DSE

I guess I'm not. We've learned that the majority of people when behind closed doors, will steal. It sucks that as a result, we have to take measures that help slow down that theft, which I believe stops *most* people from stealing, just like a small, cheapo lock will prevent most thieves looking for an easy grab. You're right...the thieves that *REALLY* want to break in, they're gonna get there. Hell, with that logic, let's abolish the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and Disneyland security, because regardless of what these guys do to prevent it, terrorists still get away with bombings. Bastards taking our tax $$ and not preventing anything....

OK,...by your logic, then Bill Gates should be arrested for placing unlock codes on his software, so should I. My small company manufactures very niched software for producers/broadcasters. Small market. We pay around 15,000.00 a year for our copyguard protection, and even with that, we've still found where our software has been pirated and downloaded several thousand times. So, put me in jail for tossing the cost of copyprotection on my software. Then put H. Lee Scott (CEO/Walmart) in jail for adding the cost of Sensormatic tags to products over $20.00, because you, I, and everyone else that shops at Walmart pays for those tags, as part of the price increases due to shrink. Then we should arrest/jail the president of BMW, for building in the cost of electronic locks and lowjack on the cars they build and sell. While we're at it, let's arrest anyone that makes any product in of those damn difficult to open plastic packages, because it hurts our teeth and fingers to open. It's difficult, because it helps slow shoplifters/thieves. Let's put Laszlo, Norman, Joe, Mike, Greg, and other great aerial photographers in jail because they upload high resolution images with watermarks. Damn them for doing so, I'd like to print those out and put one on my shelf, especially the ones that have me in them. Hell, while we're at it, let's put bankers in jail for putting our money in a big-ass safe too, because it makes it damn hard to get to our money 24/7. Can you BELIEVE THE GALL of all these assholes?? They make it so hard for us to take what they've worked hard to create. Dammit, I breathe, and therefore I'm entitled to everything I want in this world for free. I was really pissed when I wasn't allowed to use my HDV camera in the theater last week when I was watching a movie, and it really chapped my ass when I was prevented from shooting the play "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" last night. Christ, I PAID $75.00 for my seat, I think I'm entitled to videotape the performance, don't you?

if you look at your tests for your C license, Coach license, AFF, and (I believe) tandem rating, they're all open book as outlined in the IRM and SIM. Might be dumb, but that's how the USPA set it up.

When software that might make fair use possible is illegal and the author branded a criminal and the code illegal to print on a T-shirt is every high school teacher supposed to reverse engineer content scrambling themselves? Perhaps we should mail Sony our DVD along with a grovelling letter to ask that they allow us to exercise our rights whenever we encounter a fair use scenario. Wrong, wrong, and wrong....If you follow the link I which was provided to Kallend's response, you'll see exactly how recent changes in the law have made it very much a legal endeavor to circumvent DRM for certain purposes. It's spelled out in plain English, not legalese. You ask if one can buy a computer "unemcumbered by DRM costs." No, you can't. And you can't buy a candy bar or pair of jeans that are "unencumbered with shoplifting/shrink costs" either. Shrink/theft is a huge consideration in ALL costs for everyone that owns a business regardless of what it is. The difference is, if you steal a pair of jeans from the store, you only have one pair of jeans. If you steal content from a DVD or CD, you now have dozens, hundreds, thousands, incalculable copies out in cyberspace that once released, can never, ever be recalled. It's Pandora's Box, and once opened, you can never get the content back in the box. C'mon...we've had PM's, I know you're smarter than your post positions make you sound on this subject. Would you buy a house or car with no locks? Why not? Aren't you interested in protecting that which you have worked hard to earn? When you create a piece of music, dance, sculpture, video, film, literature, painting, whatever...that you'd like to put into the public for their enjoyment, please come back and let us know how concerned you are that someone has stolen your piece of music, dance, sculpture, video, film, literature, painting, whatever. Just yesterday, watched a well known skydiver freak out because he found his photo work on a website about skydiving. Look at how most skydiving pro photographers protect themselves, they watermark their images. Why? Because they value their work and want people to pay for that quality of work. If nothing else, this thread shows that no one else does.

Conscience is what drove me to post. Not out to "get the other guy" but wanting a reality check for myself. The instructor was as surprised as anyone that the open book option was relegated to a "I have all the answers on a sheet, I don't need to read the questions." I don't know what the instructor will do; we've still got the aerial work to do since weather busted us on Sunday. For me, my self-respect wouldn't allow me to have taken the test without reading the questions and knowing the material. I suppose I'm an idealist.

Some of the ratings tests are open book. 10 people in a class. Friday night, instructors cover all questions on the test. Everyone takes notes. Saturday afternoon, time to take test. One guy finishes the test in less than 5 mins, and gets a perfect score. He never cracked the IRM. Didn't have an IRM even close to him in the room. Turns out that during the pretest review of the questions on Friday, he wrote down the categorical answers ie; 1-A, 2-D, 3-B. When questioned about how he took the test, he shrugs and says "It was open book, and the answers were in my notes." Everyone else took at least 20 mins, some took 30 to complete the test, and he received the only 100% in the room. Everyone else ranged in the low to upper 90% Sunday, he struggles with the orals. Does he deserve the rating or not? Is this ethical in your mind?

