Experimental Video

As mentioned in a thread I have now lost, I have been playing with putting our 1.5 hour video on line. Its new technology for me but it seems to work,

To view it you will need the real media player which is used on Youtube etc and it can be downloaded for free at www.real.com

After you have this try the following link

www.ccmlpay.com/LR09.rm

The address is case sensitive so be careful or cut and paste.

I have had to reduce the definition a bit to make it a sensible size but it still takes 15-20 mins to download but obviously if you have a faster connection this will be less. If you are still using a modem it would be quicker to catch a bus to Mansfrield and pick up a DVD. If anyone would like a DVD let me know - those who already have will get a copy soon.

Let me know how successful you are if you look at it because it is something I would like to use more.

Heee haaa, I'm back in Val d’Isère! Good start Keith, 'Technology Tom' is mighty impressed, especially as it's far and away better than anything I could come up with.

I know you'll want me to be honest, so my one and only criticism (constructive criticism I hope) is to make it more punchier the bendy part of the road leading to Stelvio needs to be reduced, the part where you take a hairpin left and look back down on to Pinky coming up the hill. Must have been 3 or 4 of these on the trot and there's only so much of Pinky one can take!!!

Apart from that, it looked great at the start in Calais (I never see any of that being at the front), it was also good seeing all the mishaps and breakdowns as it's all part of the experience, clever wobbles/twisting/spinning/fading in and out, and as always on your vids ... great music. The V8 soundtrack from a certain TVR-engined Range Rover wasn't tood bad either - when it wasn't impersonating a geyser that is!

Looking forward to part two - the dust bowl.


Forgot to add, download took 7 minutes and played okay in Media Player.

Keith Johnson wrote:

Let me know how successful you are if you look at it because it is something I would like to use more.

Hi Keith, it took about 8 mins to download after the first failure and couldn't open on my Win media so downloaded Real Player.

I read Toms constructive critique and then noticed you haven't actually asked for criticism of any kind. That being the case here's mine constructive criticism

I thought the various distortions and effects were a good move although I did feel the images that you rotated could have been paused a second or two longer before rotating.
I also feel that when using zoom the operator needs an exceedingly steady hand when a tripod isn't to be found anywhere! I had a similar prob in the Dust Bowl when trying to zoom in on the vultures for a snap. It was hopeless and just can't keep the camera steady enough. I guess it's ok if the subject is several hundred metres away and stationary but zooming in on a relatively close object, especially from a moving vehicle is a bit of a no no.

Some real good sounds you compiled on there too which is what we will eventually do with ours...when Jo has the time!

Hope you don't mind the comments and hope you find them to be constructive. Nevertheless I still enjoyed the footage, watched it all and it opened our eyes to where we didn't take enough footage ourselves.

Next year I'm going to strap the camcorder to Potti's hand and superglue her finger to the 'ON' button.

Thanks for the reaction so far, more than happy to hear anyones views. While I am very keen to be the next Steven Spielberg it is the techy experience I am also interested in. So things like how quick it downloaded, will it run on anything other than real player, is the playback quality acceptable or should it be a higher resolution etc.

If anyone has any experience in this area that might br useful particularly in terms of format I would also be interested. I have tried AVI etc which will run in Windows media player but so far I end up with an enormous file or poor quality. I picked real media because it seems to be a bit of a standard for this type of stuff but anyone know anything better?

Keep all the comments coming !!

The Camcorder operator might do better if we didn't keep going over bumps on green lanes ! Unfortunately much of my favourite bit of the rally (the smugglers route) ended up on the cutting room floor so to speak.

Next time I want one of those cameras that the Disco three (sorry can't remember the team name) had attached to its roof rack. I can't wait to see their video of the smugglers route

Sylvia Johnson wrote:

The Camcorder operator might do better if we didn't keep going over bumps on green lanes ! Unfortunately much of my favourite bit of the rally (the smugglers route) ended up on the cutting room floor so to speak.

