Fast

I agree that resolution charts don't tell the whole story. But either way, "we" haven't minded degraded quality footage with our SD cameras, so I'm not sure why it's such a big deal with HD cameras. "It totally defeats the purpose of having an HD camera." Well, if you want top quality footage and that's why you have an HD camera, then yes. But a lot of people have HD cameras because they are tiny and cost under $600. There are a lot of people that should have tiny royal/waycool/liquid lenses on their HD cameras because otherwise they're going to have giant snag-happy HD lenses sticking 3 feet off the side of their head. I know that a compact lens won't provide the same quality video as a good HD lens, but I'm going to agree with frost and say that it'll still beat an SD camera with the same lens. Dave Cause you can buy a Century .55 for $100 it is HD and low profile. It isn't quite as good resolution wise as the raynox lenses but, it's still miles better than the liquid/cookie/roayl lens lines. You just don't get that extra .2 in wideness. I haven't had a problem with that doing AFF or inside freefly. You just kinda learn to deal with it. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Statements like this make your ignorance about gear safety pretty clear. The skyhook makes a substantial difference in reserve deployment time given the right conditions. While it isn't expected to work all the time, if my choice is between dieing because some asshole ran into me and I had to cut away at 1000 feet or having an open reserve that I can land, I think the choice is pretty clear. The fact of the matter is that most of the rigs on the market are "good enough" to get by. We could go around the table poking at rig design all day. Here is an example: Any rig with a pop top (javelin, wings, racer, etc...) has a significantly greater chance of having a line, be it one of your own or someone else in an entanglement situation, snag on the reserve pilot chute. Talk about a situation I don't want anything to do with. None the less, hundreds, maybe more, of these rigs are sold every year and people are not dieing left and right because of it. No rig is "perfect" and even if there was a perfect rig, I'm sure some people would find a way to slam against that one too. Most likely cause it didn't look cool enough. (Who really cares about safety anyways? ) Most of it comes down to opinion, how much value you place in someone's opinion is up to you. I know where I stand. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

This is my computer: I can run video with VLC 1.0.0-rc1 with the deinterlace filter on set to "discard" and the loopback setting referenced in the above link set to bypass loopback for all non-keyframes. I have tons of footage if someone wants to see some of it, let me know where i can put it. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Follow the steps one by one, it should work just fine. (I just tried it) Anyways - what program are you editing with? Both Vegas and premiere have default output settings when you go to "Render" the media. They have defaults for DVD NTSC (assuming you are in America here, substitute pal where appropriate) I am doing the exact same thing you are. 64bit pc and 64bit OS works just fine. The new processor is fine. It's just a user training thing. If you are trying to play the video in the video editor, it might be choppy, just render it out to dvd format and watch that. You should be rendering from HD to SD mpg in about 15minutes for a 10minute tandem video. You will have to be more specific about what you are doing in what programs for me to help you more than that. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

My quite expensive fairly new laptop fails to play HD HQ video from the CX105 without stuttering. There is some loopback filtering in VLC going on that you can disable and it will clean playback up. see this thread: http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42328 ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I want one of these... http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227116.900-radiocontrolled-bullets-leave-no-place-to-hide.html ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Thanks man! Lisa and I had a lot of fun jumping with you, was a great way to end our weekend at Carolina Fest. The whole experience was really neat and I could see myself wanting to do this a bit more

I don't have a ton of AFF/Coaching experience but something that I have noticed a lot on tracking jumps with students is that they tend to not fly straight. My own tracking technique is with arms tight legs together and going flat and fast, but I find it unrealistic for a student to maintain stability in that position. A lot of the people I have seen go up and try tracking for the first time with a body position like that just go in circles and they don't learn much. I give them a slightly more complicated skydive in terms of dive flow and break up the tracking into more stable components. Spending a whole skydive on tracking, they get 3-4 shots at it. The first attempt I teach them to just bring arms back to a "T" and with legs shoulder width apart. They do that for 5-10 seconds. The second attempt, so long as they felt comfortable with the first attempt and (at least in their minds thought they were going straight) they bring their arms back to a more of a 45 degree position. Legs still shoulder width apart. Both of these while still maintaining somewhat of an arch. After that, for any remaining attempts, so long as they felt comfortable with what they were doing on the pervious ones, I tell them they can try and "go fast." Bring their arms closer in, legs closer together, dearch some, etc. None of my students go away without knowing what I feel is the ideal flat tracking position. They are taught how to progress towards that and how to prevent going head low on the turn from the formation. It's my opinion that they will take longer to learn good tracking if too much is expected too quickly, but I don't want to leave it to someone else to hopefully teach them. My more complicated diveflow might be a bit harder to remember but I have noticed most of them are able to get it and there is a whole lot less tracking in circles going on. No one becomes a master at something in the course of one skydive and I teach the "T" position and other positions like the concept of training wheels on a bike. Show yourself you can do it that way, then try something harder. It seems to work. I have even seen a few on their 3rd or 4th attempt go pretty damn fast.

