DSE

An oldie but a goodie. However, Ben Nighthorse-Campbell has said that Churchill's name is on the roles. What that means could be many things or nothing. Name being on the role means he's got a pedigree. Here's one for you... Lakotah tribe says "5/8 Lakotah for enrollment card." Southern Utes say "5/8 Ute for enrollment card." Lakotah and Southern Ute have a child. What tribe is the child? Churchill's issues are far deeper than his heritage, culture, ethnology. They are merely the anchors to which the ropes he'll be hanged with are tied.

Miami likely has it right; Backlight feature enabled. Or...one of the profile modes enabled. Either one could cause it. Another potential is that it was set for manual exposure and exposure set in the aircraft, and locked, so in freefall it would overexpose.

this one records the break point I assume it works as well. A local rigger borrowed mine for a few weeks, and then left it in my cabinet before moving away.

*most* of the Sony/Canon cams that use tape offer LANC, only a few cams don't. With AVCHD coming on hard, that'll change, as LANC isn't required as part of the licensing of the mechanism.

So, if I replace my stainless three-ring with beryllium rings, would I have a faster freefall? Or would it just lengthen my swoop?

I hear a Tammy Wynette song coming on...' D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Skydiving kills marriages and bank accounts pretty damn fast. Get him in the air FAST.

Another thing to really watch closely is changes in altitude within 24 hours of certain types of Solar Flares. Solar flares are typically classified as A, B, C, M or X, depending upon the degree of their peak flux. Most solar flares occur in or around sun spots as the result of intense magnetic fields emerging from the Sun’s surface into the corona. The powerful energy commonly associated with solar flares can take as long as several days to build up, but only minutes to release. It is when our planet gets blasted with tons of hot ionized plasma called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). This can actually create a flux in the warpage that the Earth produces in the space time continuum and can affect freefall times as much as 9.7%, making it seem like you will have more altitude after so many seconds in freefall as you are accustomed to, but since you are actually loosing altitude faster it is ultra important to pay close attention to altitude. Some will tell you that this is all a load of dingo’s kidneys, but it is true and something to consider after coronal activity. I've noticed that the higher the sun is in the sky, the faster the freefall. Is this due to solar flares? I figured that since the sun is further away from my particular relationship to the earth around noon-1 o'clock, that my freefalls were shorter due to the greater radiated heat, and therefore thinner air, but with your theory above, I could be wrong. Also, I've noticed my canopy flares differently during these periods. Are they related?

Michael, I'm a consultant to Sony and Canon. I'm very familiar with the lens designs that Peter Gloeggler and Jeff Cree created for the entire HD series of camcorders for Sony and Thomas Markham's designs for Canon. Matching HD glass to 1/6 to 1/2 chips is essentially rocket science. Peter's white paper on the subject is more than 200 pages, available from NAB for $150.00 if you care to purchase/read it. "A quality lens should project the image on the surface of the chip, nothing more" is very easy to say, but not easy to do. Especially in HD and forthcoming UXHD resolutions. Chromatic abberation? Barrel distortion? Timing? Surface polish? Granular distortion? Grading scale? These are all major issues. If manufacturing lenses alone were so easy, why are there only essentially three manufacturers in the entire world (referring to quality glass, not crap Tokina-type stuff)? Fuji, Konica/Minolta (now Sony) and Canon drive the market. There are small boutique companies such as Nikon (OEMs glass from other sources), Cooke (Uses Nikon in cheap lenses, and custom glass in higher grade) Angenieux (very high end, hand assembled, custom grade glass) and a few others. Again, if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it themselves. Sony sells a huge percentage of imagers, but their OEM offerings don't account for what they put in their own camcorders. Canon buys their HD CCD's from Sony, and their CMOS come from a couple different sources including themselves and Sony. JVC is allegedly buying from Agilent, Panasonic is very quiet about whose they use for larger imagers, but they are well known for their small imagsrs. I suspect based on tests, that Panasonic is relabelling Agilent sensors in their HD products. Canon owns their own chip plant for high end cams, so does JVC, but theirs are for their low-end cams. In other words, yes....the big companies do all make their own chips in various product lines. If not, then they OEM them from each other. Check out the Imaging Devices paviliion at NAB sometime; you'll see how incestuous that world really is. Omnivision builds some very fun sensor test boards that allow you to work with various sensors and test their actual resolution and sensitivity without DSP, but the biggest they make is an SXGA, so haven't been able to tear into some of the newer models. Needless to say...I've built several "decent" cameras, mostly of the Radio Shack quality level. What one person defines as good imagery vs another is entirely subjective, I guess. My cellphone takes amazing video for a 1/8 imager and plastic lens, delivering at small resolutions and high compressions. I could probably build an SD camcorder equal in quality to crappy DV cams out there, and have pride of DIY in it...and it's a great story. But not a prayer could I build something of the quality of say a PC109, or any of the AVCHD or HDV offerings, not even by being within say....500% of the cost of one of these small cams. And that's before storage. How are you going to store the content? Tape? HDD? Memstick? CF? SDHD? What codec? AVCHD (that's an expensive licence/SDK)? HDV (Has to be tape)? MPEG4 ('nother expensive license)? MJPEG (Cheap license, but monster file size/datarate)? J2K? ('Nother very expensive license and no decode support at this time)? It's not just glass and imager. That's a very important set of components, but it's simply not that easy, and no major camcorder manufacturer is buying "off the shelf" anything. Now...if you're happy with those video cameras you can buy at Walmart with Barbie on them...sure....you can build your own, and be very proud of that. All that said, an Altimeter overlay is very cool idea in-camera, but that's also very easy to output from JumpTrack software if that's what you need. I used to do this for tandem vids. Still do for special vids. But having as an in-camera overlay would be sweet. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Sorry for the long post. I tend to ramble when it comes to this particular subject.