Next time I want one of those cameras that the Disco three (sorry can't remember the team name) had attached to its roof rack. I can't wait to see their video of the smugglers route

Their camera was much the same as the onboard camera I had mounted on the dash only a much more extragant set up. Basically it is a motorcyle helmet cam and can be found on ebay. My unit is a Motocom, not cheap but comes with a whole stack of goodies!
For some strange reason my lappy struggled to open the Stelvio footage and kept freezing but opened Isle of Man footage no probs. When the freeze eventually thawed my Landy Rally footage went AWOL with the great gods of technology into mad-lappy-land! Just as well Potti had the camcorder.

You're dead right about the cam movement when offroad though. I think there's a couple of head dents in my passenger side roof where Potti was recording on the way up to Val d'Isere.

Quote :

I think there's a couple of head dents in my passenger side roof where Potti was recording on the way up to Val d'Isere.

Did Potti have a couple of roof dents in her head then ??

Sylvia Johnson wrote:

Unfortunately much of my favourite bit of the rally (the smugglers route) ended up on the cutting room floor so to speak.

Damn, that's the bit I wanted to see myself, especially as Keiran and I obviously saw it on the recce, but because of the demise of my RR Bonnie & I never got there on the actual event.

Quote :

I had mounted on the dash

JC with the camera fixed like this did the general vehicle vibration offset the fact that the camera was not hand held ? I had thought of trying that - perhaps mounted in different postions for different tracks, by the front wheel, on the roof etc but I wonder whether it would be much better in terms of image stability.

Keith Johnson wrote:

Quote :

I had mounted on the dash

JC with the camera fixed like this did the general vehicle vibration offset the fact that the camera was not hand held ? I had thought of trying that - perhaps mounted in different postions for different tracks, by the front wheel, on the roof etc but I wonder whether it would be much better in terms of image stability.

Keith, unfortunately and as stated earlier I have lost the footage when the lappy went into some kind of self destruct of the uploading of the vid so wasn't able to see it all. What I did see in playback mode whilst at Val d'Isere was far better than hand held.

Being vehicle mounted means the camera see exactly what the Landy sees, meaning it responds immediately to vehicle body movement and not necessarily suspension travel, whereas when handheld the body continues rocking all over the place left right up and down and even diagonally! If you think about it from a fixture point of view you can easily understand that the camera stays fixed in situ, in the hand it doesn't. What I am meaning here is that although the camera follows vehicle body movement it is still stable footage, if that makes sense?

The camera performs very well when mounted on the Guzzi (Isle of Man) whether on the headlamp or fork mounted and I dare say helmet mounted too, however, I wouldn't really advise an exterior fitting when offroad as the footage will soon get obliterated by bugs,dust and water especially on the Landy Rally. When you consider that the camera lens is only about 15mm dia it won't take many flies to ruin your footage.

If you are seriously considering one of these cameras do some good research Keith as there are loads out there and most are not what they are cracked up to be.
My personal preference would have been a Dogcam unit but as Potti bought mine as a Bday pressie last year I'm certainly not complaining!

Try this link for a good unit. http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/DogcamPro.htm

Below is my camera with an extensive range of accesories. Great value for money even if slightly inferior to the Dogcam.

http://www.cyclegadgets.com/products/product.asp?Item=MC-DSR

[quote="JC"]

Keith Johnson wrote:

Quote :

I had mounted on the dash

JC with the camera fixed like this did the general vehicle vibration offset the fact that the camera was not hand held ? I had thought of trying that - perhaps mounted in different postions for different tracks, by the front wheel, on the roof etc but I wonder whether it would be much better in terms of image stability.

Sorry, should have given you the UK webbie link and not the USA.

http://www.motocomm-uk.com/

i will have to have a look later, i seem to remember a convo with you saying what tom said, but to be fair, fair play in putting in the time, and effort