sheldond

I have an Optik with a TRV-38 and D-Box mounted on the top. I have maybe 70 jumps with it, and I have never snagged it on anything. I do have 2 issues with it though. The first is the camera is about 4" higher than the top of my head...so clearance issues are a concern in the plane. We have a C-182, and I am always bumping it on the roof of the craft. Getting out the door takes some caution as you have to make sure you are lower than before. The other issue I have is spotting the aircraft. When I wear the helmet, I have to open the window, and stick my head all the way out in order to see. That is because my lens is a few inches forward...which prevents me from just being able to peek out the window. I think a still camera, mounted directly in the center of the top shouldn't have this problem. But so far...no problems on anything. Just make sure you are stable before deployment. I have had a couple hard openings and my neck has cracked a few times that I was done after a couple of jumps for the day. SD

Is there anyone out there that watches Andromeda? Due to the fact that most Canadian TV channels SUCK...Andromeda is not being carried in the Canadian Market. Is there anyone that is a fan of the show and is a computer geek that has a video capture card that they record the show with? If so, it would be really great if that person could upload the recordings to my computer via FTP. Maybe I am the only Andromeda geek out there?

Can you perhaps post a pic of the Plug that the Timeout uses to connect to the LED cable? I am trying to find a cable, but no one has one for sale, so I want to build one. I don't really want to go to the trouble of ripping open the Timeout, removing the Brass attachment and then solder in a couple wires for the connection. Maybe I can get the connector at Radioshack or something, if I know what I should be looking for. I've already ran a test, and all you need is 2 wires and an LED. Simple thing to make. SD

I personally have been bonded on to a Transmission Power Line which was 138,000 volts. Trust me, the video is real and accurate. I formally was an editor for our power company editing training videos. 5 videos I made were related directly with High Voltage Transmission lines. The next voltage up from 138kV is 230kV. Just my 2 cents worth. Edited...typos...

In a way, I do agree. Most people do think fireworks are harmless. This is a huge problem. Seems like there are a lot of people that do not respect both guns and fireworks and the potential dangerous associated with them. How many people in the US own guns? How many keep them loaded and near their bed for easy access? (very bad idea with kids in the house!!!) How many actually keep them locked away and secured? People need to be better educated and taught to respect these, and other potential dangerous goods.

One thing that I always felt was stupid about some US laws. Guns are legal...but fireworks aren't. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with guns, but why fireworks outlawed? When was the last time someone took a Roman Candle and held up the 7/11? Fireworks legal in Canada. Can even buy them at some local drug stores. Only not allowed to set them off inside city limits.

Not to mention that a lot of cameras have trouble playing back tapes recorded in LP mode which were recorded in other cameras. I say stick to SP. The tapes aren't really that expensive. Nothing worse than having that 1 important money shot, only to be ruined with a dropout or a digital breakup while recording in LP. I don't think a professional videographer would risk it.

Hey All, Last night I was playing around with my .42 wide angle lens, and found out something weird about it. It is the two lens assembly, the inner lens I believe is a macro lens. Anyways...when I put it on, I did notice the black edges in the corners. If I zoomed in a little, I could get rid of the black, but then that defeats the purpose of the .42 aspect. When I zoomed all the way out, the picture was out of focus. I thought this was very strange, so I took the lenses apart and turned one around. That fixed both the black edges and the focus problem. I find it odd that the lens would be assembled backwards. I definitely think the Diamond .3 is sounding like the right way to go. Will just have to save up for it.

Not to mention that Final Cut is better than Premiere....and you should be able to find it for download somewhere.

I haven't seen any L-Brackets or side mounts for this camera. One could always attempt to make one. I'm sure the D-Box has the option to be side mounted. However, the LCD display does tend to make the camera stick out a little wider. I would be worried about risers if I had it side mounted. Myself, I am going to by a Bonehead Optic and top mount my TRV 38

Just wondering what everyone uses for a wide angle lens? My TRV-38 came with a .42 wide angle lens. I haven't used it yet, as I don't have a camera helmet yet. What does everyone else use? Should I consider a different size? Does anyone have any screen shots to illustrate what a .3, .42, .47. .5 & .7 look like?

