DSE

Appreciate the explanations, guys. Just got off the phone with the engineering boys at Nnovia, they assure me I've got nothing to worry about. My A2D has 9 jumps from 13,500 so far and no issues. It's an IBM Travelstar loaded in a doubleshock mount case, with analog input over Y/C. The Sanyo HD1 only has 2 jumps on it, but it's also only a couple weeks old, so we'll jump it til it dies, if it dies. I've been totally unaware of the altitude limit on the microdrives tho. Interesting about the iPod comment, too. My canopy coach wears his often on his arm, far as I know, he's been doing it for at least a year. I've jumped with my Rio turned on in the plane, and only remove the earplugs just before the door is opened in the airplane. Sounds like I should be on the lookout for weirdness.

You can indeed deinterlace before or after. Bear in mind that if you deinterlace before, and you deliver an interlaced project on a DVD, then your deinterlaced stills will be reinterlaced. As far as Vegas, ask away. I'm one of a couple certified Vegas instructors in the world, and am one of many certified Premiere instructors. Don't let the Vegas interface throw you. I'm happy to help, either here in the forum, in other forums I moderate, or via PM. FWIW, I have several training DVDs out on Vegas as well. I HIGHLY recommend Vegas Movie Studio over Vegas 4, BTW.

Why do you say this? I've been loaning the DZ camera guys my bullet cam and Nnovia HDD systems, and have also jumped the Sanyo HD1 on their helmets, all images have been as expected. The Nnovia is entirely HDD-based, and the HD1 is Flashmem based. DVD is unstable, but HDD is actually more stable than tape, and no fear of dropout on an HDD system.

Premiere Elements doesn't do this so well, neither does Premiere Pro 2.0. there are options. 1. Download the DebugMode.com frameserver for Premiere, frameserve to Vdub and extract stills from that. 2. Write an action for Photoshop, it'll do the same thing. 3. Download Mike Crash's smart deinterlacer. I don't have the web addy, but you can google him. He's in CZ. 4. Try Sony Vegas Movie Studio, it does an excellent job of outputting stills. Vegas full version can export a sequence of stills very easily. 5. In Elements, select Quicktime for your output, and choose the sequential TGA option. That'll import to most graphics apps.

Unfortunately, there are no dealers where I live, other than the DZ, and they are exceptionally limited. I have good trust in the DZO, have known him and his wife for a long time, and face to face is indeed better. Sure, maybe after 200 jumps I'll change my opinion, but it's unlikely. I buy my scuba and motoX gear on the web too. I no longer have a dealer in my area to be face-to-face with. I'm a reseller of sorts in my business. The *only* unique benefits we can offer our customers/clients are: 1. Experience based on a lifetime of product use 2. Trust 3. Good relationship and after-production services and information that may be used in future purchasing decisions. Our competitors offer everything that we offer outside of the above aspects. So does the manufacturer. This is true in just about any business.

I'm a very non-experienced jumper, but without naming names, I've written to four dealers in the past 10 days asking for information on canopies and pants, and not one dealer has responded. On the other hand, I sent email to Performance Designs and Freaknsuits and had a response within a couple of hours. So, while I'd like to deal with dealers, if they're not going to respond... Then they don't deserve my business, and won't get it. I'd MUCH rather consistently deal with a reseller/vendor *if* I could establish a relationship in which I trusted their advice and input, and thought they weren't just after my bucks at any cost. Otherwise, I'm stuck doing research at the DZ, here, and other places on the web. When I have to do the research, get advice from friends, DZO, instructors, the web, and anywhere else, I'm gonna buy at the best price because I've done all the legwork and know exactly what I want. In other words, just because dealers exist doesn't mean I'll go there. They've got to earn my business just like any other business that I deal with for personal or corporate purchases.

B&H and Adorama both stock PAL cams for sale in the US. You'd have a US warranty purchasing from one of them. I believe ZotzDigital also stocks PAL.

Well....given that I edit HD every day of my life (for shows you might watch) that is simply not so. And it's quite easy to demonstrate with a pixel map or a Spyder, or any other similar system. Additionally, we have 5 G5duallies, and a slew of Cinema's. And several 234b's, and at least 3 Sony laptops with 1900 x 1200 screens, all are calibrated every time they move into a new lighting environment, yadayadayada. For broadcast and film, we aren't capable of working with "blurry, crappy, messes." Did I mention I have a Wintel system as well? FWIW, even if it was scaling, there are some significant benefits to scaling down IF it's done appropriately, even tho it's not accurate for compositing and color correction. There is a significant difference in working with 1080 HD on a 1900 x 1200 monitor vs 1600. Which also has PAR issues...but that's another thread.

