Woodstock Thursday Jul 23

[Joe Schad]

Looks flyable today. Heading out at Noon or so.

Joe

[Joe Schad]

Guess it is Jul 24 thursday.

Joe

[DanTuck]

I'd like to try to get out of work and go. Any observers going to be out there?
2 oh 2 - 487- oh 231

[tdilisio]

How was Woodstock on Thursday?

Bummed I missed it... had to get the car out of the shop, after it's 200Kmi service.

Heading to BlueSky today to get some landing practice... maybe some soaring if conditions are good.

[DanTuck]

Fun day at Woodstock yesterday. Despite the light conditions John M graciously offered to take the day off and head out with me so we met in the LZ at 1:45 or so. Launched about 3:00 and kind of struggled to stay up but eventually got to about a grand over. That flight was about 35 minutes and I got to fly with lots of vultures and a few red tailed hawks, even caught one on film. I had a decent approach and my landing was on my feet and I was happy. It wasn't that late so we headed back up for another. Launch conditions were nicer the second go 'round but after I launched, things really lightened up. The highest I could get was only a couple hundred over but I managed to stay up for about 45 minutes. Better approach the second flight and another foot landing. Total airtime: 1:20. I've now got over 5 hrs and I'm halfway to H3 airtime! In attendance were Joe, Steve K, Pete S, John M on his PG, Lazslo, and myself. Thanks a lot, John, I really appreciate it.
And of course, the video du jour: http://www.vimeo.com/1404420

[markc]

Awesome vid Dan! Thanks for letting us know.

BTW, what camera are you flying with?

MarkC

[DanTuck]

Thanks Mark.

I've been using a Canon G9 which is a 12 megapixel point and shoot, not an HD video camera. It records video at 1024x768, then I edit it in Windows Movie Maker (it comes with XP and Vista for free) and "publish" it using the highest resolution setting - HD1080p. I've tried using the HD720p setting in order to save file space but there is a noticeable loss of clarity, I guess because it is actually compressing the frame height from 768 to 720. The result at 1080p is a very clear picture, though still not really HD. Plus, the frame rate is only 30 fps. But Vimeo recognizes the videos as HD and plays them back in its highest "HD" resolution. Pretty cool. IMO, Vimeo is waaaaay better than YouTube, especially for HG videos. Obviously, the playback is much better - they don't compress files nearly as much as YT. And viewers can also download the uncompressed video file (mine are around 240MBs) if the poster allows it. Go Vimeo!