IvanPeters

In that case, you'll like this: http://www.ivanpeters.com/movies/cowtandem.htm

We use an old camera with a busted lens. If you have lots of money to spend you could go for one of those Sony video walkmans or something like this. Ivan

He was not saying that is is important to do a half loop. He was suggesting that if you don't have the general flying skills to be able to do a half loop then maybe you don't have the general flying skills to be near a tandem. I don't have an opinion on this as I don't remember ever trying to do a half loop in a camera suit and I don't film tandems anyway. But I'm going to give it a go at the earliest opportunity and then I'll decide if I agree or disagree. Ivan

I assume that Gigital means Digital. MiniDV is digital. Most, if not all, formats now available are digital. I think there is little difference in quality between the formats (with the possible exception of compressed formats like MPEG). Things that have a bigger effect on quality are the general quality of the camera, the size and resolution of the CCD, the size and quality of the lense, the effectiveness of the anti-shake technology used, etc. The differences in the formats are more practical. How expensive is the media, how easy is it to swap tapes/cartridges/disks, how does it cope with vibration, how much footage can you fit on one tape/cartridge/disk, etc. MiniDV is what most people in skydiving use. It's small and light, reasonably cheap and reliable. The fact that most other people use it is a good reason to do so yourself. You'll be able to borrow tapes from others, lend tapes to others, copy stuff from tape-to-tape, etc. Ivan

I'm not sure that this is 100% technically accurate, but I believe the general idea goes something like this: Video resolution doesn't change. There are some small variations in the number of lines generated by different cameras but the general idea is that an NTSC image is 720x480. That's about 350k pixels. Cameras with higher resolution CCD's use the extra resolution to better calculate the colour values for each pixel. In theory, the higher the resolution, the better the calculation. I've not seen any footage from any of the current sub-megapixel cameras but I've always been able to see a quality difference between the older ones (say a PC-101) and a megapixel camera (like the PC-120). But there is more to it than just the CCD resolution so I would expect the current crop of sub-megapixel cameras to be better than the 101. I have found it harder to see a difference between a one megapixel camera and a two megapixel camera (like my TRV-60). I believe that if you want to do widescreen without loss of quality then you need a 2 megapixel CCD as it has the spare capacty to handle the changed form factor. The 3 CCD camera has one CCD dedicated to each colour (red, green and blue) so it doesn't need all that extra resolution to do the calculations. Ivan

Cool. I want one of those just for the gadget value. Just have to find 300 Euros somewhere. Ivan

Well, based on this thread, there are at least two cases of it having happened. I am not aware of lost hook knifes being a common occurrence so I'm going to guess that there have been significantly less than a million tries. Well, it seems I spoke too soon. I lost my hook knife on opening today. I watched it fly away very close to my canopy. Luckily, lines and canopy escaped unscathed. Ivan

Well, based on this thread, there are at least two cases of it having happened. I am not aware of lost hook knifes being a common occurrence so I'm going to guess that there have been significantly less than a million tries. Ivan

You missed "I have one rig and need more." Two rigs and a dedicated packer would be nice. Maybe three rigs in case one is out of action for a bit. Ivan

It is common, when registering a domain, to have to supply a contact email address that is on a different domain (if your hosting company is going to cut you off for non payment of bills then they need another, working, address to contact you on). Do a Whois on my domain (ivanpeters.com) and your'll find my work address as an administrative contact. If I lost my job I would have to change it to something like a hotmail account. This Rose Pearse has obviously bought some web space and a domain (from internetters.co.uk) and set herself up as a web design and hosting company. This DZ hired her to design and host their site. What doesn't quite add-up is that they appear to have enough money to have a fleet of aircraft but clearly haven't spent much on their web site. But, perhaps they are not internet savvy enough to know how bad it is. Ivan

I generally don't notice a problem but there have been a few occasions when things have been mysteriously off-center. Guess I'll have to get the drill out and try it on the other side. Ivan

Interesting. I now know that I am left eye dominant. But I mounted my sight on the right because it seemed to feel right at the time. What sorts of effects are known/thought to come from having the sight on the "wrong" side? Ivan [Edit for spelling]

Did any of those people say they had done it? It might seem logical to say that pulling on the rear risers in normal flight slows it down, so doing that to one in a downplane should bring it back above you. But a downplane is far from normal flight. It might be an interesting thought exercise to wonder if that would work but do you really want to be trying an experiment like that while you are heading rapidly at the ground? I think your AFF instructor failed to mention anything about the riser idea for good reason. Ivan

