DSE

In ten years, there will be people complaining that the (Whatever the new name might be) program isn't as tough as the ISP instruction program was to certify. It's a cycle that appears in every realm where instruction is involved. I walked uphill (both ways) to school every day, in heavy deep snow and only had PBJ sandwiches on Wonderbread. Today they got vending machines, pizza delivery, and buses to drive them to school.

To answer your question, ChutingStar, Para-Gear, and Square One are all RI dealers. I'd have a hard time choosing any one of those over the other, but Mike at ChutingStar pays close attention to his customers in my experience (not suggesting the others don't). The Voodoo is very FF friendly, and IMO, the most comfortable rig I've owned (I now own two of them). They cost a little more, you might wait a little more, but a Ferrari costs more and you don't often get to drive one off the lot. Call RI Mon-Thurs and ask for Kit. She'll make sure you know whatever you want to know. What mains have you jumped? A Sabre 2 is a great main, so is the Silhouette, so is the Storm, but which one is for you needs to be determined by you, after demoing a few canopies. I've jumped nearly every canopy that PD offers and really like the Silhouette, Storm, Sabre 2, and Pulse. All fly very differently.

You sure? A-bent a rod in a motoX biff, no loss of leg, no nothing except removal/replacement. B-my pelvis has already bent the 12" bolt in several directions. My biggest concern is that another biff on the pelvis will result in worse shatter around the bolt. No matter how you look at it, an accident on the same body part that has metal in it will likely be worse than it would have been without the metal part.

As a matter of fact..... I don't. But I have a really nice bookshelf. Fake oak and everything.

Without meaning to derail this thread, it needs to be said that if you haven't been around Mike lately, then you don't know Mike. He's grown up a lot this past year. Aside from growing up, no one can say he's not one of the best flyers for the front of the flock. There are others that are worse photo hogs, but not many as dedicated to "being there" whereever "there" may be. Although the color purple should remain a movie and not a wingsuit, Mike earned most of the space he gets, because he's there. Gawd, I can't believe I'm defending PM! Me...can't wait to get Matt's book on my coffee table. Most of the best flyers in the world are in there somewhere.

Licensing fees and HDCP are the reason, and they're not interested much in quality assurances. From ZDNET: ################# Just when Blu-ray thought it had clear sailing, a tempest has risen in the East: China Blue Hi-definition Disk (CBHD). Toshiba has licensed its HD DVD to them and it will be the unit world leader in HD optical technology in just 12 months. Why? The Times Online reports that the CBHD players are outselling Blu-ray in China by 3-1 and the CBHD disks cost a quarter of Blu-ray. Conceived by Sony at a time when few thought upscaling would succeed, the idea was that HDTVs would require HD content on optical media. Reliving the glory days of DVD adoption they forecast tens of billions in revenue from players and disks, enormous licensing fees and consumer-proof DRM. CBHD is a double win for the Chinese government: billions saved in royalties; and a much cheaper, locally manufactured, luxury item for the restless masses. Blu-ray is simply collateral damage. Studio knuckle-draggers no doubt are salivating at a tough new form of Region encoding: incompatible formats for the West and Asia. But will that really work? English is the #2 language in Asia, so English-language CBHDs will be popular. Shanghai vendors will happily sell CBHD players and disks on Ebay. The economics are irresistible and, other than the studios, who will turn down HD content at DVD prices? It is a nice win for the Chinese government and manufacturers. Blu-ray’s high cost has slowed its acceptance to a crawl, so Chinese CBHD players will rapidly climb down the cost curve to prices lower than DVD-only players since they aren’t paying DVD royalties either. CBHD vendors should not ignore the writable CBHD market. Many consumers would like something larger than DVDs for backup and much cheaper - and more compatible - than Blu-ray.

They're supposed to be moving towards BD support but at a recent conference, it was said that with HD DVD being brought back by the Chinese/India (that's 50% of the world market) that they're looking agin at HD DVD. Given that I own more than 50 Apple machines and site licenses...I've paid for my right to rant.

'bout time you told the world Very nice Matt. Looking great.

Very nice, but you can clearly see where he shot 30p vs 60p. Audio is very good, which is one of the other places the camera kicks a$$ over the 5DmkII. Looks like he's using a Microdolly or similar through some of it. Thanks for pointing it out!

Exactly. Especially with today's big wingsuits, this can easily happen. Rotating your head to look, even just the act of bringing your hands to your handles may well clear the PC of the burble.

Just to be clear, this is AVCHD that has been converted. No apple product can (nor ever will) provide AVCHD playback. Once converted, it's no longer AVCHD. Correct Spot, I guess I was referring to the playback feature in the "Log and Transfer" window, not actual native editing - which is the converted AIC. Sorry for the lack of clairty. Is the preview in "log and transfer" also a conversion of the .mts? Yes. This is a major rant of mine. Before Apple used Intel CPU, they had a legit reason to not decode GOP. Now...they have none. The chip already HAS the GOP/MPEG decoder BUILT IN!. It's like having a governor on a Maserati, IMO. It's just plain stupid, shortsighted, and it costs thousands of hours in futile conversion and file size increase with zero quality gain. They deliberately code lock this part of the CPU so they don't have to pay MPEG royalties on ingest. They do pay a royalty for Cinema and other MPEG decoders for DVD. One wonderment I have...With Apple potentially going back to HD DVD, it makes me wonder if they'll eventually allow fixed bitrate streams to be decoded. Rant over (for now).

There is a reason B roll exists in the first place; Provides a cut from subject shot Provides a means of continuing eye trace without losing the story Allows for extreme closups, extreme wides whatever, without negatively affecting story line continuity. Covers shooting FUBARs Furthers the story/provides visual support of statements. Audiences are virtually never aware of lighting, clouds, etc in b roll. Watch any show on A&E, Discovery, or similar. MUCH of that content is stock footage. Stock can also be used to demonstrate the passage of time, or display shots otherwise not achievable in the production shoot, ie; how can you shoot the underbelly during takeoff if you're in the plane? Audiences aren't for one second aware of how an altimeter is lit unless it's badly lit. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. What matters is what you're comfortable shooting for the edit. Those that shoot for the edit will generally output better, more consistent, and more watchable video than those that don't. As far as cutting in the "correct" pieces, you already do this. Every time you start/stop the camcorder, you you generate a new file. In other words, it's already cut up when you shoot for the edit. As mentioned earlier, its the technique that is used to cut tandem videos together in under two mins, complete with titles that contain the student's name, date, and a happy ending with their name, etc. Everyone has their own techniques and it's not for me to say anything "bad" about them. However, if you're a tandem op and speed is critical, there is simply no way, no how, that without using template based editing can you ever approach the speed and quality of a template-based system that has had some forethought put into the process. With 5-6 templates, consistency, speed, and quality of output are guaranteed, every time. The *only* way a videographer can screw up is to shoot soft/blurry, or miss a shot completely. Even then, the video can be saved through clever editing. But...shooting and editing are my schtick. I might not fly as well as many of the camera flyers here (and probably don't), but at the end of the day, the student doesn't give a shit about flying skill. They just wanna see one thing; Their experience re-lived as a story start to finish, that stars THEM. FWIW, we have a guy at the DZ that can outfly me upside down and backwards, with his eyes closed on Sunday. My videos are much better than his. Not only in my opinion, but in the opinions of our editors, DZO, and students that buy the videos. The guy that has it most right, IMO, is Mike McGowan. He understands what people want to see in their tandem videos. **disclaimer, this entire post relates to tandem vids, nothing else.

Just to be clear, this is AVCHD that has been converted. No apple product can (nor ever will) provide AVCHD playback. Once converted, it's no longer AVCHD.

Certainly no one would ever confuse me as a "professional." I don't know anything about eye trace or any of that important stuff. Frankly, broll matters very little in skydiving and most broadcast video. The story matters and Nothing else. Ever.

youtube doesn't do well with MPEG2 as the source. output to MPEG 4 instead. You'll have a better result.

*hopefully* the stock media has been shot with quality equal to the footage being shot on the DZ, I agree. Using the same/similar camera will assure this is done. For tight shots such as throttle, most bird-views, altimeters, no one (especially not the student) cares about the weather in the background. Tight shots are for transisitionals or cutaways and are just eye candy. to agree with your point, I've seen one DZ that is cutting VHS quality stock into their CX100-scquired footage, and it looks horrid.

log and transfer to Prores or AIC, does FCE offer Prores? I don't have Express, just Studio.

To what codec are you rendering that is being submitted to youtube? After a LOT of experimenting, we've found that full SD resolution MP4 @ 2Mbps or full SD resolution WMV files at 1.5 Mbps are best. We submit HD in MP4 only, at 1280 x 720, 10Mbps. Search for VASST on YouTube or vimeo to see the quality. Youtube squeezes it small, but they have very good encoders to Flash.

I'd give my left nostril to be a government dullard like you. The other title (book actually in process) "Better Off Dead;" A Book of Mormon Murder.

No, you can't. But for throttle shots, take offs, altimeters, out the window, aircraft rolling up, taking off from underbelly shot, and other riggied pieces, you can. Which is a HUGE part of using set it/forget it camera settings. It's pretty rare our TI's aren't setting down right in front of the vidiot, so we get the landings up close. But, that's another thread....;-)

There aren't lines on everything...I'm pretty sure that you're seeing inverted fields due to your conversion. There is nothing wrong with interlaced footage, roughly 99% of the content in the broadcast world is interlaced. If you shot progressive with the CX100 (if you could) it would look like shit for skydiving at 30p. You can deinterlace it with different tools, but the temporal value of progressive at 25/30p for most uses is terrible. Shoot interlaced at 1920, deinterlace to 1280, you'll be very happy if progressive delivery is your final destination. Many do this all the time. Use Log/import (you'll see this in the VASST DVD). Or use a better tool like Neo, or Revolver vs streamclip. Streamclip is good but offers too many options and opportunities to screw up. Me? I use log/import and convert to Prores. You'll want to use AIC (I don't think Prores is in FCE). Easiest way to get all codecs in FCE is to install QT Pro.

Been there several times, played at WOMAD there. AWESOME city, lots to see and do. It doesn't at all feel like a big city. Lots of gardens, happy populus, very liberal in general. Great beaches, lotsa music (say that twice). There is a reason they call it "Happy Valley" and it ain't for the same reason they call Provo, Utah by the same name (Provo is the capital of Prozac).

"Closer to Far Away" All my goals in life have seemed absurd and unreachable.

this is one example where stock footage is very helpful. It's also why we can assemble vids with custom titles in less than a minute and you can't. Cage looks great, cookie!

To which codec are you converting in MPEG Streamclip? Why are you even bothering with it? FCE can log/import on its own, and will do it properly. Everything you describe is a codec issue. I'd avoid using third party tools if you're not exactly clear on what you're doing. For instance, perhaps your MBP has all the necessary decoders installed but your desktop does not, thereby necessitating a render every time. No, the CX100 cannot shoot in Progressive mode, but none of the problems you're describing are related to interlace vs progressive scan modes.