Is there a website?

I don't think the border should have ever been closed. However that is politics. Price of beef in Canada plunged down to levels as low as $0.30 a pound. However, it never affected the price of beef at the Grocery Store. Hopefully the border opens to Canada soon. And there will be a free flowing exchange of beef between the US and Canada.

I get off a graveyard shift 6:00am Christmas eve. Then I work Christmas, boxing day, next day. I get the 28th off...and work all through New Years. Happy Holidays!

I've noticed this a lot of times. I just blame it on bad script writing and a lack of creativity. Copying is much easier. Or how about this one. How many times have you seen a show where someone in the hospital goes "Flat Line" and the doctors rush in and start shocking them with the paddles? Some people should let them in on the secret, you can't shock a flat line, does no good! The heart is already stopped! Glad to hear you are a Queensryche fan! Gotta love the mind crime album!

Interesting interpretation of the Matrix. however, I do not agree. Zion can't be a program. If it was, the the people that are part of Zion would be able to bend and break the rules, same as they can in the Matrix. Neo isn't the only one that can bend the rules. I'm assuming that all the ones that have been unplugged, and regularly visit the matrix are able to beat up on the agents, and jump buildings and such. Morpheus and Trinity both did jumps. If Zion was a program, shouldn't they be able to do the same? A point that has been missed. The spoon concept in the second Matrix. This has now been a little while since the first episode. We are left to infer that many other people have been unplugged. This boy with the spoon is one of them. Giving Neo the spoon is a reminder that indeed he is the one, he just has to believe it. Just my observation. Won't get into starting an argument over it. If others don't agree. Make your points. I am still very confused about the whole matrix concept. I think it was a valid way to look at the matrix, but I do not feel it is what the writers intended viewers to get out of it.

To answer your question about interlaced and de-interlaced could be thought of in this matter. What is your intended audience? If it is meant for playing back on TV screens, leave the video interlaced. If you intend to play back the video on a computer monitor, then de-interlace the video. A video signal is comprised of 2 fields. An odd and even field, sometimes known as field A and field B, or Field 1 and Field 2. So that means, for ever single frame of video there are 2 parts of information that makes up that single frame. When you de-interlace, you are removing one of the parts of the video. Or another way to think about it, cutting 50% of the information. So, I would suggest that if you intend to play back the video on DVD, leave the video interlaced. The DVD should look really close to your DV original. If you De-interlace the video, you might not see any difference on your computer monitor, but you will notice a difference on a tv screen. Hope this helps.

Perhaps I am walking on shaky ground here, but I didn't know that the Copyright Police were monitoring this forum. A question was asked, and an answer was given in regards to this issue. I don't think anyone has the right to censor or remove the post due to the Freedom of Information Act. Everybody knows copying movies without the expressed written consent is breaking the law. However, do each and every one of you have Expressed Written Permission to use music in your skydive videos? I most likely think not. Unless you are paying a blanket license fee for copyright cleared music, you are breaking the law. AND I REMEMBER SEEING A SIMILAR POST ABOUT WHAT MUSIC WAS USED, AND IT WAS NOT REMOVED!!!! If anyone is interested in learning about copyright protection and how to deal with it. I can answer the question. And I do not believe that the post should be sensored!

