MarBrock

My folks are happy that I'm avoiding the other crazy sh-t I did before I started skydiving.

I've rushed a little to make the cutoff, but I'm over 200 now and can make the date easily enough. I don't know all of the ramifications for international standards, but changing these requirements seems capricious to me. If the USPA wants a 500 jump license, why not add an E license? After these changes, we'll have D license holders with fewer than 300 jumps while jumpers with over 400 can't obtain a D license. DZOs will waive requirements to account for the disparity, so nothing will really change. The USPA could add a 1000 jump license and a 5000 jump license too, but at some point, it's only a pointless game of one-upsmanship. Most of us will never have 5000 jumps, because we can't afford to spend $100,000 on lift tickets, even over a lifetime. Specialized distinctions in particular disciplines make more sense, but we don't need licensing for these distinctions. We need competitive events.

Okay, I'm the subject of this abuse, so I'll add my apology for posterity. 2k is where Nutz checked his altimeter with his canopy fully open after making a 180 deg turn, so we're not really discussing a "fixing to splatter" scenario here. After the slap on the hand, I tracked and threw out near 3k. I usually deploy a little under 3k, so I'm often at 2k before I'm steering my canopy. Regardless, I knew this altitude was below Nutz' comfort level and should have checked my altimeter sooner. I was too focused on completing the dock we had planned, and he was entitled to kick me in the face or deploy. We never seemed very close under canopies to me either, and he didn't mention this concern at the time; however, if he wants to kick me in the butt, I'll bend over for him, but that's as far as it's going.

I didn't need to look very much. The guy put an ad in Parachutist, and this thread appeared without any effort on my part. I have nothing against selling, but I think Swain's price is too high. He tells me he's doing quality, professional work with his camera now, and I have no reason to doubt him. I frankly doubt that his camera will be a great commercial success, because I expect an affordable camcorder soon to be small enough and light enough to mount inside a helmet for the price he expects. Many people know more about both flying and video than I do, and I've acknowledged the fact repeatedly. Digital video is the future, and I'm interested in the future precisely because I'm still learning and don't anticipate professional video anytime soon if ever. I could do occasional tandem videos this year if needed, but I certainly won't make a living at it. Our DZ doesn't have a legion of guys with thousands of jumps. Some of our regular tandem masters don't have a thousand jumps. Even if I didn't expect digital video to replace analog, analog editing makes no sense for me. Analog equipment is expensive, and I use a laptop computer anyway. My musings are not theoretical. I've used the equipment I've discussed. The professionals here tell me that analog still beats digital editing, and I believe them, but I don't see how it can last. I know that computers crash, and I know that some of the PC digital editing systems are buggy, including mine, but software improves. I don't think general purpose computer hardware is a limiting factor in digital video anymore, even on laptops. A lot can happen in a billion cycles. I'm not a video producer, but I worked in an astrophysics lab for years and have done very computation intensive image processing on computers slower than the laptop I'm using right now. If I couldn't learn from the mistakes of others, I wouldn't be here. I fly very conservatively, and I wear a camera very conservatively. I can't agree that most people, including students, must never wear cameras, because I've actually seen affordable cameras the size of my thumbnail and a camera plus solid state recorder smaller than my hand and lighter than my helmet. This equipment doesn't produce professional quality video yet, but the highest quality isn't necesssary for every application, and one of these cameras can be mounetd inside a helmet so that a jumper hardly know it's there. Some microdv cameras already small enough too. If a jumper doesn't know he's wearing a camera, I don't see how it could possibly impact his safety. It's only a matter of time before a skydiving camera is as common as hip rings and tie die for jumpers who want one, and the camera won't add any significant risk.

In reality, I've carefully considered the objections here, responded to them at length and modified my position accordingly. It's all in the record. "Nobody" excludes people I know to care about my position, so the word can only be hyperbole. I'm no more obliged to go away than you or anyone else, but I've already stated repeatedly that I intend to try it without anyone's approval here. Like I said earlier, I hope to be ready by the end of the summer. I'm not doing tandem videos at all at this point. I might work with Jeremy who is doing a few. He's the guy who posted under "I'm cleared for video work!" earlier. Perris guys dominate this forum, and your big city tandem mill experience isn't particularly applicable to us. I'll probably do no more than one or two by the end of summer, if any, but after I've done a few, I'll let you know how long the last one took. I don't expect to sell anything on these attempts, and people who don't want to pay for a video happily accept any mode of delivery. The mode I imagine is a web page hosted at our DZ's site, not email. This mode allows students to show the video to their herd of online friends anywhere and everywhere. It's the future. I don't need to convince you. I'm discussing the subject to learn something, and I can tolerate all of the arrogant, territorial sniping in the process. You guys are no different than the guys who ripped me for days over the helmet camera several months ago, before an experienced videographer here started advocating the same approach, even selling his own model of a device. Some of you are the same guys.