At the risk of taking the thread to a new direction... It's going exceptionally well. I'll have my first solo exit this morning, assuming winds cooperate. With the winds, a monster 280 canopy, and some luck, I've been able to stick every landing but one where I had to slide in on my butt due to a dropout at 20'. My instructor is already allowing me to jump with my Bonehead flattop (sans cams) so I can get comfortable with it, and I've been wearing a belly lipstick feeding an SS recorder (whole thing weighs less than .5 lbs) so I can view my face, arms, and get an idea of my positioning, plus great canopy shots that allow me to see how I'm doing with turns, stalls, etc. It's only 640 x 480, but it's not for distribution, it's for me to see what I'm doing.

I'll shut up now.

I was responding to Fast's post, suggesting a stop of F8.

given that I'm still in student status, and daily flight checks begin with testing on pulling reserve, I've been taught that 1. We must have a decision altitude of 2500 feet. Some DZ's say 2k, from what I've read and am told. 2. Procedure is: Look for pillow/cutaway handle, put right hand on it. (look to be sure you've got the handle and not cloth from your jump suit) Look for reserve handle, hook thumb thru it. Pull pillow/cutaway Pull reserve Look to see that the canopy is there and square. Perform any line twist procedures, prep for PLF. More or less straight from the SIM. Dunno if that answers anything, I'd sure like to see a response from the original poster about what happened. My first flight ever was a tandem cutaway, and it was impressive how the TM managed it. It wasn't til I saw the canopy floating away that I knew anything was wrong, his execution was so smooth.

A caveat to throw in... At F8, you're stopped down below the resolution level that Bayering applies to the cam. F4 is the max you should stop to on a 1/3 camcorder in order to achieve full chroma resolution and luma sampling. This means you need an ND filter on the glass so you can stay open on your aperture. On a 1/4 chip, you shouldn't be stopping past 3.5, again requiring an ND filter. On the smaller chip lenses, you can still shoot to infinity at 3.5 or 4, and you'll see a relatively significant greater saturation of colors, particularly reds and blues if you keep the aperture at F4 on 1/3 camcorders. This is somewhat critical for HD/HDV shooting.

Yes, they are nice. But...the resolution sucks at only 1680 max. Can't do full rez HD on the display. In the broadcast/corporate/event editing world, everyone is complaining about it. Sad that they make such a big deal about FCS realtime HD, but then give us a non-HD capable screen to work with. I'd like to think they didn't do this just to sell more displays. I have a 15" already, and while it runs most of my Windows apps wonderfully and fast, the lack of resolution makes it exceptionally difficult to work with, particularly for C/C and compositing.

DVD Architect can do this, Encore 2.0, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Nero Digital/home, and Ulead DVD Workshop all perform this. It has little or nothing to do with the DVD player itself. Only very high end DVD players won't do this as they are usually T/C based. In your authoring app, simply set the video you want to loop with an end action that will fit back to itself. In DVD Studio Pro or Sony DVD Architect, set the desired video as the "First Play" video with nothing else there, and it will auto-end action to itself. If you want to post the app that you use, I'll gladly reply with specific instructions.

Welcome to the forum. 'Nother noob here, but the program is pretty specific. 25 jumps to your A license assuming you pass all course level jumps with your AFF instructor(s). Remember, you can fail a jump or technique, and the instructor gets to determine whether you must re-do the jump. I'd highly recommend you download the SIM (Student Instruction Manual) from USPA.org, take the downloaded PDF file to Kinkos, and have it printed and bound. Live it, breathe it, talk to your instructor about what's in it. Learn everything you can outside of jump school and that'll help not only prep you, but help your mental attitude too. Ultimately tho, your instructor determines most everything you'll do in the initial stages. You'll love going through AFF. I'm nearly through, would have been today had winds been below 15mph on the ground, and I can't get enough. After you complete AFF, you're still a novice, and won't move to an A license til you've got your 25 or however many jumps your instructor feels you require up to your last AFF. You should also consider a canopy coach following your last AFF jump.

