howardwhite

Gee, I just pressed Go in the IE toolbar, selected the DZ.COM forum I was in, and back I am. HW

Adam Your home DZ, Jumptown, Orange MA www.jumptown.com has what you need. The first weekend in April is recurrency weekend. You pay only for your jumps (and gear rental, I guess). But experienced instructors are donating their time to get you back in the air. They'll understand your jitters and you'll be among friends.. If you are interested in signing up for the recurrency training or have questions about the training, contact John Goetsch at [email protected]. HW

Your screen name suggests that you might be in the business of selling VideoToaster. If so, there's a forum rule against advertising. If not, well, I'm not buying anyway. HW

For those of you using NLE systems... Slow motion requires rendering, which takes a while, depending on your processor, memory, etc. In the case of FCE on my slower Mac, it takes ~15 minutes to render a 3~minute clip. That doesn't fly when you're on the next load. OTOH my Sony PC110 has a digital slomo output which inputs into FCE. I'm trying to compare quality. Any experience? HW

Well, I started a thread http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=203719;search_string=pay;#203719 on this last August, but I suppose it's time to revisit, considering fuel price increases. It would be useful to include whether there's an extra charge for credit card use. HW

Tnx. I sent my earlier comments to the dev address but thought that the lat/long question was more systemic and deserved general attention. HW

Great stuff, but.. The ASOS is on the airport/dropzone. It would help us fix things (this is not the only issue I know about) if you told us where you get your Lat/Long and other info. HW

For some alternative background on Aero-News.net, see: http://www.cyberis.net/~jouster/zoom/zoom.html HW

His name was Nick Piantanida (misspelled in earlier post.) He was from New Jersey, not MN. Do a web search for him; lots of information. HW

bch7773 didn't say what flavor of Cessna, but most all are o.k. In the back of the SIM there's a list of airplanes that can be operated with door removed, but you need to get a piece of paper from the feds. It usually contains operating limitations. A deflector is needed only for the C206, AFAIK. HW

Did anyone besides me think the in-the-plane stuff looked remarkably like the similar scene in "Cheers" ever so many years ago? The ground didn't look a lot like Florida, either. HW

Above all, avoid Broadway in Brooklyn, NY. They've gotten bad raps from the big guys like PC Mag. OTOH, B&H in New York is great. HW

The Orange, MA ASOS is on the airport. Dunno what's 13.6 mi W/NW. Also Massachusetts is misspelled in your dropdown list, and there are some non-Massachusetts DZs in the list. Nice site, just needs some fixin' HW

Err... Lew Sanborn (still active) is D1. JAI is D2. HW

Pepperell's runway is still clogged, but there were four Cessna loads to the snow ceiling (5k) at Jumptown Orange MA Saturday. Three Otters and a Caravan parked 10 minutes away if the weather breaks. Orange is a municipal airport and generally plowed pretty quickly. HW

A fair number of Norwich cadets jumped at Orange, MA in the late '60s and early '70s. I don't know of any still active. HW

O.K., now that I have exhausted your patience with my DVD questions here's another "how to make photo money" question. Some DZs in our area offer still photos of (mostly) tandem landings. They are taken with a digital still camera and printed on a color printer. Alternative for those who choose not to have video or stills. It's also a happening thing at resorts where you can get your kid's picture with the dolphin. Anyone doing this? What size prints do you offer? What do you charge? HW

Truth News Trends was (how shall I put this politely?) a propaganda rag issued by Parachutes Incorporated. At the time, Jacques-Andre Istel, president of PI, was pissed at USPA because it had stripped from him the title of honorary lifetime president. So it was full of "humorous" anti-USPA stuff. For at least some time, its editor was Skip Kniley, who is still an active jumper in the midwest, etc. HW

1. Takes a lot of extra time to burn. 2. See Phree"s objection to too much advertising. 'Course if you can include a menu on the DVD, that allows the viewer to skip to what he wants to see. But that costs extra bucks. HW

Is there anything faster? HW

That's an interesting point and I hope others will comment....including how one might quantify such results. HW

This approach would seem to be a manifest monster. How do you offer different products? CrossKeys is a lot bigger than the club I'm talking about. Well, you can have direct DV only or VHS to DV or VHS only or.... Can you tell me how CrossKeys handles this? HW

How can DVD be only $20 more? What are the prices of discs these days? Thanks for confirming my suggestion there's a market. HW

To Indyz and PhreeZone Thanks for your quick response. Certainly the issue of discs that won't play is a serious one; quick answer is you give them their money back. But this is likely to go away, IMHO. Indyz, please help me understand how VHS -> DVD will result in lesser quality than VHS alone. I think it will be some time before most videots will be all digital. For one thing, at this point NLE digital seems to take significantly longer than analog. That's a drawback if you're on back to back loads. Phree... Stills used to be separate ($75/$10 or some such). All videots are equipped to do both and it complicates things majorly at manifest for such small change. Besides, if the video gets screwed up (I know, never happens) at least there are stills. Same is true of not giving them the VHS even though it exists. The reason the question comes up is that in fact people were asking. Again, thanks for your input into what I hope will be a fruitful discussion. HW

Our DZ, a club operation, is considering offering DVD. It seems kind of a no-brainer, except for the possibility of some equipment purchase. Blockbuster and others are moving toward DVD and away from VHS and it seems young people will buy DVD players and not VCRs in the future. Video and stills are going up this year to $95. All of the local videots are shooting digital but editing analog (Panasonic WJAxxx, Videonics) and producing VHS tapes. Any DVD offering would be on top of this -- in other words you get a VHS whether you want one or not, and the DVD will be produced from this analog tape. We examined three options.....not an exhaustive list, which is why I'm asking here. 1. One videot has home DVD production capabilities, including a burner that prints pretty color personalized labels on the disc and includes a DVD menu. On the menu, in addition to the jump, about 10 minutes of stock footage of other skydiving stuff...what's up with AFF, what are the disciplines, etc. He would take the VHS video home, make a DVD with all this stuff, and priority mail it and the tape to the customer in a few days....all for $65 to him. The DZ can charge whatever else it wants beyond that, but you're talking close to $200 to see yourself in the sky if the club is to make some money too. 2, Another also has a more limited burner at home without color printing and labels and a menu. He's not sure what his prices would be, but let's say $30. In both these cases, the customer would not get either a tape or CD for several days. 3. Alternatively the club could buy a VHS -> DVD burner without the fancy stuff but able to take each videot's tape and burn a disk. Could be same-day service, though probably not on a busy day. Pros, cons, rants and raves are welcome. HW