I control the camcorder from the laptop. I can start and stop the capture process as I'm selecting clips. The capture process occurs simultaneously with the editing. I can capture clips and drop them in the storyboard until the sequence is complete, and I can then immediately play the video. I don't know how your software handles it. I can also spend a lot more time on the editing, of course. Dropping the clips into a storyboard requires hardly any time. I do no rendering to play the completed video, unless I want to compress for streaming. Copying to analog might take another pass with my equipment, after copying the video back to the camcorder, but I don't know. It's not a major issue for me, and it has no bearing on the likely evolution of videography, because no fundamental, technical problem prevents it. At one time, titles and musical tracks added more time to the process too. Problems precede solutions. Compression is slow, but I don't need to attend it. People on broadband are a rapidly growing market. Since I don't make tandem videos now, I'm more interested in the future. I might never make tandem videos, for that matter, but skydive photography will change regardless. You'll do whatever you like, of course. More power to you. No one jumps for a living at our DZ, not even the tandem and AFF instructors. Only our DZO tries to make his living at it. By the time our DZ has 20-30 tandems standing around, nothing we say here matters, because the technology has changed significantly again.

I type for a living. What's your excuse? Keep it simple, professor. I'm kinda slow. My software captures DV directly to my hard drive through the firewire as I view it. The format doesn't change. It's DV in and DV out. Since I control the camcorder through software, I can also select clips during this capture. I'm starting and stopping the capture as I create the clips. I need not capture the video to my drive and then select clips on a second pass. When I have the clips, I drop them onto a storyboard. This construction of the video from clips requires little time, unless I want to edit the clips further after capture. I then click a button, and the software plays the clips back in the sequence I've constructed on the storyboard. The process takes hardly more time than the time to view the video. With my equipment, I must then copy the video back to the camcorder to make an analog copy. I can probably copy the video back to the camcorder and make an analog copy on a separate VCR in one pass, but I haven't tried it. None of these operations poses a fundamental, technical problem. I don't have much interest in the analog tape, because I'm experimenting with streaming media. This approach offers many marketing advantages to the DZ. Compression takes time, but it doesn't take my time, because I don't need to be present. In the U.S., we have the widest adoption of broadband by internet users in the world, 38% of internet users so far and growing fast, so I expect streaming video to be important in the foreseeable future. You don't need to tell me that the big boys at Perris already do this sort of thing. I don't pretend any originality here. It's not difficult to see where the new media is going. My home DZ doesn't have the resources of a Perris or Quincy or even the larger DZs near Atlanta, and I enjoy exploring the frontiers. The tape never leaves the camera. I can capture the video and edit it in one pass and copy it back to tape in a second pass. I don't ordinarily copy to analog tape during this process, so I don't know if this step requires another pass. I know the camcorder will do it. I must see the video as I edit it, and the student wants to see it before leaving, so two passes are mandatory anyway. I can also spend more time with more elaborate editing, and I would spend more time with two video sources. I've already acknowledged this fact. The student also gets a longer video. You're skipping presentation to the student. I've never seen a student take a video sight-unseen. We typically gather around the video monitor to watch completed tandem videos, but we aren't a big city tandem mill. We rarely see 20 tandem students in a day, never in my experience, much less 20 students at a time. I don't jump at a DZ with a high volume of tandems, so I don't really care; however, in time, I'll find a routine that's fast enough. Nothing in principle prevents me. It's only a matter of finding the right technology and climbing a learning curve. I revamp my skills every few years in my line of work. It's a matter of professional survival. If I ultimately buy new software, that's fine, but I'm not sure my Pinnacle software can't do it, and I know my hardware can do it, except for copying to analog on the second pass. I'm not sure about that step. I haven't explored it, because I have little interest in it. I've videoed one tandem, for practice without charge. I emailed it to the student. I rarely make more than five jumps in a day, so I don't operate under the time constraints you're discussing. We charge $50 for a tandem video. A videographer gets $25 plus his lift ticket, and he's lucky to do 10 videos in a weekend. We have little weekday business, so no one does video for a living. I imagine instructing or doing video work in a semi-retired phase of my life years from now, if ever, and working gradually toward this goal in the meantime. I understand the day-to-day concerns of your video business as you explain them, but they aren't very relevant to me. I probably haven't seen the equipment at your DZ. Like I said, my home DZ has analog editing equipment, and I know how fast my DZO edits a video with it. He still uses it, but he's also experimenting with digital editing, and our last principal videographer, who left us recently, was using digital editing before he left.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him obediently parrot every word you say.

