Observations of a Nationals Video Controller

[quade 4]

I'm the Video Controller at this years Nationals in Perris and we just finished up 4-way yesterday and are starting 8-way today.

So far, I think we've done pretty well, but I've noticed a disturbing amount of camera malfunctions. So far and by my count we've had -5- that have given teams ZEROs on a jump.

My suggestions;

1) If you have a camera indicator, use it.
2) If your camera indicator plugs into a LANC port make sure it doesn't wiggle and wear down which can cause intermittent connections and shut downs.
3) If you have a second camera use it.
4) Test EVERYTHING well before competition.
5) Test EVERYTHING on the ride to altitude.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

1) If you have a camera indicator, use it.
2) If your camera indicator plugs into a LANC port make sure it doesn't wiggle and wear down which can cause intermittent connections and shut downs.
3) If you have a second camera use it.
4) Test EVERYTHING well before competition.
5) Test EVERYTHING on the ride to altitude.

Very good list, Paul.

May I add to this list, pay attention to what your camera is doing on the ground, too. Kwoo had her TRV22 quit on her on the ground after doing a good job of recording in the air. It started not playing back well, even after 2 head cleanings.

In the loading area, five minutes before her team's call, the camera quit! Two other cameraflyers, competing teams from her plane, loaned her a TRV11 and a tape! She plugged them both in, on the plane...and it worked!

Kwoo has a Flat Top Narrow helmet (since her PRO took a flight by itself earlier this year) and only one video camera can fit on-top.

Karen jumped that TRV11 for the final rounds and her team did her proud! Carolina Ice brought home the Intermediate Silver from Nationals! Whoo Hoo!!!

Talk about a nail biter! They -almost- had a jump off between them and Divewerks too!

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[quade 4]

Ok, one more thing that I thought most people knew, but . . . guess not!

Leading an 8-way exit in competition is just asking for trouble.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[shindig 0]

I was the one that gave her the TRV 11. The problem she had with her camera was the tape was inserted and it kept giving her a head cleaner indicator. The tape still had space to record but the tape itself was messed up. Most likely it was a dirty tape and the camera was reading that. We took her camera off and I put the tape in my TRV 11 and it said the same thing so I gave her my camera and SKZY from Elsinore Alloy gave her a new tape and she made the change going to alt. All worked well for her and it saved the day for her team. Anything to help a fellow camera flyer.
Shindig out!

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

The problem she had with her camera was the tape was inserted and it kept giving her a head cleaner indicator.

Shindig, you and SKZY are the greatest! Thanks for helping a fellow cameraflyer out!

Ya know, that same error code came on my 2nd camera as well this Nationals (for the very first time ever). I had cleaned the heads the night before (which I do before every Nationals) and the TRV10 performed just fine. Then on Round 3 that camera came down with a BLACK screen playing for the time of freefall. From the time I pushed 'record' until right as I climbed out the door, the recording is fine....then the screen went completely black for a minute of 'recording'.

I checked the camera on the ground when I saw this had happened and the yellow 'Head Cleaner Error' flashed in the screen. Huh? I recorded footage on the ground, over that same piece of tape and it recorded and played back just fine. No problem. And no problem the rest of the meet either. I kept this same camera and tape on my helmet (remember, it was only 2nd camera) and it performed just fine after that.

Don't know what was going on, but perhaps the camera didn't like the tape, or the tape really -was- bad, the I guess I'll never know...since the camera worked fine the rest of the meet.

Oh, and for people who know...this was the TRV10 that I had bought off Ebay and had to send to Sony to have repaired right away. They replaced the drum and it worked fine after that.

I love my primary camera, a TRV22. Think I'll get another one. (yeah, I know they aren't made anymore, but they can still be found).

Ah, the fun of being a cameraflyer....

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[PhreeZone 20]

Once again... thanks for a super smooth meet!! You, Jan and the rest of the video and judging groups did an excellent job.

I noticed that even in this day there are people that are using cameras that did not have Firewire or the standered Sony stereo plug on them. Catch up to the late 90's and start using industry standerd cameras that have at least one of them!

There were a few other observations I saw that struck me as weird too.

