I posted a short 4 minute video of a flight that I made a few weeks ago with some friends from San Carlos, California (near San Francisco) down to Monterey.. .Most of the video footage was actually taken on the ground rather than in the air. We discovered that the camera being used was rather too big to be used easily in the cockpit. We left the camera on full auto so that my friend sitting right seat would not to have to fumble with controls in flight. What I learnt from this is that with autofocus activated, the camera would try to focus onto the propeller. This isn't noticeable in this highly compressed file, but is on the original DV version.. .Anyway, if interested, the file is almost 3MB and available at this Yahoo Group (you will need to register if you do not already have a Yahoo Groups ID):

<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/davidsflyingpictures/files/" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/davidsflyingpictures/files/</a>

Mostly this was an exercise in video editing. I want to try putting together a short 20 minute segment of a San Francisco Bay Tour with someone else doing the flying and me doing the filming with everything set to manual on the camera.

[ 04 February 2002: Message edited by: BayAreaLondoner ]</p>

Fabulous Video!

After a bit of hassle signing up to Yahoo Groups, I managed to download the video... its excellent! I particularly enjoyed the soundtrack <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> And the beaches / cliffs looked nice too. Nicely edited!

Andy

P.S. See separate email re-possibility I may be in Bay Area at some stage...

Cheers Andy.. .The music was supposed to be incredibly kitschey (is that a word)... I think it fulfiled that requirement <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Excellent - loved it! Oooh, I feel all inspired now. <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> Have to agree that the music was very well chosen <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> . .Can I ask how you recorded the RT? Did you have it set to 'speaker', or do you have a way of directly inputting to the camera? <img src="cool.gif" border="0">

AerBabe - thanks for the kind words.

I just cranked up the cabin speaker until it began to irritate me sufficiently that I turned it off (about 5 seconds after the airborne just after take-off shot).

Next time I think I'll use an intercom with a record out socket. Other options include plugging Walkman earbud headphone things into the microphone socket of the camera and sticking the earbuds inside the headset).

David.

Bay...

Just watched it myself. Excellent. If only we had that weather here in good old blighty. Again, top music; it kinda makes you laugh :)

Possibly the most complicated method of viewing something on the web????????!!!!!!!!!

Spent 10 minutes trying, still no luck

Whats the soundtrack to it. I cant be bothered to spend the time registering for Yahoo. . . :)

" your not the only one Mono,

Some folks can... some folks can't - such is life!

Andy <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

OK looks like Yahoo has some sort of file sharing thing and this might be an easier way for people to take a peak at the video.

This link will take you to my Yahoo Briefcase. You will need to go into "My Documents" and pull "$77 Burger.wmv". .<a href="http://briefcase.yahoo.com/david_sayed" target="_blank">Yahoo Briefcase</a>. .[ 06 February 2002: Message edited by: BayAreaLondoner to add new links]

[ 06 February 2002: Message edited by: BayAreaLondoner ]

[ 06 February 2002: Message edited by: BayAreaLondoner ]</p>

"No combination of filters could be found to render the stream" - whatever that means <img src="frown.gif" border="0">

What do I need to play it?

Great vid, Bay... i'll post one of my own on my Yahoo group of my solo nav, I think.

I, too, took some great (hehe) footage of some of my solo circuits at sunny Redhill using a digital Sony camcorder. Not so techy an attempt as yours as it was a bit impromptu (just wanted to show the other half that I was capable of getting up AND down with relative safety). Got round the focussing on the prop bit by setting to infinity and just left it going on the R/H side dash while I concentrated on the flying bit!

Three great circuits and landings with a nice sun-drenched view of such landmarks as the M23, East Surrey hospital and the water-treatmetn works that signifies turn onto Downwind leg - shame I forgot to take the lens cap off. Sony have asked for their camera back as, apparently, I'm too stupid to use it. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Hersh

[ 06 February 2002: Message edited by: Hersham Boy ]</p>

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I didn't expect such a positive response. Be careful... you've encouraged me to do more! <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

HB - Next time I'll definitely use manual focus as you suggest. That should make all the difference. Also playing with the shutter speed could be fun.. .Next time I'll actually plan the video objective and will leave it going for the flight to give me more material to edit down. I'm a firm believer in getting lots of raw footage and taking the best bits and putting them together. If the result is anything more than about 10 minutes or so I don't think anyone would watch it.

Evo - sorry to hear about the technical difficulties. It was encoded for Windows Media Player 8. You should be able to retrieve a copy from <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia." target="_blank">www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia.</a> If you are already using Windows Media Player, try going to Tools-&gt;Options and under the Player tab, make sure that Enable automatic codec download is checked. If that doesn't work, try going to the Help menu and selecting Check for Player Updates and grab a new version is it says that one is available. If neither of those work, I'm stumped.

BayAreaLondoner Well done.. .The fact that all of the people that took a look seem to have watched it to the end either shows that we are all a sad bunch of individuals or that you really know how to put a movie together.

My opinion is of course that only the most interesting and sophisticated people are likely to be interested in this sort of thing and so well done.

Cheers, BAL

Grabbed Windows Media Player (again), and the install told me that the previous install had failed - hence the errors. Works fine now. Particularly jealous of the weather.... <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> :)

&lt;fx: outside Evo towers, a seemingly neverending storm is raging...&gt;

[ 07 February 2002: Message edited by: Evo7 ]</p>

Um - forgot to ask, Bay - which editing package are you using? That picture-in-picture bit tracking the map is cool.

I've got Pinnacle Systems Studio DV and it does what it does really well, but it's obviously lacking some of the features of your kit!

Hersh

Nice video.. .Myself and some mates recently finished compiling a video of a year's gliding. You lot may find it amusing. Go to <a href="http://www.silentflight.com/movies" target="_blank">www.silentflight.com/movies</a> go down the page and click on any of the "UKsmokin" files- enjoy! Its about ten minutes long, some of the shots are quite nice.. .Cheers.

Soaring - loved your videos!

The technical details for mine:. .The camera is a Canon XL-1, which is a MiniDV camcorder. It is quite large and a smaller one would be much better for the in-cockpit shots. If we could put a wide angle lens adapter on it that might be even more effective.. .The editing software is Vegas Video 3.0 by Sonic Foundry. I tried a number of the video editing packages for the PC before settling on Vegas 2.0. Adobe Premiere was too complex for me (I think that if I lived in the video editing world, I'd get used to it). Vegas on the other hand fits very well into the Windows environment (it is a native Windows product) and is incredibly easy to use. The new 3.0 version apparently puts it on the same level as Premiere. If people are interested, Sonic Foundry has a free trial version for download at <a href="http://www.sonicfoundry.com" target="_blank">www.sonicfoundry.com</a>