Do what I did. Get a Mac Ivan

6.0 or 6.0.1? 6.0 had a known problem with dropped frames exporting to tape. You can download a free 6.0.1 upgrade from Adobe. I used 6.5 with XP for a couple of years without a problem. I don't think I used 6.0.1 with XP. If something used to work and now it doesn't then the general rule is that something has changed. I've worked in IT support and users will swear blind that they haven't done anything and it just stopped working on it's own. Software doesn't wear out and stop working. There is always some sort of trigger. Although it may not always be obvious. The trick is to identify when the problem started and then identify what changes happened between the previous time it worked and then. Changing from 2000 to XP is a pretty major event. If the problem started when you upgraded then the upgrade is a good candidate for the cause. It's a good idea to have up to date versions of all your software when you upgrade the OS. I am pretty sure 6.0 was released before XP and 6.5 was released after XP, so I would suggest upgrading to 6.5 if you can. Ivan

I've never had a problem with the encoding and burning time because I'm not in a hurry so I just go and watch TV for a bit. But, I find iDVD painfully slow to use. Moving between menu's, adding and removing stuff, responding to mouse clicks, etc., etc. Everything about just using it is really slow. iDVD5 is a big improvement over iDVD4 but it is still very frustrating to use. Does anyone else notice this or is it just me? (iMac G5, 1GB RAM, 120GB HD) Ivan [Edit for spelling]

Except the no booze thing. That's just not right.

+RW not +R.

Hi Caroline, Glad you came through that one OK. I avoid jumping in really cold weather for fear of exactly that happening. Yesterday wasn't supposed to be that cold but it turned out to be one of the coldest jumps I remember ever doing. My fingers were still working, but only just - and that with winter gloves and liners on. Some people wear surgical gloves under their normal gloves to stop the wind. I never though it made much difference but you might want to give that a go. I was talking about this subject to a guy at work the other day. He suggested getting a chemical heating pack from a camping shop and strapping it to the wrist (where the blood supply to the hand is closest to the skin). Interesting idea, not sure if it'll really counter the effect of 120mph windchill. I'm still on the lookout for a thinner version of these. Ivan

Have a read of this thread. You might find it interesting to do a search and see what people have to say about that 45 degree thing as well. Ivan

You'll find lots of people giving you advice. And, at your stage it's easy to think of everyone with more than 200 jumps as an expert. Make sure you know and trust the people you take advice from, get more than one opinion and don't do anything quicker than you are comfortable with. Also, keep in mind that, when you are jumping with other people you may well end up having to wear weight. You won't be quite so light then. ivan

Does it not come in a wrapper? They arrive in the UK sealed in plastic. Ivan

If there is a TV at the DZ then, sooner or later, you are going to want to show that really funny jump you just did on it. Also, the first thing the people you video are going to say is "can I get a copy of that?" Once you get some experience you might find yourself wanting to do tandem videos or competition video. Having the wrong format is going to cause you trouble with all of that. Besides, PAL is better. You can get PAL cameras in America if you look in the right places. Just remember that you are unlikely to get a waranty outside of the USA. Also, make sure you know what the camera you choose will cost you at home. It's easy to go on holiday, round the exchange rate up to make the maths easy and thing you are getting a good deal when you might not be. As for your question about which camera to choose, look around this forum. That question gets asked just about every other day. Ivan

The 16:9 format is exactly the same resolution as 4:3. The difference is that the pixels are wider. The reason for this is probably something to do with not needing to change the TV signal and/or TV design too much. The effect is that a 16:9 video will play on a normal 4:3 TV - is will just appear squashed. Something recorded in 16:9 can be firewired between cameras without a problem and will display correctly on a widescreen TV. Sony cameras have been able to shoot 16:9 for some time now (I know my PC110 was able to do it). Exactly how this was done has changed. I was told (but was never able to conclusively test it myself) that my PC110 did it by post-processing the image. In other words, it captured a normal 4:3 frame, then digitally chopped off the top and bottom and zoomed in a bit. The effect of this is that you no longer have as many horizontal lines in the picture resulting in a loss of quality. It's possible that this is a simplified description of what happened. Another explanation could be that a 16:9 image is captured off the CCD but the way the CCD processed pixels into lines didn't change. Either way, it's the same end result. The newer cameras capture the 16:9 image right off the CCD at full vertical resolution so there is no loss of quality. This is what Sony are calling True 16:9. I like the 16:9 format and use it whenever I can. Unfortunately, it's not often. Here's one I did earlier (but with a TRV60 not an HC42). Ivan

Well, I get the standard delivery and I got the March issue almost a week ago. Seems plenty fast enough to me.