I didn't sit with the CX I had, but it was a preproduction model anyway. FedEx claims my "shipping model" will arrive here Friday, so I'll be able to test it on Sat. This one has no bars on what I can/can't say about it, because it's a production model provided by Sony, not a magazine. I'll post footage as soon as I can.

None of the gloves (that I own anyway) are made for the form factor of a CX7 or any of the other AVCHD camcorders (all of which are similar form factors of short/wide). The guys at Ozonefly had indicated they'd be building a glove that managed these cams, but the one I got, although it's very flexible in the camera tray, won't come close to holding a CX7.

Hmm...lessee... Video is MPEG 4, not even AVCHD/MPEG4 pt 10, at less than 9Mbps. Macroblocking and noise are a huge issue. http://xacticlips.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2007/03/dmxhd2_ef28.html has clips that you can download to see for yourself. There are also clips on the VASST website and the DVInfo.net website. MPEG 4 isn't an easily edited format, many NLE's don't directly support it, so an HDI is required. If you've got that kind of time for editing video...go for it. Except the quality is poor, so you're spending a lot of time for a poor final master. Then there is the form factor. It cannot be top-mounted, and the only way we could side mount it during testing, was to use industrial velcro and gaffers tape. You could modify your L-bracket to make it fit, if you're willing to have your L-bracket pointing downwards vs at a straight angle. For about the same cost, you could end up with a Panny SD1 or for a bit more, the Sony CX7, or an HC5. That's what I really think.

Just call the tunnel at the phone number posted earlier. He's usually found there. It's true, they don't answer their phone sometimes, and once in a while it's pretty crazy there, but it's a good crew, good tunnel (even though it's a bit small) and they're easily located.

For me, this was a learning thread. Caused me to look back at my own posts along with Ted's. Got me to thinking a bit about my own progression. However, the silliness in this thread has also caused me to realize that ignorance may be genetic. Dunno about anyone else, but the PM's on the subject have become an irritant.

Other than the fact that the video is horrible, can't be easily edited, and it doesn't work with a top or side mount helmet, it's not a bad choice.

