DSE

Drop me a note. In SLC, I can take care of you.

Jont, More information is quite helpful... No, your VAIO won't allow you to connect a camcorder to the firewire and record straight to the built in DVD burner. Not possible, as there are some processes that need to take place first. You CAN connect an external firewire DVD burner to your VAIO, I do this regularly. But you have to capture from the camera first.

There is simply no way to accurately or intelligently predict dust devils. If you have warm and cooler ares, they can immediately kick up with a small gust, or not. Here in the desert, they're very common, and anywhere you've got a superheated area and a cooler area...there they may be. They're invisible over grassy areas. I don't believe there is anything you can do different beyond what you've asked. I showed this to an instructor here who has once been hospitalized from a devil crossing his swoop, and once been seriously face-planted during a "normal" landing. His comment echoed most comments here; you can't stop it or avoid it. His only advice to me was if I see one, try to steer into it if it's at a point that I can see it. Our DZ isn't grass, so it's somewhat easy to spot them with the dust. But in my yard and pasture, you can't see them. They just hit you. Glad you weren't injured more than the bruises. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil has a picture of one. Bear in mind it only has color in it because it's over a dirt field.

A contained/suite would be a tad faster, and allow you to use a pre-created menu, walkup, and closing sequence in about the same amount of time. I've got lots of templates for this that Skydive Utah is using. Very fast, and very efficient. but...if this workflow is working for you, stick with it. Vegas Movie Studio has a better encoder, but it's also slightly slower than DVDSanta. I just tested it.

Contact Sony tech support in your area. What you are describing doesn't fit the recall issue, but could be related, or on it's way to failing. Your camera is part of the recall model, so it could be this issue. http://www.imaging-resource.com/badccds.html

The HC3 is third generation technology in the HDV realm, and has some significant improvements in the DSP. It's a faster processor, which allows it to be better. The HC1 is older tech, and first gen CMOS in it's flavor. It's not as advanced. The problem with it (IMO) is that due to the DSP infancy plus how the CMOS manages the pixels, stabilization at tight angles could be significantly improved (which it now is in the HC3) but skydivers don't care much about the deep shot, they're after wide angles. This isn't nearly as big an issue for normal use. However, if you use a cheapo W/A on the cam, you could easily create abberation, which then significantly confuses the DSP due to color timing. Use a good lens, this shouldn't be an issue. The more I jump with the HC3, the more impressed I am with it for *this* purpose. We've done motoX with it, skydiving, and scuba, and it simply rocks. We've skydived the A1 (same as HC1 but professional format vs consumer) and it's done quite well too. We're shooting a 3 camera specialty shoot for TLC next week, using A1 vs HC3, just for the better imager with Diamond lenses. We're using 2 HC3's on the lead skydivers as well, so I'll have some comparison footage fer y'all to look at. We're using 2 Z1U's in the plane, 2 Z1's on the ground for a total of 7 cams on this particular event.

Before:Creed "Can you take me higher" in air: Creed "Hold me Now" After landing: Steely Dan "Do it Again"

The Weber County Recorders Office has no information about the SkyVenture tunnel. No license issued. Just called there. Called SkyVenture to get more information on more than one occasion, and they haven't returned any phone calls.

HC3 is entirely electronic stabilization, and in it's class, it's better than any I've seen (including the HC1), but it still messes with resolution more than I'd like it to. The skydiving pics we've got, coupled with graphs from the protrack show it manages tracking very nicely. Just be sure you're never stopped down heavily. Speed up the shutter so the aperture stays open, you'll like it. NO 1/3 chip camcorder should ever be stopped down more than F4 anyway. I'm waiting on a glove for mine, my DZ will allow me to jump with a glove now that I've got my B license. This will allow me to test for specific function, such as an AIE chart mounted on my chest strap. That gives me a known base from which I can work. This sucks, having a helmet, lots of cams, and can't jump with them at the same time, but I know I've got to progress in paces.

The *easiest* way to do this is to just render the MovieMaker as an AVI, and import that directly with DVDSanta. (button furthest to the left) That's it. If you wanna spend some additional $$, there are other apps that are faster/more efficient, but if this workflow goes for you, might as well ride it out. I wrote a small software tool that does this automatically, but it only works for Sony Vegas. Called "DVD Prep." Free, on the VASST.com website. HTH

No. I now better understand your question. Unless you have a hardware assist card, such as a Canopus or Matrox card that can assist in sending your avi without rendering it, you're stuck with: 1. Rendering to MPEG from your timeline or 2. Rendering to AVI from your timeline, exporting to DVD player and having it convert realtime to MPEG. or 3. Using a hardware encoder to MPEG that will accept whatever output you throw at it, Compressed formats require rendering,(time-costly) or real-time hardware conversion ($$costly) There is no free lunch. MovieMaker uses OHCI drivers to export via 1394, but it requires a finish render to avi. Some apps render to MPEG faster than others, but at a quality hit. Outside of CinemaCraft and MainConcept, Sony Vegas offers the best encode you'll get. But it's also among the slower renders, being about 2:1 for non-rendered timeline, and faster than realtime for a rendered timeline. Adobe, Canopus, Ulead are all faster, but offer less quality. If you've rendered your avi from the timeline, you can print to tape and sent *that* to the DVD burner, and not have to render to MPEG, yes. Did that make sense?

Most "brand name" DVD recorders are OHCI compliant. It's the cheaper no-names that aren't. All the Sony, Pioneer, Yamaha, JVC, etc are to the best of my knowledge.