No reason to unwrap it from the risers though, it's gonna leave with them if you cut away. In regards to the reserve comment about not jumping if you are unsure if your reserve is going to work... That's just non-sense. Reserves don't always work, it's just how it is. I have a lot of rears only landings, albeit none with the brakes stowed, but I am pretty sure I could work that out too. I trust that more than an unknown factor of "will my reserve deploy right today." There is another thread going on somewhere here where they talk about the fact that, some malfunctions are just bad luck. I would hate for it to be my day to have one of those on my reserve. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

This event sounds fun! Some friends and I will be arriving tomorrow and staying through Sunday morning. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Yeah someone at my DZ has one. Was in the first few batches of stuff that got sent out I guess. I don't totally dislike it, still gonna get one. He says it doesn't fly any different and hasn't noticed riser strikes yet. I guess I get the decision to make it top or side, from a marketability standpoint. Just seems like the "top option" takes away from the "side option". ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

After seeing one of these in person, I am semi frustrated with it. The box is just much wider than it needs to be for side mounting. I understand that to make a box compatible with top mounting, the Hypeye has to be able to fit totally inside the box but for those of us mounting the camera on the side of our helmet it adds an extra 1/4" or more that is totally wasted space. Increasing the chance of riser strikes. I have one on order still, but just ugh. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

So long as you are 18 years old. Under 18 requires a prescription. It's also costly and not something you would want to be taking on any kind of regular basis. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Agreed. Also, you can by a Century .55 that resolves to HD if you are cool with not having a .3 and the lens is only about $100. That's what I did. I personally think that the footage with a royal on there is total crap. (I have one and was using it on aff for a bit so I could get those extra close shots, now I just do a better job of panning the student with my head.) ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Depends on the jumper I think. For me, I can't read an analog alti for shit. I grew up with digital clocks though and for the most part am much better at reading things off a screen. I also have to agree though that the Viso is semi-difficult to read in some orientations. I liked the idea of it when it was first coming out but seeing them in person I very much prefer my neptune which is very readable. I have an analog alti sitting in my locker incase my neptune breaks. The only time I have used it was for the AFF course cause it's the same kind of alti the evaluators were using and I wanted things to match. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I wouldn't say that it's totally a function of background. I started jumping in 2003 and I am fully in the camp with the people who believe that a misfire is much more of an issue than a non-fire. Maybe it has to do with training or something else. I have pretty good confidence that I will deal with situations that arise. I bought my AAD incase I get incapacitated (I have had this almost happen to me twice, not my fault either time) and incase i screw up and forget where the fuck I am. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

For sure. Talk about a scary situation for any instructor! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

One more thing in a long list of reasons I don't like vigils. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Fixed. If you want something low profile, get the Century .55 Otherwise the Raynox lenses are your only other option, they are pretty big through. All this information is in the CX100 thread. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Just fyi - do you know that 1-800-skydive is a regional 800 number. It doesn't call your dz from everywhere, only places that are withing certain area codes. Just a helpful note

I am particularly fond of the Vector3/Micron for a few reasons. I like the concept of supporting Bill Booth's company. I like the magnetic riser covers, I like the skyhook, in general I think they are nice looking containers if you get the right options. I don't like rigs that have pop-tops. Shit is always hanging out after awhile, good rigger or not. Things that annoy me about the vector include having to be on my packer like flies on shit to not fuck up the secondary riser covers. I also dislike the inability to dramatically downsize, but in some rights that's a good thing. I guess I could say that it's not the most comfortable rig I have tried on, but I think the quality construction and all the other things that go into a vector long out weigh comfort issues. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Not gonna happen. I don't think most tandem rigs would even fit in the seat, let alone with a person in front of you. I have about 6 jumps out of an R44 and some more time riding around in one to film skydivers exiting from another R44. Most of them just don't do well that high up and it's too tight. Only way you could do it is standing on the strut the entire climb, hooked up already and that would be QUITE dangerous. Also, you'll not get high enough for enough time to build speed, right yourself, throw the drouge and deploy. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

There is a 20 page thread about 10 posts down from this one. It should have all the answers you need. hint! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I can pack my vector that way, but that doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it's going to work all the time. I don't mean to come off sounding like a dick or anything. It's just one of my pet peave issues regarding packing. Right up there next to packers/people who don't ensure that the secondary riser covers are tucked in on vectors (it wrecks them, devalues the rig, and makes them less functional). That's all! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I don't know why you would make a recommendation like that. No where in the post did the person specify a main container type. How exactly the bag goes into the pack tray depends on the type of container. If the jumper has a Vector3, the advice you gave is dead wrong for how the system was designed. You should know that by now. The type of thing you are suggesting is just more of the same packing voodoo that started this guys problems in the first place. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka