'm certain of, based on initial presentations of the AME II format from BASF a couple of years ago at NAB. I'm not an engineer, however, so can't argue whether it does or does not make a difference per various deck. It should, as there is a greater density in the area of parity. But again, I'm not an engineer (BTW, I'm sure you're right, the Reed/Solomon error correction math is the foundation for most all E/C, I believe) Can you *see* a difference? Nope. You're simply more protected against loss, and at the end of the day, that's really all any of us care about, isn't it?

Sony, Canon, and JVC all recommend AME-II tape as it has two layers of particle vs one. Benefit? Significantly better error correction. +4dB greater carrier signal. What does that mean to most folks? Not much. If you're shooting ultra critical work, you might want to use the AME-II tape; we do. But for most skydiving events, regular DV tape is just fine, IMO.

Any update from anyone re: receiving lenses on order? Still no contact nor received lenses, and one of the two contact numbers on their website is disconnected.

One piece of advice I can give you: Don't jump by yourself much. You can develop bad habits. I wasted a lot of jumps early on, trying to do different things and teach myself. Stupid move on my part. I've had to spend a fair amount of time trying to unlearn some ingrained habits due to jumping without a relative point. For a while there, I couldn't determine whether it was me flying all over the sky, or the people I started jumping with (it was me). Try to find someone that can jump with you, maybe even a few coached jumps. Having some of those solo fun jumps is great, but you'll learn so much more by having even only one person relevant to you. As mentioned in the other post, I was on a couple of four ways, and one six way before I had even 30 jumps. I was by far the least experienced, but had I been smarter, I'd have tried to spend more time in the air with others instead of by myself.

That's the full system, I was just looking for the plate. A kind soul PM'd me and sold me one of theirs for an exceptionally fair price, and he's sending it to Hawaii for me. Thanks for helping out, guys!

yup. Been to B&H, called Adorama, called most of the bigger stores today, and only got an "out of stock" message. Safe Harbor had one in stock, plate only, and they want $49.95 for it, and won't overnight to Hawaii. Paying $60.00 for the plate/shipping and 3 day delivery doesn't excite me.