I'm not unwilling to accept advice in this forum, but if you expect unqualified agreement on each point, I can't oblige you. Every point in your list has been made in this thread already, but I'm happy to know that the Perris tandem masters are unanimous. 1 & 2) If no tandem master will accept a Gath helmet on a student, then no tandem student can wear a camera mounted on a Gath helmet. I acknowleged this point earlier and suggested a frappe hat or a "spycam" mounted on sunglasses. I'm not sure why this response doesn't count as "accepting advice", but it's on the record. I'm still willing to suggest a Gath to a TM regardless of your poll. I have discussed cameras on students with my DZO who does tandems and video, and he didn't react with kneejerk disapproval. 3) I don't imagine a camera on a student substituting for a camera flyer. I imagine editing two streams together. I've said as much repeatedly. I'm not sure what excludes this repetition from the "accepted advice" category either, but it's also on the record. 4) If a student camera is small enough, it's not a distraction, and cameras are already very small and getting smaller all the time. The spycam on sunglasses as well as Toshiba's solid state video cameras, requiring no separate camcorder, are responsive to this criticism. Apparently, only total capitulation fits properly in the "accepted advice" category. 5) I don't jump at an operation like Perris, so this fact is not relevant to me. 6) I can't speak for every student on Earth, but I took my camera on a tandem hang glider and recorded only what I saw and not my mug, so the planet has room for at least one exception. 7) etc... You may conduct your poll with my DZO and other TMs I know through the forum at my home DZ's website at www.skydiveal.com. We're very welcoming. Finally, I've experienced this routine before. When I first described my camera helmet, similar to Swain's, in this forum several months ago, the criticism was similar, and the experienced advisors dismissed me as a clueless newbie with a death wish, etc... Many of the criticisms in that thread, still on the record, are directly applicable to Swain's camera, but few of them appear in this thread, certainly not with the same degree of condescension. Anyone can verify this fact for themselves.

I am responsive to other posters, and I've conceded several points already, but people with 10 or 15 times the jumps I have are not entitled to be right. I'm no more obliged to stop posting than you. If you don't like the game, don't play it. I suggested a Gath as a place to mount a small camera on a student. I stated that a Gath is thin and flexible and does not add two inches or a very hard surface to a student's head, because the statements are true and responsive to criticism in this thread. Check the record. The statements are also undisputed. I've conceded this point repeatedly in this forum, once in this thread. No one who has tried it disputes this point. The equipment and methods videographers will use in a few years are someone's wet dream now. That's precisely my point. This is what I mean by "marginal production values". I also work on my exit timing and shot framing. Why you think I don't is a question only you can answer. I've already had this experience. But not this one, because I never get close to a drogue. In reality, I listen more to the experienced videographers here than they listen to me. I've heard the stories and read the incident reports. As I noted in another thread, my DZO is an experienced videographer, a rigger, an S&TA, a tandem and AFF instructor and a pilot. He helped me rig my "super helmet" and advises me on jumping with a camera and everything else I do in the sport. In fact, he wants a camera like Swain's himself and has offered to buy mine. I'm having my camcorder mounted on a Hawkeye now, because I think I'm ready for it. Another AFF instructor at our DZ also wants my helmet camera, and another jumper with thousands of jumps already has one. Other instructors and experienced jumpers at my DZ also advise me, without the condescension I routinely experience here. You guys impress only yourselves this way. The population of videographers and potential videographers is growing rapidly in reality, because the cost of entry is falling, and safety issues related to snags and whiplash are disappearing as cameras shrink. As you say, flying skill will always be the most important distinguishing factor, but cost consciousness and risk aversion are less and less limiting.