I know there are still a few out there, just that Sony discontinued it. It's a much nicer camera for many purposes than the HC3, but as it stands, Sony misjudged the market and didn't build enough of them, and as a result, they sold short. The A1U is still out there, and NOT discontinued, in fact Sony has some rebates on the professional version of the HC1. It's the same body, but I don't know that skydiving videographers/photographers care about the better features of the A1 vs the HC1. Personally, I do, but on the video side, I'm probably a bit more anal about glass image quality vs post work than most folks are.

First, this is what I was told by a fairly senior certification individual with more than 30 years and 25,000 jumps; I'd rather not attribute the quote to him in case I've misunderstood. But I don't believe I misunderstood him. That said, if the USPA were to adopt a policy that everyone, period, had to use an AAD, then they'd be at liability if one failed, because they've now become part of the problem. Regardless of what dropzone you're jumping in. Every DZ would be exposed. Just like airbags having lost several court cases, I'm sure this would be worse. Then again, what do I know? I'm just one of the dummies that folks with more than 1000 jumps discount comments from.

The Tecknica doesn't have full OHCI compatibility, so if it can't see your cam, you likely have one it can't communicate with. You also might look to update your DVHS drivers in the 1394 driver palette.

you may not see anyone going commercial with one, since the cam was discontinued in April...Replaced by the HC3

"If someone will or won't jump with or without an AAD is their own personal decision. Depending blindly on a safety device is something that sends a red flag up about a jumper. " Almost the exact words of our DZO. I bought my first rig prior to being off student status. Rig didn't have an AAD in it. Jumped it for 35 jumps, as soon as I was off student. Not because I'm proud, but because I couldn't afford the grand for an AAD after buying rig, altimeter, and other odds/ends. Then on a not-planned trip to Canada where I ended up finding I could jump, I learned that in Edmonton, they won't allow you to jump without an AAD without a D license. So, very quickly bought a used one and had my DZO's master rigger install it. I had no idea that some DZO's adamantly require them. Kinda stupid to do so, because if one fails when it's required, and is part of a fatality or injury, or goes off when it shouldn't, then the DZ becomes legally liable, as they're part of the problem. I've been told that this is the reason the USPA backed off of requiring AADs a few years ago. Maybe someone has a different reason, but makes sense to me. On the other side...you don't want to believe for a second that an AAD is going to save you. EP's are drilled into pretty much everyone every day at the local DZ, unless they have a C or D license. Mildly irritating to have the S&TA randomly walk up and say "Show me your malfunction motto" but it just might save your life one day.

Nice piece of vid, but one thing I wondered about...at our DZ, the camera or other jumpers are not allowed to ever dock with the tandem master, only the passenger/student for safety reasons. Watching several guys go thru this with Jay Stokes this past week, he'd also expressed this "rule." So, what is right and not right regarding docking with passengers/tandem masters?

*Most* NLE systems don't support MPEG rendering without a recompress. For this reason, using avi for your master, and compressing to mpeg is the better option. Recompressing mpeg causes a quality hit. Only you can decide if the hit is bad enough to deal with the render times. There are other options. For example, you can frameserve from your NLE to your encoder, or you can render to DV25, output to an ADS Instant MPEG, and have realtime, high quality encoding. Better than most software encoders unless you look at commercial MainConcept or CinemaCraft. On the PC side, hardware assistance is now available from some cards as well. Additionally, DV25/DV is a compression format of 4:1:1, which is already color-starved. SD MPEG is a 4:2:0 colorspace, and is significantly missing information, so when you color process or use FX, you're going to usually find macroblocking, depending on the bitrate of the encode. If you have a very high bitrate for SD, you can somewhat avoid this outside of the extreme blacks and whites. Using an AVI container for DV helps avoid this as well. Finally, bear in mind that MPEG is temporal, and therefore doesn't edit well. AVI containers (generally) are interframe, and therefore more frame content, making for much more accurate and higher quality output. PM me if you'd like more info.

I like the ankle support, but I've got pins n' screws in both ankles...The DZO here wears an ankle brace on every jump. Your doctor has a very good point as well. The Adidas boots we're referring too have very soft ankle support, nothing really stiff. I don't have any issues tracking at all.

If you look at the size chart, you'll see that nothing is available for the "average" size foot. Nothing in a 8.5-11. Adidas customer support claims they had more demand than they had supply, hence the newer model. I'd *love* to find the old model in my size. If you got a hookup for a 9.5...I'm all over it.

Oops, missed that one. Didn't realize it was worth the bandwidth to pop it up tho. Problem w/that?

For clarification, what I meant by "not necessary" is that vid cams, whether they're 1/6" or 4", CCD or CMOS, don't have many of the same frame requirements as do still cams. RED looks very promising, but... iPhoto is a good lil' program, but if you can afford aperture, photoshop, you'll be better off. iView isn't too expensive, and Canon's Digital Photo Professional is very impressive (If you've got a Canon cam)

Read the Skydiving Handbook. Has a photo of a Cessna, don't know the model, but it's torn door to tail from this exact thing happening. No one died, but looking at the photo, it sure makes you wonder.

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, we're both in total agreement. Regarding training, FWIW, I'm the only Sony Broadcast Professional-certified trainer for the HVR Z1u and HVR-A1U at this point in time (no I don't work for Sony). While I'd never consider any videocam acquired print for putting in a coffee table book, I'm quite comfortable using them for small prints. SLR CMOS chips, particularly the HADs, are significantly more balanced and even voltages across the plate, and we'll likely never see that in the video realm, even with the new 4K res RED or Dalsa Origin cams. It's just not necessary.