DSE

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  1. Quote

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    graphics card?



    ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

    will this have any bearing on my ability to link my laptop to a dvd recorder via firewire?

    jt



    No, just on how fast or slow you can render. Which you will have to do anyway...

    I just got a new laptop 4 days ago: dual core 2400, g-force go 256 mb, 1gb ram, 2x 80gb 5400 rpm harddrives. And it is FAST :)


    In many NLE and MPEG encoding apps, the vid card doesn't matter. Not all (most don't) NLE's take advantage of GPU for encode, but do for decode. To speed rendering, hard drives, front side bus, and proc are the always-relevant things to look out for. Everything else is application dependent.

  2. Quote

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    However, if you use a cheapo W/A on the cam, you could easily create abberation, which then significantly confuses the DSP due to color timing. Use a good lens, this shouldn't be an issue.




    Do you know which WA lenses have the least barrel distortion (while maintaining the high resolution suitable for HDV)?

    Thanks!



    There really isn't one. BandPro says they've got one under test for the A1 (which would work for the HC1)
    but I've only seen a little info on it. You might call Jeff at 16x9 and ask him if it's shipping yet. You can download a res aspect chart, shoot it, and find the "sweet spot" of the lens you've got. I'm confident that you're confusing the DSP, causing the "tunnel" that gives you color timing errors.

  3. Illegal to use the emergency flares in Utah, don't know about other states tho.
    Not terribly related, but I was going to buy a Silhouette 200 from a demo jumper here that only has 150 jumps on it. There are several small burn "marks" from flares on it, and a couple of small patches in the nose from flying "thru" other jumper's smoke.
    On my first jump with it, it blew up with a 3" hole in the top of the canopy. Rigger figures fabric was weakened by a small burn and it tore from there.

  4. Since everyone else has answered most of your questions, I'll only comment that I'm at Skydive Utah virtually every day.
    Today, I went to Skydive Ogden for the second time, was told to give it another shot after a really poor experience the first time. Since Hill AirForce base was having their big airshow, we went over. It was a repeat of our last experience. I'll keep going to Tooele instead. (Skydive Utah)
    They've got a great FJC, my partner just started it,.
    Certification/novice status is nowhere near 1300.00 at Skydive Utah. Call Heather or Debbie; they'll give you the scoop. They also just took on 2 new AFF instructors, both very communicative and capable guys. I think they've got around 10 AFF people there.

    Yes, you can certify on a weekend, except they don't do jumpschool on Sat. You can do your second tandem on a Friday, start jump school on Friday, jump again on Friday, and finish your AFF on Sat. That's about what I did. Took me Sat/Sun/Mon to complete it all. I took jump school after having several tandems in Hawaii.

    PM me if you need any other Skydive Utah info.

  7. Jont,
    More information is quite helpful...
    No, your VAIO won't allow you to connect a camcorder to the firewire and record straight to the built in DVD burner. Not possible, as there are some processes that need to take place first.
    You CAN connect an external firewire DVD burner to your VAIO, I do this regularly. But you have to capture from the camera first.

  8. There is simply no way to accurately or intelligently predict dust devils. If you have warm and cooler ares, they can immediately kick up with a small gust, or not. Here in the desert, they're very common, and anywhere you've got a superheated area and a cooler area...there they may be. They're invisible over grassy areas. I don't believe there is anything you can do different beyond what you've asked. I showed this to an instructor here who has once been hospitalized from a devil crossing his swoop, and once been seriously face-planted during a "normal" landing. His comment echoed most comments here; you can't stop it or avoid it. His only advice to me was if I see one, try to steer into it if it's at a point that I can see it. Our DZ isn't grass, so it's somewhat easy to spot them with the dust. But in my yard and pasture, you can't see them. They just hit you.
    Glad you weren't injured more than the bruises.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil has a picture of one. Bear in mind it only has color in it because it's over a dirt field.

  9. A contained/suite would be a tad faster, and allow you to use a pre-created menu, walkup, and closing sequence in about the same amount of time. I've got lots of templates for this that Skydive Utah is using. Very fast, and very efficient.
    but...if this workflow is working for you, stick with it. Vegas Movie Studio has a better encoder, but it's also slightly slower than DVDSanta. I just tested it.