I don't jump at a tandem factory, but we have analog editing equipment, and the videographers are freely switching to laptops with digital editing software. No desktop computer is necessary, and the developer of the software I use, Pinnacle, has won eight Emmy awards for technical excellence, according to its marketing blurb. Sophisticated editing software is not expensive, because developers perceive a mass market for it, and marginal cost on a unit of software is very low, so economies of scale are very great. Microsoft even includes digital editing software with Windows XP. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ No, I'm not. I use a $600 laptop with an $89 PCMCIA DV capture (firewire) card. The laptop has a 1.33 ghz processor. I can capture DV in real time as I view it from my camcorder, and I can control the camcorder from the laptop through the firewire connection, and I can cut and paste video clips into a storyboard very conveniently. I'm not sure what else I need. An analog editor must at least view the video as he edits it. I can do the same. I don't worry much about copying the video back to an analog format, like VHS, at this point, because I'm more interested in streaming media. I expect it become increasingly important. I can copy to VHS though, and it doesn't add a lot of time. I can probably do it while the student views the video. I got an unusually good price on my laptop, but even faster, somewhat larger laptops retail in the $1000 range. You shouldn't underestimate the remarkable progress in this technology. It hasn't ceased to amaze me in decades. I've always acknowledged a price in video quality from the "spyware" cameras, including my helmet camera, but the quality is better than you might think and improving rapidly. Swain is a very experienced videographer, and he gets the quality he expects from his camera. Maybe you need to review the technology again. Here's an example using a camera similar to Swain's. http://www.knology.net/~marbrock/Skyball.html The video quality in this streaming media is much less than the quality from a camera like Swain's, because the video is highly compressed for streaming; however, the resolution is not bad even at this compression level. I can easily see the skyball in flight, and I was nowhere near the other jumpers. I get closer as my experience improves. I catch a lot of newbie grief here, but I'm actually very cautious. I completely agree. I've said as much myself in this forum. The videographer's flying skill is 90% of the story. I don't try to do professional videos primarily for this reason, although my DZ needs cameramen; however, professional videos have music and titles regardless, and I expect this progress to continue. Progress typically occurs on the margins. The flying doesn't become less important as a consequence, but videographers must compete on the marginal production values regardless. Flying skill becomes relatively more important as risk and expense associated with the equipment becomes less of an issue. I can capture full resolution DV to my laptop in real time, and I have plenty of disk space for this purpose. Typical laptops now have 30-40 gig drives, more capacity than a DVD, and a firewire connection can move the bits fast enough, and ghz processors are also plenty fast enough. You apparently aren't familiar with the most recent technology. I'm not speculating here. I already possess this technology, and I'm not extraordinarily wealthy. [I'm also a software developer myself, so I don't use this stuff exclusively for skydiving.] I probably can't beat an experienced editor using analog equipment, in reality, but affordable digital equipment is not fundamentally slower. I've seen both in action, and I've seen experienced videographers switching from one to the other in the last year. It's happening.

Dude, who ever denied it?

Maybe next year. I'm already committed to Rantoul this year. I'm looking at the Perris manifest, live, on the Perris webcam, right now. Someone over there has discovered the 21st century.

If you'll supply the plane ticket, I'll be the digital steam drill to your analog John Henry. I'd like to make a few jumps at your big city DZ anyway.

Tandems can wait for hours at my DZ, so possibly we have more time to experiment. Even at the larger, tandem mills near Atlanta, turnaround time is typically longer than an hour. Another source possibly doubles the editing time and adds no time to the other steps. If the student's camera is properly prepared, putting it on the student takes only a few minutes, no more time than the harness requires. I don't doubt it, but for an experienced tandem masters, it presumably becomes more routine. No one will hold a gun to your head and force you to do it, but experienced tandem masters might be more willing. They'll have both views edited together, like two guys conversing in a movie. The video can therefore be longer. I have no tandems, not even as a student, and I've only lurked a few, only one with a camera, so you're way ahead of me, but I can imagine this video without the experience.

Titles and music are extras. I've jumped at large and small DZs, and I never see a tandem video without titles and music. It all depends on what's possible in the available time, and what's possible increases with advancing technology. With digital editing, the time required is not so great. With practice, I'm sure I could digitally edit video from two cameras in less time than videographers once took to produce a video from one camera with analog equipment. Two streams require a little more time than one but not a lot more, not more than twice the time of one. I download video into my laptop while viewing it, mark clips I want to include in the video and then drop them into a storyboard in the proper sequence. This laptop plus DV board and software only cost $700. My DZO's first camcorder alone cost him three or four times as much, more if you account for inflation. Progress is good.