Technically, this is so. Realistically, it rarely is. USB2 shares system resources with the CPU determining priority and traffic flow. If you've got controlled fans, antivirus, heat sensors, Outlook, NIC, etc all on and seen by CPU, the chances of the USB2.0 bus being given priority are rather slim. Firewire is it's own resource, doesn't rely on the CPU for priority assignment, and is ALWAYS speed-stable. Many NLE apps will not support USB2.0 capture for this very reason. Even tho transfer from a cam to an HDD is just a data transfer, it requires a sustainable transfer rate of at least 3.6MBps or 25Mbps. USB2.0 can't guarantee that rate simply because your CPU might have another priority come up. Use Firewire/ieee1394/i-Link whenever possible for consistent positive result. HTH

Wanted to thank Dropzone.com. Today, I took my FF4,5, and 6, aced all written, oral, and jump exams. Instructors all wanted to know where I was getting my information from, even ended up correcting an instructor when he kept referring to the "SRL." None of them are computer geeks, so had only heard about Dropzone.com. When I showed them some of the pix from the site, and showed them some of the sites linked from here, they were pretty shocked at the amount, quality, and depth of information this site offers. The DZO was saying that he'd like to add this site to their "highly recommended" list. No way in hell would I have aced the written or orals without the information I've absorbed by lurking in the community here. thank you!!!!!! (Also FWIW, I moderate several broadcast and film fora, and have always found it marginally amusing to see a "thank you" post because the information I share is information that I live and breathe. It feels great to find myself on the other side of the post)

ACDSee can arrange/name by date/time, and Windows can too, if you sort by name, CTRL+A for all, then right click the first, choose rename. Forgotten how to do this on Apple.

Also be sure that any firewire card you get has an OHCI (open host controller interface) rating, or you'll have a hard time regardless of the NLE you use. http://www.vasst.com/article.aspx?id=cdd50a62-9261-4e64-a26c-fb0ce9c1c478&type=1 has a brief discussion if you don't know the "whys."

You can take a still via their IR remote, but I'm not sure if you could make a LANC that would do this for you. There is only a small advantage to actually taking a still vs extracting a still from your NLE, but if you're not using an NLE...then I guess you'd need the still, eh?

\ Color: -2 Exposure: Sand/snow Zoom:All the way wide, and then slightly zoomed in. This not only eliminates vignetting, but also allows the sensor to see F4 or wider, which is VERY important in small chip camcorders. Steadishot: On The HC3 does offer a 45 degree field of view, so it *almost* eliminates the need for W/A adapter. The Sony .7 is a pretty good lens; gaff it to the cam. Be sure to gaff the previewscreen shut, with only a small 1" piece of gaffers tape, the screen still opened in flight. Oops.

rm2avi works really well. www.rmconverter.com

For DVD, you don't need to compile anything. Again, I know you can edit much faster with a lower quality target result using the vidmix workflow, but....no compilation needs to happen. If you have say...8 minutes of ingest from the client's jump, you are locked into that 8 mins. You're editing on the fly using your cam or deck, and that works fine. Where the two workflows diverge is that you can capture directly to mpeg, and have a bunch of assets already created such as a fun intro to the jump sequence, and a fun outtro to the jump sequence, which is already done and in mp2 and ac3 format. You've captured as mp2/ac3, so there is no compiling, it's a straight burn. You could do a 15 minute DVD in less than 3 minutes on output. Again, you've still got to edit on ingest like you already are, so I don't know that a non-mixer workflow would save time, and if you don't have a computer/DVD burner, it's more expensive to use NLE anyway. One of the aspects of our regular business is training broadcasters about new technology and techniques to get content to air quickly. Getting stills, etc to air is critical for them in many situations. Granted, they're not turning loads as fast as chutes can be repacked, but it's not much different overall. 8 minutes is a very long time to them as well. I'm not debating whether one workflow is better or not, just interested in knowing why one workflow may or may not be preferential to some folks. Once again, thanks for the info.

I understand all of your points, they make great sense. One small disagreement, is that it doesn't take 8 to output with 8 of ingest. Burning a DVD takes considerably less time than realtime. Regardless, all of your other points are spot-on, I was just curious. Thanks for the explanation.