  11. The HC3 is third generation technology in the HDV realm, and has some significant improvements in the DSP. It's a faster processor, which allows it to be better.
    The HC1 is older tech, and first gen CMOS in it's flavor. It's not as advanced. The problem with it (IMO) is that due to the DSP infancy plus how the CMOS manages the pixels, stabilization at tight angles could be significantly improved (which it now is in the HC3) but skydivers don't care much about the deep shot, they're after wide angles. This isn't nearly as big an issue for normal use. However, if you use a cheapo W/A on the cam, you could easily create abberation, which then significantly confuses the DSP due to color timing. Use a good lens, this shouldn't be an issue.
    The more I jump with the HC3, the more impressed I am with it for *this* purpose. We've done motoX with it, skydiving, and scuba, and it simply rocks.
    We've skydived the A1 (same as HC1 but professional format vs consumer) and it's done quite well too. We're shooting a 3 camera specialty shoot for TLC next week, using A1 vs HC3, just for the better imager with Diamond lenses. We're using 2 HC3's on the lead skydivers as well, so I'll have some comparison footage fer y'all to look at. We're using 2 Z1U's in the plane, 2 Z1's on the ground for a total of 7 cams on this particular event.

  13. The Weber County Recorders Office has no information about the SkyVenture tunnel. No license issued. Just called there. :(
    Called SkyVenture to get more information on more than one occasion, and they haven't returned any phone calls.

  14. HC3 is entirely electronic stabilization, and in it's class, it's better than any I've seen (including the HC1), but it still messes with resolution more than I'd like it to. The skydiving pics we've got, coupled with graphs from the protrack show it manages tracking very nicely. Just be sure you're never stopped down heavily. Speed up the shutter so the aperture stays open, you'll like it.
    NO 1/3 chip camcorder should ever be stopped down more than F4 anyway.
    I'm waiting on a glove for mine, my DZ will allow me to jump with a glove now that I've got my B license. This will allow me to test for specific function, such as an AIE chart mounted on my chest strap. That gives me a known base from which I can work.
    This sucks, having a helmet, lots of cams, and can't jump with them at the same time, but I know I've got to progress in paces.[:/]

  15. The *easiest* way to do this is to just render the MovieMaker as an AVI, and import that directly with DVDSanta. (button furthest to the left)
    That's it.
    If you wanna spend some additional $$, there are other apps that are faster/more efficient, but if this workflow goes for you, might as well ride it out.
    I wrote a small software tool that does this automatically, but it only works for Sony Vegas. Called "DVD Prep." Free, on the VASST.com website.
    HTH

  16. No.
    I now better understand your question. Unless you have a hardware assist card, such as a Canopus or Matrox card that can assist in sending your avi without rendering it, you're stuck with:
    1. Rendering to MPEG from your timeline
    or
    2. Rendering to AVI from your timeline, exporting to DVD player and having it convert realtime to MPEG.
    or
    3. Using a hardware encoder to MPEG that will accept whatever output you throw at it,
    Compressed formats require rendering,(time-costly) or real-time hardware conversion ($$costly)
    There is no free lunch.
    MovieMaker uses OHCI drivers to export via 1394, but it requires a finish render to avi. Some apps render to MPEG faster than others, but at a quality hit. Outside of CinemaCraft and MainConcept, Sony Vegas offers the best encode you'll get. But it's also among the slower renders, being about 2:1 for non-rendered timeline, and faster than realtime for a rendered timeline. Adobe, Canopus, Ulead are all faster, but offer less quality.
    If you've rendered your avi from the timeline, you can print to tape and sent *that* to the DVD burner, and not have to render to MPEG, yes.
    Did that make sense?

  18. I know there are still a few out there, just that Sony discontinued it. It's a much nicer camera for many purposes than the HC3, but as it stands, Sony misjudged the market and didn't build enough of them, and as a result, they sold short. The A1U is still out there, and NOT discontinued, in fact Sony has some rebates on the professional version of the HC1. It's the same body, but I don't know that skydiving videographers/photographers care about the better features of the A1 vs the HC1. Personally, I do, but on the video side, I'm probably a bit more anal about glass image quality vs post work than most folks are.