The rumor doesn't ring true to someone who has heard audio from a mic in freefall. Why would this DZ expect to hear anything cooler than the roar of the wind? My helmet camera has a wired mic that attaches to the camcorder's AV port, and I've worn it clipped to the collar of my jumpsuit. It wouldn't cut my face if came loose, because I don't leave enough wire free, and I thread the wire through my chest strap, but the mic is useless in freefall anyway. If a tandem master wanted his student to wear a hooded sweatshirt, he could certainly find a way to stow the cords. I don't imagine the tandem master doing it. It's the videographer's job. The videographer would plan it with the tandem master at some point, of course, but it could easily become routine. You're right, but no one is suggesting a reckless approach to the video. Any video at all adds an element of risk. In one tandem video from South Africa, another jumper actually stands on the tandem master's back and climbs up the drogue. I'm not defending this practice, but a camera on the student is hardly in this category of risk. If the camera is small enough and properly mounted, it adds practically no risk. Everything we do in skydiving requires careful preparation.

The competition I imagine doesn't involve experienced jumpers doing tandems. It involves experienced jumpers with cameras competing to earn some lift tickets doing tandem videos. The students might be fresh off the street, but the dzos and tandem masters aren't. In time, they'll choose videographers delivering better production values, all else be equal. They already have. You could have made this argument in the days when freefall stills were common and video was not, but video is now more common than stills. You could say that titles and synchronized music are superfluous too, since the student only wants his mug in freefall, yet I rarely see a tandem video without titles and music. Progress didn't cease when you entered the business.

I misspoke earlier. We have two AFF instructors who do video, maybe three. Only our DZ is always there. I have carefully considered the experienced advice here, but I have no reason to give anything up, because the advisors haven't presented the reasons. I won't be overloading a high performance canopy any time soon, but advancing technology allows me to experiment with video more safely. The tandem masters at my home DZ typically don't put helmets on their students either, but if they examine a Gath helmet, they'll see for themselves that it doesn't add two inches to the student's head and that it has a flexible shell rather than a hard, rigid shell. If the tandem master doesn't want a Gath helmet on his student's head, that's obviously his call, and I must explore other options, like the sunglass mounted, pinhole CCD camera I linked earlier. I can also obtain the camera alone, the size of my thumbnail, and mount it to a frappe hat or something similar. The cameras are not very expensive. Some even have optics and a wireless link to the recorder. I'll link the web sites if you like. Seriously dude, I needn't log off the computer or do another 1000 jumps to experiment with cameras. I received similar grief a few months ago over a helmet camera very similar to Swain's. Now, an experienced videographer with over 2100 jumps sells a similar device, and I'm not such an oddball newbie anymore, not on the helmet camera issue anyway. I need the cooperation of a tandem master to put a camera on a student, of course. If I leave this forum, you should assume that I'm proceeding with my interests despite your disapproval, but I'll more likely be back, because I value the feedback. Most of the advice here is reflexive naysaying, but that's fine. Skepticism is a good thing. Tandem parachutes must have evoked strong skepticism in the early days. The whole idea of a tandem parachute is subject to criticism of this kind, but the designers of tandem parachutes were not deterred, and videographers now have work as a consequence. By the time I have a thousand jumps, competition will drive professional videographers to make more sophisticated videos, because many more jumpers will use cameras. The rapidly falling size and price of the equipment makes this outcome almost inevitable, and I already see it happening. A few years ago, I might not have considered flying with a camera at this point, because the cost and size of the equipment and related safety issues might have deterred me. On the other hand, in the sixties, a jumper with two hundred jumps and a D license was rated for instruction and exhibitions and practically anything else jumpers could do. Turf guarders didn't invent this sport, and I don't expect an established videographers union to slow the progress much now, not in my neck of the woods anyway. In a year or two, even smaller cameras will record digital video directly to solid-state memory with sufficient resolution, frame rate and image stability for a freefall video. These cameras will mount with no with wires and add very little weight or snag potential. It's only a matter of time, and the time is short. The Panasonic SV-AV series is close to the mark now. The smallest digital tape recorders will also be small enough. By the time I have a thousand jumps, helmet cameras suitable for tandem video will be hardly detectable and add no significant risk. Evidence of this trend is already irrefutable. Professional videographers will meet this challenge by innovating. I'm not a professional camera flyer now and don't pretend to be, but as I prepare for the possibility, I want to prepare for next year's technology, not last year's technology. I edit digitally on a computer for the same reason.