A cameraflyer with a full camera helmet, 2 dboxes and 2 cameras but only jumping one camera for the comp.
A few people using either no site or the mark on the goggles.
Number of people with out a cutaway system (myself included )


Air Force's camera paid the ultimate price this year, but I'm glad they were able to recover the tape so that round could be scored. It was interesting to see where the helmet broke at, would'nt have expected that to happen there.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[skysurfcam 0]

Quote

I'm the Video Controller at this years Nationals in Perris and we just finished up 4-way yesterday and are starting 8-way today.

So far, I think we've done pretty well, but I've noticed a disturbing amount of camera malfunctions. So far and by my count we've had -5- that have given teams ZEROs on a jump.

My suggestions;

1) If you have a camera indicator, use it.
2) If your camera indicator plugs into a LANC port make sure it doesn't wiggle and wear down which can cause intermittent connections and shut downs.
3) If you have a second camera use it.
4) Test EVERYTHING well before competition.
5) Test EVERYTHING on the ride to altitude.

As an ex-competition cameraman who's retired into gentlemancamerafier status, here's a couple more,

1) carry a spare battery,
2) carry a spare tape,
3) carry a spare camera,
4) Have a way of checking your sight before exit, and do so.
5) Find a way not to get out if it aint right!

The easy way for a team to lose points is if the camera isn't right.

What would and your team prefer - riding back on the plane on round 10 because the camerathang "caught a handle on a protrusion" and had to fix his/her gear, or a zero 'cause s/he figured the lack of a tally light was probably an anomally

Someone on the team should have the job of checking with the camerathang that all is good b4 the team moves to the door. Camerathings arent always that smart (well, not allways), so put some pressure for checking that all is well back on your team mate(s)

C.

Brother Wayward's rule of the day...
"Never ever ever go skydiving without going parachuting immediately afterwards."
100% PURE ADRENALENS

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

Air Force's camera paid the ultimate price this year, but I'm glad they were able to recover the tape so that round could be scored. It was interesting to see where the helmet broke at, would'nt have expected that to happen there.

I was there when the Air Force guys brought the newly reconstructed tape to download for judging. We all gathered around to watch the helmet come off and go in (after his lines snagged something and ripped it off his head). Amazing footage to see the helmet enter the realm of "G-force" black out....

However, I did not get to see the helmet. They were able to take it over to Bonehead and get it repaired by the next day! Go Bonehead!

What broke? What was the final conclusion of what ripped and let the helmet come off?

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[PhreeZone 20]

The jumper was in a FlatTop older model but it had the cutaway hinge on it. Where the hinge mounted to the helmet, completly broke all the carbon fiber out there. I looked at it and it only looked like there was 1 or possibly 2 thin layers of carbon fiber. The break occured around the entire indent for the hinge and just sheered away with the line twist. basically it popped the bone open and it fell off. The cutway system was still in tact when he showed it to me, just carbon fiber breakage.

He was claiming there was no lone snagage, just line twists.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[quade 4]

Quote

What broke? What was the final conclusion of what ripped and let the helmet come off?

It's difficult to know -exactly- what happened and what caused the helmet to depart the camera flyer but the sequence of events was; a normal jump, deployment with line twists and when the line twist were cleared the helmet departs.

My -guess- is that a riser snagged on a piece of the "bone" on the back of the helmet and by piece I mean either the bone itself or some part of the hinge or latch holding it on.

When the camera was brought in, the hinge end had broken off the helmet, but that -may- have been due to the impact or it -may- be the part that snagged and caused the bone to loosen. I don't think we'll ever know for certain.

IF something snagged on that hinge and tore the bolt out of that part of the helmet, I'd consider that to be a good thing as I personally would rather have the helmet break and depart than stay attached with that much force being transmitted to my neck.

When brought to me, the helmet had dust and chunks falling off of it and the lens had departed the camera. As we opened the d-box, more dirt and junk fell out. The camera was smashed up pretty well and would not turn on nor would the tape compartment door open as it had also been bent and jammed pretty well. The team was pretty confident they'd be able to "extract" the tape from the wreckage and they did so about an hour later, but the tape cassette itself also seemed to have suffered some internal damage and would not thread in a tape deck.

