Re: Joe's Helmet Cam

 On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:48:56 -0700, "Whelan - '02 200exc (x2) &


Just watched the videos for the first time, Joe.  VERY nice.  
And just so you know, you and DJ's reports were a primary
influence on my getting the youngster a 200 a few weeks ago.
Way fun bike.


----
Go fast and aim for where the trees aren't.
----

 
Thank you :)


What year?


Yes, yes indeed.

-JD

 I was working on a video of last Friday's ride when the thought struck
me, "you know, it doesn't matter who WEARS the camera, it matters who
EDITS the footage."  I wonder why I'd think that?  Here's a short
snippet:

http://www.the-dowds.com/Vids/temp/Oct26/Teaser_Stnd.wmv
12.1 MB, 320x240, crappy quality but small

http://www.the-dowds.com/Vids/temp/Oct26/Teaser_Native.avi
415MB, 640x480, great quality, but large

http://www.the-dowds.com/Vids/temp/Oct26/Teaser_xVid.avi
66.3MB, 640x480, great quality for requires installation of the xVid
codec

FYI - xVid codec available here:
http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/

-Joe

P.S.  All my videos are always here:
http://www.the-dowds.com/Vids/Vids.htm

 On Nov 1, 6:11 pm, "Whelan - '02 200exc (x2) & '04 MTD 38"

Looks lke a cool place to ride!  If I were pushing for a smaller size
clip, I'd cut the frame rate and audio bandwidth.  I didn't download
the 415mb file to see what that looks like, The 12 meg looks good to
me for smoothness. A little blurry, but good for 320X240.
Harry

 
It is.  Not really challenging, but sure is fun.  It's an hour or so
north of Spokane and is a trail system that was specifically build
with bikes in mind.


For the smallest size, I convert from the raw AVI using AVS Media's
"Video Converter" to the *.wmv format on AVS's "Standard" setting
(320x240, 30fps, 700k bitrate, 44kHz stereo) - that yields a pretty
small file and a video that viewable.  I've not had good luck reducing
audio bandwidth so I have a tendency to let that boost file size some.


I don't think the 415MB "raw AVI" format video is any better than the
66MB xVid-encoded video.  I'm very impressed with xVid's ability to
dramatically compress video files and (at a setting of "single pass
10") retain what I think is very high quality video.  I have a
tendency to use the "PCM" audio when xVid encoding, not that I have
any idea what that means, but it seems to retain the quality of the
audio and, if the file is later burned to a DVD, every DVD player I've
tried it on has no difficulty decoding it.


Oddly enough, the real test seems to be playing helmet camera video
from a DVD to a TV.  I've found I can burn up to 60 minutes of helmet
cam video to a single layer dvd and, when played on a TV, it's
outstanding - it really delivers the "you are there" effect.  However,
I've also found if I try and burn say 120 minutes of helmet cam video
to a single layer dvd, when playing that on a tv, the quality is
degraded such that the "you are there" effect is lost.  I'm not sure
why this is and it has me rather puzzled because I routinely put up to
three hours of MX or SX races on a single-layer DVD retaining a
quality level sufficient for TV viewing.

-Joe