Large DZs might enforce this requirement, but even at the larger DZs in my area, most video flyers do not have an AFF rating or a tandem rating. For smaller DZs, this requirement makes many tandem videos practically impossible. At this point, my home DZ has only one experienced video flyer meeting all of the requirements mentioned in this forum, our DZO. He can't do everything. Often, he is the tandem master himself. Sometimes, he must pilot the plane. How many of the video flyers posting here have an AFF or tandem rating?

Again, I have suggested only one type of helmet here, a Gath, and I know that a Gath does not add two inches to the height of my head. It probably doesn't add half an inch, and it is not a very hard helmet. The camera I imagine adds no responsibility for the student. I hardly expect a student to think of a camera at all, any more than the student thinks of the tandem rig or his goggles. In principle, the student need not know the camera is there. I don't see how a pair of sunglasses could make the student a self-conscious cameraman. That's how small these cameras are becoming.

You're right. That's why I used the word "suspect". If I had meant "necessarily so", I would have written those words instead. A hang glider certainly is not a tandem parachute, but my experience with the tandem hang glider convinces me that a student can wear a camera and hardly be aware of it. The camera adds no burden on the student. The effect of a student camera on the tandem master is a legitimate concern. I'm not oblivious to the problems, but if people never sought solutions to problems like these, we'd have no freefall video of any kind. We'd have no tandem parachutes. We'd have no sport skydiving at all. The claims I made about helmets are based on research. I haven't suggested a conventional camera helmet or a Z1 or a Bonehead or any similar helmet. I suggested a Gath. I know that a Gath doesn't add two inches to the height of my head, because I wear one myself. I also know that a Gath is not a hard helmet. The shell is very flexible. I've also agreed already that a frappe hat might work as well as a Gath helmet for this purpose, and no helmet at all is necessary with the sunglass mounted camera I linked. This camera is not science fiction and is not extremely expensive. I am listening to the concerns expressed in this forum, and I am addressing them. Clearly, I won't be doing anything I've discussed here without the cooperation of a tandem master, but I must speculate long enough to devise a method a tandem master may consider. If I'm arranging the video and want video from the student's perspective, I must propose this method. That the tandem master is in charge of a tandem jump goes without saying. He needn't permit any video at all.

O.K. I'll also restate. If my head hits your face hard enough to dislodge teeth, my head can dislodge your teeth with or without a helmet. I doubt the helmet makes much difference, but it might protect my head and probably protects your teeth too. A skull is much harder than most helmets. I've seen complaints about flimsy Gath helmets, for example, but a Gath helmet is not designed for a very forceful impact and is supposed to break on impact. It absorbs the impact by breaking. Many helmets are designed to break this way. Bicycle helmets, for example, are often only a thin layer of plastic over a layer of styrofoam. On impact, the plastic is supposed to break as the impact compresses the styrofoam. Some helmets are styrofoam only. The plastic doesn't add much protection. It's only cosmetic. Even motorcycle helmets are designed to break on impact. http://www.flamesonmytank.co.za/helmets.htm "Most people think that it is the helmet's outer shell that protects the head. (If this were the case we would all be wearing steel army helmets from World War II). Instead, protection is provided by a combination of 'crumble zones' involving both the outer and inner layers. Therefore a helmet is actually a fragile item designed to break on impact. This fact has serious implications when it comes to topics like how to care for your helmet." On the other hand, I don't want my skull breaking on impact with your face, and you don't want your face breaking on impact with my skull either. I suspect that both student and tandem master are safer if the student wears a Gath helmet.

Your mount looks like an improvement over what I use, but it's expensive. Also, your web site says that the camcorder must be a Sony for the LANC port, but I use a less expensive Canon from the ZR series (ZR45MC, last year's model) which also has a LANC port. I use the LANC with a CamEye Sport and it works well. Since your system doesn't use the Sony's optics, a less expensive camcorder in the bag seems like a selling point. You can still find the ZR45MC in the box online for less than $400, and it's as small as cameras in the Sony TRV line.

I agree about a camera on a student's hand, but I doubt that a helmet would do more harm to your face than a skull. A skull is much harder than my Gath helmet in fact. I expect the helmet would protect your face from an impact with my skull, as well as protecting my skull from your skull. The cameras we're discussing are very small and getting smaller. You could probably mount one on a frappe hat, and I've even seen a video camera hidden in a pair of sunglasses, so a helmet isn't necessary, but I doubt it poses a significant hazard for the tandem master. http://www.spooktech.com/bodyworn/videosunglasses.shtml I hope to make some videos this way before the end of the summer, so we'll see.