  19. Quote

    ***

    creating "legal liability" that you do? Sounds to me as if you CHOSE instead to buy that Cypres so you could jump there. Again, ...your CHOICE.

    t



    First, this is what I was told by a fairly senior certification individual with more than 30 years and 25,000 jumps; I'd rather not attribute the quote to him in case I've misunderstood. But I don't believe I misunderstood him.
    That said, if the USPA were to adopt a policy that everyone, period, had to use an AAD, then they'd be at liability if one failed, because they've now become part of the problem. Regardless of what dropzone you're jumping in. Every DZ would be exposed.
    Just like airbags having lost several court cases, I'm sure this would be worse.
    Then again, what do I know? I'm just one of the dummies that folks with more than 1000 jumps discount comments from.

  22. "If someone will or won't jump with or without an AAD is their own personal decision. Depending blindly on a safety device is something that sends a red flag up about a jumper. "

    Almost the exact words of our DZO. I bought my first rig prior to being off student status. Rig didn't have an AAD in it. Jumped it for 35 jumps, as soon as I was off student. Not because I'm proud, but because I couldn't afford the grand for an AAD after buying rig, altimeter, and other odds/ends.
    Then on a not-planned trip to Canada where I ended up finding I could jump, I learned that in Edmonton, they won't allow you to jump without an AAD without a D license. So, very quickly bought a used one and had my DZO's master rigger install it. I had no idea that some DZO's adamantly require them.
    Kinda stupid to do so, because if one fails when it's required, and is part of a fatality or injury, or goes off when it shouldn't, then the DZ becomes legally liable, as they're part of the problem. I've been told that this is the reason the USPA backed off of requiring AADs a few years ago. Maybe someone has a different reason, but makes sense to me.

    On the other side...you don't want to believe for a second that an AAD is going to save you. EP's are drilled into pretty much everyone every day at the local DZ, unless they have a C or D license. Mildly irritating to have the S&TA randomly walk up and say "Show me your malfunction motto" but it just might save your life one day.

  23. Nice piece of vid, but one thing I wondered about...at our DZ, the camera or other jumpers are not allowed to ever dock with the tandem master, only the passenger/student for safety reasons. Watching several guys go thru this with Jay Stokes this past week, he'd also expressed this "rule."
    So, what is right and not right regarding docking with passengers/tandem masters?

  24. Quote

    Going to depend on the operating system and software you're using. A blanket statement probably isn't going to work for everyone.

    That said, you're images will be far better in the long run if you capture from camera to computer in the same format that was on the tape to begin with. That's called, variously; DV, DVCam or DV25. Do all of your editing in that and take the recompress hit AS you're compressing for DVD output.



    *Most* NLE systems don't support MPEG rendering without a recompress. For this reason, using avi for your master, and compressing to mpeg is the better option. Recompressing mpeg causes a quality hit. Only you can decide if the hit is bad enough to deal with the render times.
    There are other options.
    For example, you can frameserve from your NLE to your encoder, or you can render to DV25, output to an ADS Instant MPEG, and have realtime, high quality encoding. Better than most software encoders unless you look at commercial MainConcept or CinemaCraft.
    On the PC side, hardware assistance is now available from some cards as well.
    Additionally, DV25/DV is a compression format of 4:1:1, which is already color-starved. SD MPEG is a 4:2:0 colorspace, and is significantly missing information, so when you color process or use FX, you're going to usually find macroblocking, depending on the bitrate of the encode. If you have a very high bitrate for SD, you can somewhat avoid this outside of the extreme blacks and whites. Using an AVI container for DV helps avoid this as well.
    Finally, bear in mind that MPEG is temporal, and therefore doesn't edit well. AVI containers (generally) are interframe, and therefore more frame content, making for much more accurate and higher quality output.
    PM me if you'd like more info.

  25. I like the ankle support, but I've got pins n' screws in both ankles...The DZO here wears an ankle brace on every jump. Your doctor has a very good point as well. The Adidas boots we're referring too have very soft ankle support, nothing really stiff. I don't have any issues tracking at all.