No, DMR doesn't preclude you from ripping content/bypassing DMR for purposes of use in the classroom. 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1) specifically allows you to do so. Specifically check out paragraph one.

It's not an "old altitude question" but rather a question of "how long til altitude causes the drive to fail?" I regularly jump a microdrive, have perhaps 150 jumps, and know it's going to die soon (We exit at around 17,000 MSL). It's air pressure, and so far as I know, air pressure at altitude hasn't gotten any greater in the past couple of years. If you're going to the Sony store, you'll never see one of their professional products, all of which have LANC. Most of the consumer products do still but LANC (Local Application Control Bus) is heavily used in photography and videography, and is currently the only way to sync multiple low-cost cameras together for things like stereophotography, pan head/zoom/focus control, etc. Consumers don't need that stuff. The consumer cams have never carried LANC across the board, only the better/higher end products. Sad the moron at the store told you the LANC had anything to do with frame accurate editing. Good that you knew he was a moron.

Sony is only "abandoning" LANC ports in cheaper consumer models. All camcorder manufacturers are moving away from tape. Tape is effectively dead, everyone wants flash, DVD, or HDD-based cams if they're using small sizes, and tape is on the wane in the high-end market as well. It's a dying commodity, and will be gone (in the broad sense) in 3-5 years. If you're looking for a camera right now, then you'll likely want HD, and you'll likely want small profile if it's to be used for both skydiving and family events. If you can wait for 2 months, the Sony CX7 is the next best great thing, and if you need one right now, I'd look at the HC5/7. They use tape, but personally, I'm not a monster fan of AVCHD. It's acceptable, but a serious pain to edit *right now* but that'll change in a few months as faster procs come on line.

I guess I just don't fly nearly as aggressively as you guys do.... For the belly/back shots I'm taking (as well as a couple guys on the DZ) not having issues here. Optical isn't as good as Electronic in consistently shaken environments, no doubt. Electronic is softer and less saturated due to DSP, which is why it's generally less preferable.

I'm pissed. I stayed up late waiting for the End. it's not on the news, either, so it's not just a local thing. Son-of-a-bitch. I hate it when people get my hopes up.

I guess I'd fail an open book on that one. Just spent the past 20 mins searching the PDF of the SIM. They don't use the term "AAD" in section K, only "automatic activation device." Strange that the book uses unique nomenclature in different sections. thanks for the correction, I thought students were required to use AAD as well, but then searching the SIM I'd convinced myself I was wrong.

Wrong. Derek SIM Section 5: 1-3 AAD only a "strongly recommended option. RSL's are only "recommended" but not required. Should be noted, the FAA does not approve AADs, they merely approve the installation submitted with TSO paperwork. In other words, neither the USPA nor the FAA require AAD's.

in terms of their experience, look at the D numbers; mostly very low. Frankly, swooper, non-swooper, current, non-current, it takes a group like these guys to get *something* initiated. We can't know if it's the wrong thing til it's had some time to be experienced and fine-tuned. Gotta applaud this team for making the effort, and hopefully this forum (small representation of skydivers) and the others that I'm confident are providing feedback outside of this community that Bill et al can use to strengthen/improve whatever foundation they are laying with this recommendation.

Gotcha. Comment about shrinking conservative bungholes=permission to twist words. WETA=isn't representative of PBS (Actually that's fairly inaccurate). Just to put this in a slightly different perspective; Starting tonight on PBS, a film called "The Mormons" will begin airing. The filmmaker wanted the film to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Mormon history. Ooops....LDS church is a major contributor to neo conservative groups, and given that they are the third largest media corporation in the world, they were able to get the film toned down so as to not offend Mormons. Comment from Chris Vanocur, lifetime Utah resident and political reporter (paraphrased) "this isn't fair, nor unbiased, as it doesn't explore the past history deeply enough to comment on the current history." Mitt Romney, presidential hopeful, is featured for approximately 3 mins in the four hour film. PBS withholds portions of funding until the film comes into line with certain parameters of governance that are more or less within balanced guidelines. Each regional "representative" of PBS will control whatever they will control, within boundaries.

Was there some cause for you to take the above comment as a negative suggestion? It's a movie. The content is uplifting, evocative, thought-provoking, political, and incredibly cinematic. Using subject matter relevant to all life everywhere, the film points out certain changes in the world, some environmental, others evolutionary, and still yet others that are a combination. I would submit *anyone* who sees the film would be more introspective if they're capable of rational thought. That can be said about most any PBS project. Most rational Americans know PBS has no political bias/agenda outside of bringing fair, balanced content to viewers. If you perceive my comment as negative, then don't watch the film. Or do. Whatever. Enjoy.

I didn't say the film "leans in the same way as the people at PBS." It doesn't matter much what gets said, their words will be turned by the twisted to fit an agenda. I recall you and I went down that road once before. Go watch the film. You'll be a better person for it.

Skysprite is *much* more nicer to look at than Molly Ringwald.

You might have a heyday with all the predator arrests in Utah, the broad majority of which have been some form of leadership in the Mormon church. Boy Scout leaders, Primary teachers, Stake Presidents (a stake is like a parish) bishops (Mormons call their local "priests" 'bishops' even though they're lay community members without any sort of ecclesiastical nor social training. Their "priests" are actually 16 year old boys) and more highly ranking members of the Mormon leadership. One guy was nailed having sex with a teenage boy in a bondage swing. The deviant owns a chain of Mormon bookstores. In other words, it's *all* religions hiding their deviants inside their cloistered world of secrecy. Utah currently leads the nation per capita on child molestation and child porn convictions. As an interesting aside, one of the leading candidates for president (Mitt Romney) is a Mormon. Utahn's generally believe that this sort of topic should be kept in the local religious quarters, not publicized. The general population seems to feel these matters are best managed at the ecclesiastical level.

Kinda wondered if anyone was gonna pick up on that.

no, you can't get the plug for older versions of Vegas, just as when Premiere Pro ships with AVCHD ability, and same for Pinnacle and Apple, you'll need the latest/greatest. AVCHD is very complex, and very deep in the code, apparently, so isn't retrofittable as an "easy" task. At least that's what two different developers have said. I'm not much of a code warrior outside of VB stuff, so I'll take em' at their word.

Anyone got one, how do you land it? How do you route the cutaway? Flying mine yesterday, I always have butt-slid it in so I'm not trying to run with a cam on my foot. One of the "veterans" commented that I was managing it all wrong. OK, I'm all ears. His next comment was that I needed to learn it on my own. I'm still all ears (and eyes) if there is a better way to land a shoe-mounted camera. I'm currently running the cutaway up my jumpsuit pant leg, where it comes out and hitches to my legstrap via a large caribiner. There is a swivel in the middle of the cutaway, so it bends properly around my knee. I'm not worried about the safety aspects much, it works great on the ground. But I do wonder if there is a better method of landing with this. Biggest cam I've had on it is the HC7.

yes. As of Tuesday, you'll be able to edit AVCHD on the same timeline as HDV, DV, XDCAM, mp4, MPEG2, uncompressed, 4:4:4 SR, 4:2:2 YUV, etc. In other words...May 1st is the release of the new 7e. It has a free AVCHD plug that allows for editing of AVCHD. I'll post some footage as soon as the new release is available.

I'd agree. Having a film that has been airing on PBS for the past month (Lost Landscapes, scored it, didn't produce it) I'd tend to suggest it's about the content, not a liberal nor conservative bias. There is a significant amount of dialog that takes place between a producer/director and PBS during the process of producing the film. There is simply no way, no way at all, that the director can get even close to a point of being completed on a film for PBS, where he's not aware of concerns in advance. Since PBS funds it, they have very rigid guidelines about content. BTW, the film that we've had on the air this past month would mak most conservatives bunghole shrink. It's got a lot about how big business has killed the landscape of America with pesticides, poor farming practices...nothing conservative friendly in this project. but it aired. And was reviewed several times in advance during the production and editing processes by PBS, which is very standard. They have the most stringent broadcast submission rules of any network I've ever worked with, but they're also exceptionally professional and thorough. In other words, I'm not buying the story, but do agree that giving into extremists is a potential cause for their position.

How HDV works HDV 1080 is 1440 x 1080 on tape, 1.333 aspect ratio. Color sample is 4:2:0, but it's not the same sample space as PAL DV is. The format can either be interlaced or progressive in either frame resolution. The recorded resolution is barely related to the output resolution. Different manufacturers screw with it in different ways. Canon and Sony have various sizes of sensors, but the on-tape resolution is ALWAYS 1440 x 1080. The *display* resolution is ALWAYS 1920 x 1080. Panasonic HVX has a sensor that is 960 x 540 (horizontally smaller than a PAL Standard Def camera), records a frame resolution of 960 x 720, and a display resolution of 1280 x 720. The sensor size doesn't change, but the recorded resolution of 1080 content on the HVX is 1280 x 1080, still from the same 960 x 540 imager. This is why the HVX footage is soft/noisy; it's being upsampled both vertically and horizontally. This messes with the color sample as well, because it's information-starved, resulting in significantly less than a 4:2:2 color sample. HV20 is a true 1920 imager, but still records a 1440 x 1080 image to tape. Only the larger JVC HD 100/200 series camcorders record a full-raster image to tape, ie; 1280 x 720 imager with 1280 x 720 going to tape. Imager size is somewhat important, recorded resolution exceptionally important. Recorded frame resolution is referred to as "spatial" resolution. Frame rate is referred to as "temporal" resolution. Both add up to still image quality. You can get reasonable image quality for small prints or web use when pulling stills from a vid camera, and the new vid cameras have colorspace conversion for the still images sent to the memstick, but the quality is *still* coming from a very small imager (some are as small as 1/6th) that are attempting to produce HD imagery in such a small space. Don't expect much. Stills from even the largest format camcorders still aren't all that great compared to even a cheap cybershot. Edited to fix clicky