Eldora, CO 12-7-08

[EMSC]

That rude real life still playing havoc with things, I only get one ski day this weekend.

And a super warm one. Roasting out there. Early spring conditions on some sections of the hill...and yet snow is forecast for mon night & tues. Eldora had opened a few more trails, but the pick of the year so far remains Jolly Jug. Virtually everyone was on Hornblower and/or lower ambush (into indian peaks chair, now open). The snow wasn't exactly bad, but everything else but Jug was totally forgettable and definitely worse than last weekend's super soft fresh.

Crazy large crowd for this time of year too. And the triple chair on the front side was down for mechanical issues leaving only the double serving as the main lift. Not a good time to have one of your most important lifts down...

Anyway, today was another snowboarding day. Only took one cell phone pic of the lift lines (wife & I poached the singles line so we never waited more than 2-3 mins). Instead playing again with the new helmet cam to try to get it more dialed in (esp since I had warm temps to play with everything).

My video editing program only outputs tiny qvga in flash, so I'm trying to figure out the best combo of vga output that can then be transcoded to flash for admin's revised skitube... So far no luck, the flash version is so pixelated its worse than youtube comes out. I'll have to try a few more combination's it looks like.

 

[Admin]

My video editing program only outputs tiny qvga in flash,

What are you using?

so I'm trying to figure out the best combo of vga output that can then be transcoded to flash for admin's revised skitube... So far no luck, the flash version is so pixelated its worse than youtube comes out. I'll have to try a few more combination's it looks like.

It takes a lot of trial and error. A lot. Especially the "error" part. The best bang-for-your-buck AVI compression is with xvid or Cinepak codecs, and I favor the former. You can then use MediaCoder or the equivalent to transcode into Flash. That Mont-Ste-Anne video, for example, was shot on a combination of DV, and xvid from the helmet cam (recorded onto an Archos PMP). I used Adobe Premiere Elements to put everything together, and saved the whole thing as DV. I used MediaCoder to transcode the Flash video from the DV output. I recommend a 700K bitrate for the video.

One of these days I'd like to let the server do the transcoding, such that you can upload in a multitude of formats such as Brightcove allowed. Alas, I'm not aware of any such transcoding products that can be integrated into our service as it stands at this time.

 

[EMSC]

What are you using?

VideoSpin v1.1 by Pinnacle/Avid. Only costs like $10 after the free trial is up... (I know, being cheap considering the cost of the helmet cam :? :lol: )

Especially the "error" part

I'll say! The hopefully good news being once that's figured out I'm good to go for the rest of the season.

 

[Admin]

What are you using?

VideoSpin v1.1 by Pinnacle/Avid. Only costs like $10 after the free trial is up... (I know, being cheap considering the cost of the helmet cam :? :lol: )

To be honest, I've not heard of it.

I was editing my post above when you posted this -- you can find some more hints there now. Also, I highly recommend the website www.videohelp.com, especially their tools section. Lots of good freeware listed in there, including free editors, and the site is an excellent resource when getting your feet wet in digital video.

 

[Tony Crocker]

With the new snow over the past week, there's a lot more elbow room at the I-70 areas (several ~40% open) than before, and Loveland (which got the most snow) is 2/3 open. So why ski claustrophobic WROD's at Eldora?

 

[EMSC]

What are you using?

VideoSpin v1.1 by Pinnacle/Avid. Only costs like $10 after the free trial is up... (I know, being cheap considering the cost of the helmet cam :? :lol: )

To be honest, I've not heard of it.

I was editing my post above when you posted this -- you can find some more hints there now. Also, I highly recommend the website www.videohelp.com, especially their tools section. Lots of good freeware listed in there, including free editors, and the site is an excellent resource when getting your feet wet in digital video.

VideoSpin is a stripped down version of Pinnacle Studio 12 (or maybe studio 11, one of those). It's almost free and in my testing/playing around both more powerful and way less buggy than MS Movie Maker. Just not ready to plunk down over $100 for video software quite yet with such a reasonable/decent option for so much less.

With the new snow over the past week, there's a lot more elbow room at the I-70 areas (several ~40% open) than before, and Loveland (which got the most snow) is 2/3 open. So why ski claustrophobic WROD's at Eldora?

Mostly time. Or the lack there-of. Had items both in the am and pm limiting our time slot for skiing. Even with the easier access, we only skied for ~3.5hrs... Should be hitting Copper next week (unless life intervenes some more).

 

[EMSC]

Not that I plan to POV every ski day (or, even if I do, to always post it on the web). Just testing a lot of stuff out right now (the cam hardware, mounting position(s), battery longevity, editing software, compression/conversion software, etc.., etc...)

The question is - is this level of video quality 'good enough' as a final product for web viewing? It sure stinks compared to the raw video of course, but then DVD quality of this little clip is apparently approaching 1 GB :shock: :shock: And I'll working on the editing

[skitube2]http://www.firsttracksonline.com/modules/crpVideo/pnmedia/videos/1228864296_Eld12-7-08divx_001.flv[/skitube2]

 

[Admin]

Frankly, I think that the quality looks fairly decent and meant to send you a backchannel email telling you so when I approved the video, but got distracted from doing so. You could tweak the settings to improve the quality slightly, but it's no big deal.

One thing you'll have to wrap your head around is that given the current technology, there's no way to replicate HQ video for online viewing. It's tough to accept at first because you're your own worst critic, but eventually you come to terms with that reality and just deal with it.

You may be now just discovering another thing that I learned early on: ditch the side helmet/goggle strap mount for a lipstick cam. With the wide angle lens it inevitably picks up something in the near-ground that you don't want. Top-of-helmet is the only way to go.

And just to verify, you received a system-generated email confirming approval, correct?

 

[EMSC]

One thing you'll have to wrap your head around is that given the current technology, there's no way to replicate HQ video for online viewing.

I had anticipated that the quality would have to be lower. It's just much more shocking to see how much lower it needs to be/ends up compared to the raw footage.

You may be now just discovering another thing that I learned early on: ditch the side helmet/goggle strap mount for a lipstick cam. With the wide angle lens it inevitably picks up something in the near-ground that you don't want. Top-of-helmet is the only way to go.

Interesting perspective. I had read a lot of web material about helmet cams prior to buying one and recall at least one site recommending the opposite. To essentially make sure you have something stable in the view as a frame of reference, blah, blah... I'll end up trying it both ways of course. I figure that's part of the fun - experimenting.

And just to verify, you received a system-generated email confirming approval, correct?

Sorry, but no (even checked my junk mail and nothing there either).

 

[Admin]

And just to verify, you received a system-generated email confirming approval, correct?

Sorry, but no (even checked my junk mail and nothing there either).

Great...something else to diagnose and fix... :roll: