DSE

I am just guessing that 24 hours of daylight might make things easier. Who knows? Maybe Jay jumps faster in the dark...... Believe it or not, he did. Ground-to-ground time actually decreased; his fastest turnaround was 1:54 and that was in the dark. However...bear in mind the a/c can climb faster in the much colder air. At his peak in the dark, he did 30 jumps an hour, or 1 jump every 2 mins. During the daylight hours, he averaged 27 jumps an hour if I remember correctly.

At the press conference, Jay said that the PAC 750 made the biggest difference of all, plus the organization of the ground crew. The PAC was simply fast. Hopefully Jay will chime in here as well, but believe it or not, he was doing tandems the next day.

No one has one, it's not shipping. I had a review preproduction model last week in Las Vegas, it's an impressive lil' cam, that will probably do well in the skydiving world. It's not as good a picture as the HC3 for fast motion, but it takes significantly better stills. Has a better form factor for skydivers than the HC3, that's a given.

Slug, we had hyper lenses and light sensitivity that Sony thoughtfully provided for 2 camcorders in HD format. Very kind of Sony Broadcast. Jay wasn't wearing Chemlites, but rather had a battery powered light that blinked on his ankles. When the power failed, the catchers wore them on their biceps so they could direct his landing. I know a lot of people here do night jumps, but imagine a night jump with no light at all on the landing area. Jay had two jumps like that when the generator failed. Lights to the north and south of the field were on, but no lights directly on the field til a truck could be brought around. I'd guess you're pretty close on those freefall times; Jay had about a 1-1.5 second delay, so that would be about 10-15 mins of freefall.

Be sure your mem stick is firmly seated.

HDV offers the same recording length of time. it's the same bitrate as DV, only is a different file format. DV=13GB per hour, HDV is approx 13GB per hour in the 1080 format.

Actually, the rings were tacked to the webbing. I have a unique clip of Li Bang pushing the needle through his shorts while doing some rig repair. Several of the rigs required re-tacking during the event. Zing, it was a great pleasure to meet you, fly with you, and hang out at the fire with you for a bit. Thanks for the vid loads, and for realizing I was about to fly out on one of those steep dives during the video loads. Between Norman Kent, Brett, Gino, Amanda, Snoopy, timelapse/intervalometer and myself, we had 6 cameras rolling at one time on the last jumps, and at least one rolling during the entire event, so it's fairly deeply documented. We'll have a DVD of the event available once we've gotten through all 44 hours of tape and hard drive footage. The media was there in droves, along with the crowd of on-lookers. ESPN, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, FOX all covered the event. It was a huge story, and a positive story for skydiving. Everyone benefits from Jay's tireless effort, not to mention the two charities. If you'd like to show your support for Jay's hard work and well-won goal, you can donate here 641 pennies=$6.41 641 nickels=$32.05 641 dimes=$64.10 641 quarters=160.25

The new Sony FX 7 was announced at IBC yesterday in case you haven't heard. It's a 3CMOS chip camcorder, with some sweet features. Slightly smaller than the FX1, slightly larger than the HC1, with a full 1920 x 1080 resolution imager, 4:2:2 internal image processing at 14 bits, and has HDMI output among other things. It's not shipping yet, and due to NDA, can't say more than what's in the press release. However, it was used at the Jay Stokes 600 Jumps event, and performed wonderfully. It's a tad large for some sorts of aerial photography, but perfect for those that need high quality images.

Did you know that Jim Jannard is a skydiver? RED is very exciting, the RED team moderate forums on DVInfo.net and have shared some really great info. There are still some questions about the viability of the camera, but it's very exciting, and will definitely change the industry if it comes out as strong as its marketing has suggested.

For purposes of discussion, Jay had an off-airport landing this morning that is not part of the official count. He left the aircraft and landed 641 times, but jump 599, he landed on State Route 3. He flagged down a farmer, and the farmer loaded Jay onto his truck and drove him to the dropzone. It cost 9:21 in time, and he was back in the air. Jay's first words when he walked in the front door of the DZ were, "Could you guys pack this?" and handed his rig off to a packer. Then he apologized for scaring everyone by having us think he'd landed in a monstrous, taller-than human cornfield. Then he jumped on the a/c again and continued to inspire and impress everyone there by going for 42 more jumps. Team Fastrax finished out the morning by presenting a beautiful closing, just before the American flag was flown into the landing area. Hundreds of people attended the event, and tears were in the eyes of many in the crowd as Jay finished and the flag flew. Thank you Jay, for allowing me and my crew to be a part of this monumental event.

4:39 a.m. Jump#526 has just been put to bed. Jay has jumped his D license in just under 21 hours. Condensation is heavy, thankfully, as it means he can slide/surf his landings instead of having to run them out, providing a minimal effort by comparison. Spirits are high. When he crossed 500 and we told him where he was, he grinned, gave us a thumbs up, and said "Been there before..." and jumped on the plane. With the cooler air, the Porter is rockin as well. Campfire going, there are a few (very few) spectators who have stayed out all night. Four and a half hours, he'll be well over 600 jumps. Be sure to keep checking the blog as well, but I'm sure there are some DZ.commers that are following it a bit here. Go Jay! BTW, let him know you support him by pledging to the Special Forces and Special Olympics.

4:15: Jay qualified for his C license about 30 minutes ago: Bob Dougherty handed him a license examination to complete on the ride up. Jay hasn't handed it back yet. Jay also just completed a skydive whereon he carried a US flag that had been brought back from Iraq by a Marine, said flag to be returned to it's unit of origin. Jay is in good spirits, laughing at the license exam as handed to him, and very funny when he has landings that take him beyond his normal landing point. Norman Kent is here, grabbing gorgeous pictures whereever they are to be found. Packers for the midnight shift are badly needed.

2:15, 170+ jumps, rockin' on and kickin' butt. The PAC is screamin' him to 2.1K, the team is functioning like a well-oiled machine, and Jay's spirits are high in the 1 second he has to utter a couple words. Everyone here is high on the moment, and if attitude of the team and spectators matters to stamina, Jay will absolutely make and break his goal.

Jay Stokes 600 jumps is underway, and you should soon be able to see some streaming vid on the SkydiveGreensburg.com website. The man is scary, doing 50 "practice" jumps last night, plus a bunch of media/video jumps after that. It's beautiful watching him land, then run, jump into a new rig, and be in the a/c before his previously jumped main hits the ground. The packing machine is in motion, keeping all 25 rigs ready to go. If you can be here, you should be. Subject Line edited by slotperfect. I narrowed the conversations about this feat down to one thread in this forum - I changed the subject line to be as clear as possible about the content. Cheers!

you can't remember them because they don't inhibit the story. Quade's advice, and advice from everyone else is spot-on. We're used to seeing not more than four types of transitions in vid/film overall, and a big part of that is because the old switchers don't have more than four built in. jump cuts, dissolves, crossfades, and wipes. We edit 24/7, and other than L or J cut dissolves or butt-cuts, it's rare anything else creeps into the mix. Occasionally titles will be flashy, but that's as they should be. Read Murch, Rodriguez, and Zalman on transitions (or read my editing basics book from College of DuPage) and you'll get a grasp on why transitions that are distracting destroy stories of every kind. Spinning cubes are fun for the late night :30 used car spot, but for real work? Nah...listen to what you're hearing here. If you're in the NYC area in November, I'm doing the NAB East broadcast/Post Plus show. I'd be happy to get you free tix to some of the conferences. One of them is editing for powerful storylines.

You're f$#@!' kidding, right? I've got nearly 200 jumps with the guy you're talking about, he's an exceptionally good person. Fill out your profile, let people know who you are, and maybe, just maybe, you'll have half an ounce of credibility. We have several veterans that skydive with him regularly from all military branches, we have currently enlisted Marines that jump with him from as a skydiver, and that have taken paragliding classes from him. Just because he's from a particular region of the world doesn't give you any reason to "be concerned." And if you believe he was a soldier that fought against the US...well...think about where he is living now, and has lived for a long while. I'd be more concerned about you coming on DZ.com and raising an issue whereas you could simply have a discussion with the guy. He's very open and easy to talk to. He's friendly to everyone that I've ever seen him around. And I see him on a near-daily basis. He's a straight-up guy. I'll jump with him every day of the week (and often do). "looks wild and mean?" and maybe you saw him on the one or two days he's brought his hawk to the DZ all year? Or did you just see the photo of him that I posted on the DZwebsite? Go to the skydiveutah.com website video page and see your "terrorist/republican guard" guy teaching base jumps. You can see the "wildness" in his eyes as he humbly helps people get their first BASE jumps accomplished. Better yet, just talk to the man. Have the courage to ask him/tell him your concerns. That's the right way to discuss this, not coming anonymously to DZ.com and posting about him expecting answers of value from people who have never met him. If you're a soldier, I'd hope that means you're a person of courage and honor. He certainly is.

You would be correct. I've yet to see a boogie DVD that has licensed music on it. That said, all the "big name" productions from Pier and similar, all are licensed, or using Music Bakery or similar music. (royalty free) They know better than to risk their business and assets on using illegal music. Look...no one is going to jail over this. It's wrong, it's worse than speeding, but it happens. I don't care for it, I wish folks wouldn't do it. But until our industry polices itself...

Hey AirtimeBabe, I personally witnessed you stand up your landings today, and it was awesome to watch your victory "dance" of jumping up and down when you succeeded. It's nice watching you go from dustcloud landings to standing em' all up (that I saw, anyway)! BTW, that last landing I saw you make was a zero-wind landing, and standing a zero wind landing is tough at your jump level. Congrats!

Additionally, there is usually a mechanical/compulsory on top of the above mentioned licenses, this will vary depending on ownership of the master and administration rights of the publisher. Windham Hill owns my master rights, but 5Finger Music owns my mechanical and Sync rights for film/television. It varies. If you're interested, this article explains the basics pretty well in laymans terms, and provides information on learning how to find out who holds copyright on songs. As far as sites like Skydivingmovies.com, they are liable. They've got their necks stuck way out, and eventually, it'll likely get chopped off, but at the moment, the RIAA and their team has much bigger fish to fry. EVERY party to illegal use is liable. The people that edit the video for upload, and Skydivingmovies.com or any other site is liable. Many ISP's try to sign away liability, but recent judgements have demonstrated that they can't claim ignorance. With products like Sony Cinescore, SonicFire Pro, free music tracks, sites like Stock20, etc...there is no real reason to use illegal music. This is a huge problem in the wedding industry; but those vids aren't nearly as accessible as skydiving movies. Be cautious, you'd be surprised at the technology that's available to copyright violation hunters these days. One avenue you can turn to; get direct (in writing) permission from the band and publisher to use their music. If the publisher grants permission, and they likely would for a skydiving video that is for fun and not making revenue, then you are welcome to use that piece. I know of one instance for certain where Dave Mustaine ordered his publisher to allow a Utah skydiver to use music from Megadeth for a publically shown, non-revenue generating video project on skydiving. But...Mustaine is a skydiver. Bear in mind FWIW, copyright violation is now a criminal act as well as a civil act. Either way, permission is much cheaper than forgiveness on this topic.

Zing, looking forward to meeting you. I'll be there, cameras in tow, documenting the event for Jay. As said before, Jay is the machine to keep up with, not the a/c. That guy is a dynamo.

Amen to that. Due to shifting winds and being a 200 jump wonder=idiot, I ended up landing on the asphalt just in front of the loft a few weeks back. I knew I'd need to flare a little deeper on landing, but the combination of heat on the asphalt (it was around 98degrees), my added flare, and slightly earlier flare caused me to rise up about 3' on what would have been a perfect dirt landing. There was a lot of wind around the loft building that isn't present in the LZ. Definitely was a moment of "O sh**..." I let up on the toggles a bit for a blink, then continued my flare and landed softly, smoothly, toggles at my waist, no horizontal glide, and DZ manager kicking my butt for not making the LZ area 50 yards further north. Not the same as a demo, but if a newb like me can make it in strange winds, I'm sure a 1K pro like yourself can manage quite nicely. Mine was 80% luck, 20% experience. BTW, I'm loaded 1:1

There is coming, a tool that will allow it. You might want to contact Gard at Bella. www.bella-usa.com and ask him about their new Catapult. It should be shipping soon. Imagine capturing straight to your iPod or other portable drive?!

"Avid" anything and "easy to learn" in the same sentence seems blasphemous. Avid Free is quite unstable, but it's a good way to get your feet wet. Editing software... Depends on what you need to do, want to do, and dream of doing. In the Apple world, you have choices of: iMovie-free Final Cut Express-299.00 HDV ready (no 24p) Final Cut Studio-1299.00 HDV ready Avid Express HD-1599.00 HDV ready On the PC side: Adobe Premiere Pro 2-499.00 (Also in a full bundle for more $$) Also has hardware available. HDV ready/No 24p in HDV Adobe Premiere Elements-99.00 Avid Express Pro HD-1599.00 Also has hardware available. HD ready Avid Free-Free Canopus Edius-499.00 Also has hardware available. Pinnacle (now Avid) Studio 99.00 Pinnacle Liquid (3 versions) 199.00, 599.00, 1599.00 HD ready Sony Vegas Movie Studio-89.00 HD ready Sony Vegas full version -599.00 (also has hardware available) HD ready Sony Vegas Platinum-129.00 HD ready Ulead Media Studio Pro-299.00 Somewhat HD ready Ulead Video Studio 89.99 There are a few others, oddballs such as AIST, Blade, etc, but they aren't strongly supported. All of the above have extensive training available via books, DVDs, websites, etc. Personally, I'm a big fan of Sony Vegas and Avid Express. If you can edit on an Avid, you can edit anywhere in the world and be reasonably fast. Vegas is very intuitive, IMO, whether you're dealing with the low cost versions or the higher dollar professional tools. Premiere in the bundle is a great choice, but as a standalone, I feel it's weak, and has a steep learning curve for what it accomplishes. Avid Liquid is a great tool, very fast to use and learn, but requires a MONSTER new computer setup. Canopus Edius 4 is a fair editor, unless you buy into their whole monster system, wherein it becomes a tremendous app, and is finding it's way into many broadcast houses now that Canopus is owned by Grass Valley.

Just pick it up and hold it. Particularly notice the feel of the right side, it feels like it's going to come off. Very loose and "plasticky" feeling. Personally, I didn't at all care for having the menu selection wheel placed ahead of the shutter release, it's confusing for me. But I'm not a strong still camera guy, so don't take my opinion as gospel.

It's VERY easy to do. Firestore FS3 or 4 Nnovia (my personal choice, same as military) Shining Technologies Citidisk All three companies make recorders for DV and HDV. There are other manufacturers that make drives that record SD as MJPEG or 4:2:2 as well. The Nnovia can act as a DVR. Additionally, you can dump to Serious Magic DVRack, which allows for monitoring during the dump. You can burn a DVD straight from any of these devices as well. It's essentially the same as capture tho, because the DV tape or HDV tape must move at it's prescribed speed to transfer the digital data. Shooting with a flash-based camcorder is the better option, but nothing like that exists in DV-land.