A few weeks ago a few AP'ers from the Mpls/St. Paul area got together for an enjoyable fly-in. Here is the high bitrate version of the movie I put together.

A more compressed version is on my gallery. This one's approx. 40 mb, and I had to wait to get it up on my RCG website due to exceeding September's bandwidth (10gb!) I've noticed that the fixed bitrate movies suffer heavy compression losses or even dropped frames when the scene complexity goes way up, which it usually does on takeoff or landing. The high quality variable bitrate setting available in Windows Movie Maker all but eliminates these issues, but the movies are a bit on the large size.

Plane is a brushless SS. Camera is a Nikon 3700. The video of this camera is of very good quality. The only problems it has are all visible in this footage: purple vertical lines when capturing extremely bright scenes, noticeable "stepping" of the light meter when quickly swinging from dim to bright (or vice-versa), and a slight lag of the soundtrack. The last is noticeable on landing, where the scraping sound of my tailskid on the gravel comes a half second after the actual touchdown.

Enjoy!

http://www.stcroixap.rchomepage.com/video/ComoBig.wmv

WOW!!

Karl... That was some spectacular video, especially in reagards to quality! I never seen the Nikon 3700 at that clear of a picture.

Great Job!!

Qualcity

Very cool.... VERY clear video!

What's the trick?

I believe the trick is in the compression. Compression is a dark art of the web. People that figure it out well usually do very well financially.

Karl
Great job onthe video. What setting was the Nikon on for the still, thats about the best pic I've seen for the Nikon?

Thanks people. The 3700 shoots good clear video to begin with, 640x480 at 30 fps, limited only by the size of the memory card.

The still was shot in Sports Mode, with a velcro strap holding the shutter button down for continuous shots every few seconds. The light was bright, humidity was low, and the weather conditions calm, which all help contribute to sharp pictures and video.

As for video compression, I'm leaving it all in the hands of Father Micro$oft. I used Windows Media Encoder to convert the camera's native .mov format to .wmv. After editing in Windows Movie Maker, I simply saved it as "high quality, large." The same movie in my gallery is the same size at 640x480, but was set to simply encode to be under 10mb. WMM choses whatever codecs it feels are best for the job.

incredible video quality!

Great video Karl. Well done!

Treker

Guys, sorry to interrupt this program for a commercial, BUT, I need help.
I keep trying to watch all these great videos, but can never get them to run. Some links run, but many do not.
The message I get after downloading is: Real time can not locate the file
Then is gives me the "browse" button or "exit" if I have moved or deleted this file.
Does anyone know what I need to do to view the video? It seems to download just fine. I have browsed all over, but can't find the file to view.
Please help if you have any ideas. This is the 5th video this week I can't get to.
Thanks,
Ken

Great quality video, some of the sharpest I have seen posted. But at the end, was that a landing or a crash

JP, that's a rather normal landing. Maybe not quite greased, but no bounce. The original soundtrack as recorded is faded back in right before touchdown, so there's a bit of wind noise, followed by a carbon fiber skid GRINDING across the gravel.

Originally Posted by CSI

The message I get after downloading is: Real time can not locate the file
Then is gives me the "browse" button or "exit" if I have moved or deleted this file.

What operating system, and what are you doing to view the file? For best results, right-click on the link, then choose "Save as" or "Save Link as", depending on your browser. You'll need Windows Media Player to view the file. It's possible that some older versions may not support some .wmv files.

Yep, I saved it I use media player, just most of them arent anywhere near that quality. That is a great video !!!

Karl,

I just got Windows Media Encoder and where does it convert .mov files to wmv files.

Gene

Originally Posted by Karl Bē

Thanks people. The 3700 shoots good clear video to begin with, 640x480 at 30 fps, limited only by the size of the memory card.

The still was shot in Sports Mode, with a velcro strap holding the shutter button down for continuous shots every few seconds. The light was bright, humidity was low, and the weather conditions calm, which all help contribute to sharp pictures and video.

As for video compression, I'm leaving it all in the hands of Father Micro$oft. I used Windows Media Encoder to convert the camera's native .mov format to .wmv. After editing in Windows Movie Maker, I simply saved it as "high quality, large." The same movie in my gallery is the same size at 640x480, but was set to simply encode to be under 10mb. WMM choses whatever codecs it feels are best for the job.

Originally Posted by uniquewon

I just got Windows Media Encoder and where does it convert .mov files to wmv files.

Gene, mine defaults to display a New Session window when it starts. One of the choices is "Convert a File." When you browse for your file, set "Files of Type" to "All." Then navigate to your .mov file and continue on. There isn't anything in the help contents that states that it will recognize .mov format, but it does.

On one of the next screens it asks how you want to distribute your file. I've used "File Archive," which saves a .wmv of roughly twice the original size. I do this simply to make sure I don't lose anything due to multiple compressions. Once I'm finished making variously compressed versions for sharing and I'm sure that I don't need to go back and re-edit something, I delete the intermediate file.

As always Karl, fantastic work. A pleasure to watch..



Oh ya, here is an aerial that you forgot to post

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Saint+...6063&t=k&hl=en