I was about to say the same thing. One thing that holds invariably true; folks that predict these sorts of events turn out to be correct, eventually. Having lost a child myself (I realize Ted is your nephew), I understand the anger that comes from the loss. If you read each of Ted's posts in this community, you'll see that he wanted to teach as well as learn, as well as sometimes not listen. I can imagine the responses he'd be making to you if you weren't a relative, posting about someone else' situation. "Honoring" Ted by insulting those that would like to learn from his mistake doesn't seem to be honoring him, but rather causing negative feelings in yourself and others. Ted is gone. He's gone because he made a mistake. A tragic one. Compounding that tragedy by insulting and threatening those that tried to save his life (literally) doesn't benefit anyone, least of all Ted's memory. Perhaps a poor choice of words was used in the memory of how Ted left; it's understandable that you'd take offense. This thread, and particularly the threads in which Ted indicated his virtual invulnerability have caused me to step back and take a second, third, and fourth look at my own skills; I have about the same number of jumps as he did, but I'm not flying nearly as aggressively. "Legislating" skydiving is simply a stupid thing to threaten. More people are killed on the golf course every year, far more are killed in equestrian activities, and in those activities, one doesn't sign a waiver that says "You'll die in in pursuit of this sport." Ted seemed to be about freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom to experience life. Restricting those freedoms is something he'd clearly be opposed to. I'd submit that you'd do better honoring him by recognizing this. And understand while this subject is deeply, indelibly personal for you, for most of us, it is not. If even one post in this or other threads saves a life or prevents an injury, Ted would likely applaud it, as he did on many other occasions here on DZ.com. I'm sorry for your loss, but please appreciate our viewpoint in trying to learn from your loss.

You come back and tell us. For me...it's flying, freedom, fun, release, excitement, joy. For you, it may be different. Your instructor will help with all of that. One suggestion; don't grab any handles he/she doesn't want you do grab. Rather than worry about anything else, plan on having fun, meeting new people, and experiencing one of the most satisfying emotions you'll ever know.

This was not a side spin This was an uncontrollable turn by an out of control instructor. I swear tandem ratings must come in cereal boxes Not a TM/TI, but always wanting to understand more about flying. Could you provide some specifics as to what the TM was doing wrong? I can see poor leg positioning, I can see problems with his hand position, but don't understand why arms didn't come up or legs didn't wrap or move to the correct position. Any additional information would be helpful/appreciated.

Your first comment isn't accurate. Sony for example, does not purchase ClearVid from anyone. They manufacture them. They don't sell them OEM yet either. One cannot buy these imagers. Lenses found on Sony higher end/HDV, Panasonic AVCHD are designed specifically for the chips they are mated/matched with. Canon is the same, and while I'm not certain, I'd be comfortable in suggesting JVC is the same. Next, why altimeter in camera? Why would you want your camera turning on/off without your input? Not to mention the delay/latency that it would most certainly have. Or do you mean an in-camera, burned in alti to match altitude with what is being seen in through the lens?

"good" is subjective.

Mississippi Mud is a great black & tan. Our local liquor store can order it, takes 2 weeks to get it. Relatively expensive at 3.00 a bottle.

SR1, SR3, UX1 cannot be used for skydiving as they're HDD or DVD-based storage. CX7 is great if you don't mind missing LANC and dealing with the hassle of converting AVCHD to a reasonable format for editing. If the camcorder is static/RAM based memory or tape, it can be used for skydiving. Otherwise, it cannot. No one is building boxes for these camcorders yet, and it may be a while before they do, as the manufacturers settle into a common housing design.

No one makes a wrist camglove that *easily* holds an HDV camcorder. When I got the Ozone (review on DMN soon), it was the only big disappointment. I've modified it somewhat to hold an HC5, but it's still clunky and inelegant. Throw a .0175 or .25 lens on there though...makes for very big pix on your wrist.

I like my way of telling it better. I'd forgotten about Filemon, thanks for the refresh

Picture this: Antivirus wants to look at every bit/byte of information coming in/going out/being generated by your computer. So... You have a TSA officer sitting inside your computer. Guy walks by, TSA checks his ID. Guy walks by the other way, TSA checks his ID. Guy walks by with his tools, TSA checks his ID. Guy builds a sawhorse with his tools, TSA checks his ID and the ID of the sawhorse. Now multiply that scenario with thousands or millions of guys walking by that same TSA guy, but it's still just one TSA guy. That's antivirus. It slows down the video editing (and any other large function process) to the point of being virtually unusable. FWIW, with nearly 30 active machines in our facility, maybe 2 of them have antivirus installed/operable. They are all turned on full time, all can access the 'net, no problems. I'm a much better antivirus than Norton could ever be.

That'll be plenty for both day to day and editing. Once you have the computer in hand, you'll quickly find what apps you don't need. Crap like the mood generator, more than one accounting tool, etc. Personally, I'm not a fan of anti-virus, but unless you're very diligent and careful about where you go, you'll probably want it active. Antivirus and video editing don't go hand in hand at all.