I described to the team how to extract the spool of tape and place them in a new cassette. They came back about an hour later and we Firewired the tape to another deck and DVD for judging while others looked on at the horror show of a camera helmet going in. Ok, horror show isn't quite right. It was a horror show for the camera, but we all had a pretty good laugh at it and the Air Force Academy team breathed a huge sigh of relief.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

They came back about an hour later and we Firewired the tape to another deck and DVD for judging

Okay. A judgment call for a video controller and USPA judge to make in this instance. Let's say that the team's cameraflyer could not produce anything but a busted helmet and camera....or perhaps not even be able to retrieve the helmet (as Kwoo couldn't of her FTP when it sank into a chemical pond).

1) Would the team be honored a re-jump based on a camera malfunction that was out of the cameraflyer's hands?

2) Perhaps you could ask JuneBug and get her view on it as well? And as a Video Controller (and cameraflyer), what would your position personally be?

There were helmets and cameras being offered the Air Force guys to use if they needed.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[quade 4]

I'm pretty confident that I don't need to ask June Bug for the answer to this one since it's come up a bajillion times already in this meet.

Once the team exits the aircraft in mid-air, a camera malfunction is not grounds for a rejump. A camera malfunction discovered before exit entitles the team to a go around or ride the aircraft down to deal with the issue, but once the team exits . . . that's pretty much it. I assume an exception would be made for an emergency exit commanded by the pilot of the aircraft.

This is one reason why there are so many teams that posted ZEROs this year and why I started this thread to begin with.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Deuce 1]

Paul, that setup you came up with was flawless as far as I could tell. It was nice to finally meet Jan in the flesh. What a nice lady.

Anyhow, I thought it was cool that you had the camera fliers dubbing down in front of the judging screens. Nice to remind people, or maybe show them for the first time, what the camera end of the competition is all about.

Kudos.

JP

Oh, and I'm sure all the advice here is already in your FAQ. I remember asking you all those questions a couple years ago. Your advice hasn't failed me yet.

[ltdiver 3]

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Once the team exits the aircraft in mid-air, a camera malfunction is not grounds for a rejump.

Yes, of course. A camera malfunction is the responsibility of the cameraflyer and not grounds for a re-jump. I was asking about a malfunction of canopy which caused a helmet to depart, which was out of the cameraflyer's hands and control.

No worries. I talked to June Bug this morning, just after writing the previous post. She reported that this year the Comp. Manual was updated to include all camera malfunctions, which encompasses the loss of the helmet etc... as not grounds for a re-jump. Only something like a handle on an aircraft breaking or something like that could be grounds for a re-jump.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[Miami 0]

Quote

Quote

What broke? What was the final conclusion of what ripped and let the helmet come off?

It's difficult to know -exactly- what happened and what caused the helmet to depart the camera flyer but the sequence of events was; a normal jump, deployment with line twists and when the line twist were cleared the helmet departs.

Man, I wish I knew all you guys were dz.commers when I was in there...

I was the one who was filming the other Air Force team...it was one of our riggers (Chad) who was filming the cadet team and lost the helmet. We've watched the tape numerous time and cannot conclusively decide what it was that took the helmet off. It could have been a riser hitting the lever and making it loose enough to come off, it could have been a riser hitting the button to release the ratchet allowing the bone to release (we have older helmets that do not have the protective cover over that button), it could have just been a failure on the other end of the bone where the cutaway hinge resides...who knows...

I was able to do a little surgery on the tape and transfer the spools to a new body so they could get judged, but the camera, newton sight, and cameye were definitely toast! Thanks to everyone who offered to loan us a camera (JP) and a huge thanks to the Knights who had an extra of the same model we were using and let us use that.

Also a huge thanks to Chris at Bonehead...who's doorstep we were on at 8am of the 2nd day of 4-way with a busted up FTP. He repaired our poor helmet in an hour or so and had us back up and running for the 10am start.

Lots of fun this year, hopefully next year won't be quite so exciting!

Miami

[Miami 0]

Oh, and a big no on that...JuneBug made it clear if we were not able to get anything off of the tape we would not be granted a re-jump!

Miami

[Kwoo 0]

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We took her camera off and I put the tape in my TRV 11 and it said the same thing so I gave her my camera and SKZY from Elsinore Alloy gave her a new tape and she made the change going to alt. All worked well for her and it saved the day for her team. Anything to help a fellow camera flyer.
Shindig out!