I have used several lipstick cams, or cigar cams as I have heard them called, in several sporting events, such as curling, baseball, racing, just to name a few and their imaging capabilities are fairly decent. You lose video quality when you have to pass the video signal through different sources. In racing, the camera has to be hooked up to a wireless transmitter, which degrades the overall picture quality. And then it has to run through a TBC in order to be used in a production switcher. When you plug the lipstick camera into the video in or your camera and use it as a recorder, it records fine. To the average eye, no one is the wiser. True, the lense is a little smaller, and might have a shallower depth of field, but when the camera is focused to infinity, your image should be fine. You get what you pay for, so be careful. Make sure you get the specs on the camera like lense size, ccd size, shutter speed, f-stop. Some of the higher end cameras are capable of delivering 450-500 lines or resolution, which is about the same to DV. A couple of cons about these cameras, is that you would have to mount it differently to a helmet. I'm not sure how to do it myself, as I have never seen one or used one myself for skydiving. Another con is the fact that it will have to be wired into your camera, and then you would have to wear the camera somewhere on your body. Either in your jumpsuit on your belly, or elsewhere. And then you have to run the wires to the camera. That, I can already see being a big disadvantage. Since I've already bought the miniDV camera, I am opting to buy a helmet to mount it on, instead of investing on a lipstick cam. When you consider the cost of a helmet and the lipstick cam, it will work out to the same. (You could mount the lipstick cam on a cheap protec). If you feel brave and adventurous, and have some extra cash, maybe you could be the first to try out a lipstick cam for skydiving. Let us know first hand what it is like.

I'm always amazed as to when it comes to an election, that all the opponents, media, and disgruntled people associated with it, spend their time and hard earned money to go to any lengths to dig up dirt on someone to discredit someone. Take it from someone who works at a news station, you can not take anything you see or hear on the news as absolute truth. All stations will cut, edit, switch words, and make any story fit their biased opinion. Have we not all taken history in school? Is it not true that Hitler was a very power man? For someone so small (and not even from Germany) to take hold of a country, and nearly lead it to world domination; that has something to say about power. Obviously, Arnold's alleged quote was taken out of context, and doesn't have the meaning we are lead to believe. When will the mud slinging end in politics?

I had a cat once that looked very similar. I named him Garfield.

Sounds to me like you have already answered your question yourself. You will find that if you break up your project into smaller little sequences, it will be a little easier to work with. Especially if you are trying to cut along the beat of the music. I would suggest make up a shot selection list to correspond with the song, work on that song, and then move on to the next. Once you have all of them done, it should be a matter of just cut and paste. If you try to work on the project as a whole, you will begin to feel overwhelmed. You also run the risk of deciding to tweak an in point or an out point of a clip earlier on into your project, only to find it has now offset your edit by the equal amount later on in the project. Nothing worse than doing your final review and discovering that the clip you spent an hour on trying to get the beat just right, is now off by 15 frames (half second). Something else that would be adventageous, if you edit in segments, you can make sub-clips of your edit. If you like to use a lot of dissolves,transitions, special effects, keys and supers; this will help when it comes to rendering. Render out your clips at the end of each edit season, usually right before you go to bed, and then save it to a sub-clip. That way it is all inclusive and this will allow an almost real time final edit. Remember to keep your drives clean and always at least 10% free space. And if you don't like Video Studio, consider Adobe Premiere, or any of the numerous video editors out there. Non-Linear is all the same...only the box that is different.

I agree with most of the replies that have been given. As long as you have a pc with a good processor, and lots of ram and a 7200rpm HD, it will do good for editing with Premiere. Keep in mind, the more special effects and transitions you use, makes for more rendering time. Most computers on the market do not support real time effects, so everything has to be rendered. Do you want a laptop to edit video at the DZ or on the road? Or are you looking for something for home. You can build a far cheaper system as a desktop model. Also, if you want to go that route, you might want to consider picking up a Pinnacle dv500. This allows you firewire in and out, as well as composite in/out. It also supports real time dissolves. I think the new one also supports real time MPEG 2 compression, so you can go to DVD right away. You may want to consider trying out Ulead Video Studio as well. It seems to be a little more user friendly compared to Premiere. Nonlinear is the same, it's just the box that is different.

I am really new to the video aspect of skydiving. I have recently purchased a Sony DCR-TRV38 Mini-DV camera, and was wondering what one might consider a helmet for it. My reasons for this particular camera was not to be 100% skydiving related, so that is why I didn't buy a smaller camera. I am completely new to this discipline. I imagine this camera would have to be top mounted, but I am unsure. What helemts should I look for? Do mounting brackets come with the them, or do they have to be ordered separately? What about a shell for extra protection? Any advice would greatly be appreciated. Thanks!