DSE

not much. You can force the slow shutter, but honestly, I'd be afraid of what that would do to the image (never done a skydive with it engaged). It just doesn't have enough manual control. You could set the exposure for that level of sky, and that would clean it up by not allowing it to kick into gain modes, but still would be noisy. Problem is, AVCHD, small sensor, and low light all add up to noise. You might try Mike Crash's denoiser, it's free. It works reasonably well on AVCHD.

No pix. Wasn't supposed to be really very public, because I don't consider myself back til I put on the nylon....and I screwed up a little today anyway... Krip, our buddy Jay was there...and I'm grateful to him for catching that I'd missed my seatbelt. Was just a hop n' pop. Wanna gradually take it lower to be sure my back can manage terminal deployment. FWIW, progression has been 30 mins of tunnel time, running, squats, PLF practice, and upsizing to a wingload of .9:1 for a while. Now H n' P's for a while. http://skyvideo.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/anticipation-spoiled-the-rush/ if you wanna know more. It wasn't a spectacular jump, but I spiked it, which is better than a bounce...

I'd have to agree with you about the coach course for the most part. Our DZ doesn't really use coaches for anything. We're too small. I've never had a paid jump as a coach for anything except wingsuit FFC's (me owning the suit and often owning the rig). To an extent, I agree with the idea that AFFI's just off the course need to spend time being mentored, too. In the AFFI course, emphasis is put on Cat C and D jumps, and you're *supposed* to know how to teach already. I've shadowed many AFFI courses in the past 10 months...and am knocked over by how many people can't teach, and by the number of people who have spent their skydiving career on their ass or head that have few belly skills. I still don't agree the course is "easier" as opposed to different. A big part of my basis is discussions with nearly 200 years of skydiving experience from DZO's, five AFF CD's, and current AFFI's. You used to have 6 opps to get scores in various portions of the course. Now you have 27 opps to fail in four jumps. Yeah, it's different, but an UnSat is still an Unsat. The scoring changed, but it's still not easier from what I've read and have been told. Just different. FWIW, I watched 50% of a class unsuccessfully complete the course only this morning. Isn't that was the no-pass percentage was in the "old days?"

Here's the thing....if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Vista is just *fine* for most users. Just like XP is, and Win2K was. In fact, I'm still running two old Win2K servers and love their rocket-fast performance. Just cuz it's new don't mean you need it.

Everyone is looking for the rainbow's end with the pot of gold. Nothing will take even the most remotely close images to an SLR or even a crappy point and shoot while shooting video and give you enough images in a skydive to satisfy a tandem student, IMO. Including the 500. Is your profile accurate?

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3657808;search_string=CX500;#3657808 When you turn off OIS the gyro's remain loose. It doesn't do you any good. It's like buying a donkey and trying to turn him into a horse.

Thank you for taking the time to shoot the pix and write this article up, Gary!

I saw the contrails overhead from your jet. Actually Harry...I drove here. And will be here most of the cold season. if you wanna cold, come see me in s'nore. Happy to give one to you.

FWIW, YouTube's encoders work better with mp4, and mp4 at identical bitrates holds up better than wmv. Plus, most machines will render mp4 slightly faster than wmv. YMMV. Glad to be of help

+1 for clean install. My final version windows 7 arrived yesterday, but haven't had it installed just yet.

I'm less then 10 miles from you... I'd like to spend a day with: Quade-to hear some histories of non-skydiving stuff Bill von-to pick up some instruction tips. Ian-So I can know how to not put my pelvis in 4 pieces again. Skymama-simply because she makes everyone around her smile (and there is always free beer around her due to all the guys she attracts). Wendy-cuz I know less than nothing about CRW. Phree-he's a computer geek, a photo goof, and so am I. Plus he's just a helliuva nice person. And although Airtwardo isn't a mod, I'd like a day with him too. Lots to learn from a man of his mind and experience.

A-no NLE I'm aware of builds video objects (VOB). That is the job of the disc authoring software. B-it's quite common for some systems to overheat during mpeg rendering, so be sure it's running cool. Be sure anti-virus is disabled. Unless you've got a really good antivirus, I'd recommend you trash it completely and practice safe web behavior (avoid those pony sites). If you're going to render to any other HD format in Platinum, I'd use MPG4. If you render to uncompressed format in an avi container, it will exponentially grow and render slowly as hell (as you found). If your end goal is to put it on a DVD, then use the Make Movie and select the NTSC Wide option. It'll create the MPEG and accompanying AC3 file for you. Open Architect, it'll build the VOB files you want.

Ask again in a coupla days once the actual software is shipping. In beta, tools like Vegas scream along in W7. But who knows...might be different with shipping versions.

I thought they quit calling them birthdays at some point, and referred to the day as "Centennial?" Happy birthday, Jim.

Nope

I realize this, and have been in the "thrown to the wolves" situation when I completed my AFFI program (Jump #3 was main side). Frankly, I didn't have an issue with the main side so early. What I did have a problem with was seeing some instructors CLEARLY not ready to teach on the ground, and in one case, an instructor that has a bad attitude in front of his student. I think he'd be an asshat whether he was taught by Don Yarling or Kip Lohmiller, and I think he'd have passed either of their courses. But he still shouldn't be an instructor. Old system, new system, old students, new students...Maybe I'm stretching too far, but it parallels too many discussions in too many other venues for me to believe it's remotely close to what some say it is. Is it "too easy?" Dunno. I know there are people in the "new system" that shouldn't be instructors. I can think of a few (as can you, most likely) that were trained in the "old system" and shouldn't have passed/been made a JM and instructor. Still haven't seen any cited facts regarding increase/decrease in student incidents since the inception of the new system vs the old system. What few discussions I've had, get tossed off to "well, we had more incidents back then because the gear was harder to use." Maybe I have a different view because I did a lot of precourse work with my DZO well in advance. He's got 42 years in the sport, most of them teaching. He doesn't like the new system much either, and refuses to use the ISP. I admit my view may be colored, but then again, I wanted my rating from day one and worked towards it from pretty much that point. Obviously, every DZ is different. There are shitty instructors who don't care about students or continuing education. There are great instructors that listen well, speak well, and constantly are looking for new ways to do things. However, those failures and attributes apply equally on both sides of the "We're better because we learned back in 19XX." Back to the original question is it "too easy?" There is no way to measure the course without measuring the impact of the results of the course. With data that demonstrates incidents before and after the inception of the "new AFF," there might be a more intelligent discussion (I'm too lazy and don't really care enough about researching the data).

At our DZ, they are. You're an AFFI "jr" once you have your rating.

I've worked with the Hyperdrive. It copies the entire index file (as it should)

I've only once seen camo on a wingsuit, and it scared me so bad, I'll never get on the plane with that suit again. Swear to god. Eli, welcome to the flock! Nice pix, except for the funny colors you're wearing. They do match the Hallowee'n season though :-) Congrats on waiting til you had the jumps, based on Jarno's words, the wait paid off!

I have to disagree, Dave. In the editing world, the quality of the acquired image is better, but the tools used today are exact computer replicas of what we did with razor blades, and the techniques are identical too. If you're thinking of CG, editors don't do that, it's a different "stream" that feeds the film, just as it was 20 years ago. Students today are different than they were 20 years ago. I didn't need to be around skydiving 20 years ago to know this. The culture of learning, the culture of humans has changed significantly. Overall, I suspect students are far better informed. I know I was fairly well informed before my FJC. Instructors today have the errors and successes of the past upon which to build; something instructors of the past didn't have. Additionally, communication between instructors today is easier too. In the microcosm of the 'net, we instantly know about screwups but we rarely hear much about successes. I don't believe it's at all an accurate assessment of anything. There were terrific and terrible instructors 20 years ago, and terrific and terrible instructors today. Yet overall, I'd bet that the mean average of instructors today are better. We have more tools, more history, more jumps on average before taking the course, and a number of better pre-course materials. The USPA vids alone are great for students and instructors alike, and anyone can access them 24/7 on the web. Hopefully USPA will soon pull their heads out of their backsides and put the IRM in a pdf form too. Some course directors have excellent pre-course materials available. Mine did, and the others I've shot video for do too. I've also seen a very poor course director with no prep and a lot of angst towards his students. I don't think either represents the mean average of CD's. Overall, the discussion is still no different than old world mechanics, editors, instructors, even computer programmers bitching about "how hard it used to be." In truth, I think it's just a sign of aging and wishing one was "back in the day." FWIW, I've attended five AFF courses; one as a candidate and the others as a sit-in/videographer. And seen a lot of very good people fail. Only once can I say I've seen a poor flyer/instructor pass. I'm sure in your many more years of experience, you've seen more than I have, so your opinion may carry more weight, but I simply can't help but compare skydiving to other whiners in music and film.

Some very nice scenes in there.

this comes up a lot. Probably should be part of the sticky. These cams have crummy lenses, fair imagers, and cannot remotely compete with DSLR's or even cheap point n' shoots. Still images are an afterthought, a marketing bullet point overall. They cannot shoot very many stills during freefall while recording video. Megapixels mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Resolution is half the equation when considering perception of a photo, but the weak lens, poor imager, and overall system don't provide the kind of contrast that you might expect.

In case no one read the advice from Phil Peggs; "Zip everything up before getting on the plane" (in case you can't do it on the plane and have to ride the plane down for being too bulky) I'd say that's a pretty direct contribution to the topic. Then again, Phil is more responsible than most

Maybe we earned it "differently" but we still earned it. I earned my Grammy's the old-fashioned way; we used tape, razor blades, and no such thing as pitch correction. In film, we used Steenbecks and Moviola's. Today, it's all computer-driven and if you screw up a bit of media, it's not like you can't go backwards. In the old days, if you screwed up a razor edit or damaged film strips, it was costly and sometimes irrecoverable. Old dogs today in the film and broadcast industry bitch that the new generation doesn't understand manual editing, or where the software tools were birthed, named, and refined. That doesn't mean today's editors are no good, they just had a better foundation on which to build their skills. Reading these posts isn't much different than listening to old-world editors bitching that new editors don't understand what was done for them. OK, so it's easier for new editors. They didn't have to do nearly the work to get to where they are as we did back in the days of razor blades. In the production world, I'm an old dog, but I grow weary very fast when other old dogs whine about how easy it is for the "new crew." Who gives a shit? I sure don't, because the job gets done. Do people screw up today because they perhaps don't have the foundational (not fundamental) knowledge? Sure. Just like they do in AFF, ISP, S/L, and IAD. Just like they did 10 and 20 years ago. It's a different teaching culture for certain, but it's also a different learning culture. It's dynamic. If it's not changing, it's dying. Has the incident rate for students gone up or down since the advent of AFF vs old world? Has it gone up or down since the inception of ISP? Therein lies the true measure, IMO.

Let's not just consider the flying skills, however. There are a lot of guys that have the aerial skills and can't communicate to save themselves. And, there are others that are great instructors on the ground that might not be the best in the air, either. Striking a balance might be where some feel the program has failed. IMO, aerial skills are much more easily acquired compared to communications skills. Regardless of the field in which I'm working, there are many competent at the task but they cannot teach the task very well.