Man, I love this sport.
When you've got the lead 4 intermediate teams on the same plane and your competitors come through for you it is pretty amazing.
Earlier this year I had planed on using 2 cameras for nationals but when my team, Fox Force Four decided not to compete and my FTP took a flight on it's own into a chemical pond after a crazy-opening-spining-cutaway sorta thing I had not replaced the camera or the FTP. I got a FTN.
Carolina Ice picked me up just 3 weeks ago after an injury to their camera guy. I had 16 jumps with them prior to arriving in Perris and no time to retrofit my FTN for 2 cameras. Ice had video issues at last years nationals and I didn't want to be the cause of any undo stress for them.
Sooooo
Thanks to fellow competitors like SKZY and shindig my team had a good rounds 9 and 10 and got to leave Perris with medals!
You guys are the best.
man, I love this sport!
karen

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

Man, I love this sport.
When you've got the lead 4 intermediate teams on the same plane and your competitors come through for you it is pretty amazing.

You just gave me goose bumps, K.

Yes, this sport is incredible. Competitors on one hand, in the air, willing to put pedal to the metal to win and pummel the other team into the ground....and on the other hand, willing to help the same with anything they need.

One need only to go back to 2001, to how Airspeed helped the Russian 8-way team out after they missed their plane. :^) The epitomy of sportsmanship.

Read about the protest HERE!

The final round HERE!!

Russians Celebrate Alan Metni. :^)

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[quade 4]

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Paul, that setup you came up with was flawless as far as I could tell.

We did have a few minor issues, but where able to recover pretty well.

This was really our backup system we had using the technology we had just laying around the DZ. We had tried to put together a really slick computer system, but funding and time kept that from happening. We worked on it right up until the last moment, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Just for future reference to folks that want to do this same sort of thing for local competitions --

We went Firewire into miniDV cameras which then (and at the same time) passed S-Video onto DVD recorders. We put 10 jumps on a DVD, then finalized and handed them to the judges. The judging panels take about one hour to judge 10 jumps and with two dubbing stations we kept three judging panels busy and except for just a few minor incidents never had more than a couple minutes wait to dub.

The reason we went Firewire to a miniDV camera and then on to DVD is because we -always- want to have a backup in case a DVD goes bad, which they did. Since we already had a miniDV tape, there was almost no reason to ever recall a camera flyer to redub or ask what the heck happened during a skydive.

Of the DVD recorders we had, the Sanyo DRW-1000 was far and away the "winner" in terms of operator friendliness and speed of finalizing for this purpose. Might not be what you want for everything you do, but for this it worked like a champ.

Now, I know what some folks are immediately going to say, "why didn't you just use +R discs? They don't need finalizing at all!" Well, lemme tell ya, we actually did, but not all of our inexpensive DVD PLAYERS could deal with them so we immediately dropped that as a strat. In addition the one we had created these really difficult to navigate menus and the judges had a hard time dealing with those discs so after making just a couple, we ditched that deck.

We also used Emerson ERW20V4 DVD recorders but I gotta tell you that the finalizing time on these is just awful. I don't know what the machine is doing with all that time, but seriously you could take a 5 or 6 minute break while it was doing it. I can't recommend this deck to anyone.

For playback decks we had an assortment of Phillips and other decks. The only real issue with most of them was they seemed to get "tired" every once in a while and just needed to be swapped out for a short time to cool off.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[linestretch 0]

Quote

Ok, one more thing that I thought most people knew, but . . . guess not!

Leading an 8-way exit in competition is just asking for trouble.

what were some of the problems? I thought the camera guy on N.W. Express had it down!....he he he, oh yeah, that's me.

my pics & stuff!

[quade 4]

The issue with leading exits on 8-ways is that, unless you're pretty well practiced with the team (and even then it's highly questionable), it's extremely difficult to time the exit properly.

While there are technically no more NJs, uh, yeah, there still are some very -bad- exits.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[StefB 0]

Paul, do you know whether there will be a (some?) compilation DVD(s)?

Thanks
Stefan

[quade 4]

There will be something. What? I can't say right now. Not really my gig.

I do know that it takes a -very- long time to weed through all the material.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver