Another Imperial Invasion vid - check this out

[Billy Golightly]

I just watched it, holy crap Doug. Seriously dude, you need to start doing this for a living. If you had the equipment I have NO DOUBT you'd be cranking out some Wes Miller quality stuff. Awesome. Just awesome.

[Dammit!]

Thanks!





Who is Wes Miller?

[wonderboy]

Warren Miller, maybe? He does those awesome skiing movies.

[Tecate 50]

March 2011....Doom will make his appearance in Cali, come hell or high water!!!!!!! Awesome video

[Billy Golightly]

Wes Miller, does the Huevos quad videos, National born killers, carpe diem, etc. Sorta like a crusty demons of dirt but based more on quads.


www.hbombfilms.com

[jays375]

Awesome video!!!!!Love the different camera locations.The flag one is great!!!Of course Iv'e seen alot of your videos on Youtube before I joined the forum.Have you sold DVDs before?What is the price and how long is it going to be?Probally the closest I will ever get to a sand dune.

[Dammit!]

The DVD won't be for sale really. It's intended for the people that were at that ride and came here from all over the country to attend. The cost for them will be only enough to cover expenses. I can't really sell it due to copyright issues with the music.

[Vootie]

Awesome editing skills and I love the unique camera angles. If you were to sell it, I'd certainly buy a copy. Is your helmet cam a Hero gopro? I'm thinking of purchasing a gopro hd, the helmet cam I have now kinda sucks, and 9 times out of 10, my footage is either of the ground going by, or pointing at the sky. Does the go pro have a laser pointer, or some other means of knowing what your shooting?

[Dammit!]

The helmet cams used in the vid you saw are all standard definition GoPro Hero WIDE models. Their new HD camera OWNS these things in image quality but be warned, it comes at a steep price. The camera itself is not expensive but HD video requires a good amount of computer horsepower to edit in the same way as the ones I make. On top of that, Windows Movie Maker (the free movie editor that comes with windows and what I use to edit vids) DOES NOT WORK with the GoPro HD files. You'd have to convert them and you lose image quality in the process which kinda defeats the purpose of HD in the first place. To edit HD properly, you will need to invest in some real editing software. Also, be careful of what class of SD card you buy with the HD model. They recommend class 4 but a lot of people have said you need at least a class 6.

I'm not saying stay away from the HD model. I'm just saying be aware of what you're getting into before making the purchase. I know more than one person that has bought the HD model and said afterwards they should have bought a standard one. If you plan on making just simple vids with no editing, the HD model is awesome. If you remember to keep your vids under ten mintes in length as you're recording, you can upload them straight to youtube with no processing at all and they look incredible. Here's an example of a completely raw file from a GoPro HD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQqj2hnUCW0 (change the resolution to 1080p in the bottom right corner of the video. If you can't play that smoothly, you should probably consider the SD model)

On to your other question about aiming. No. There is no laser to assist you with either the SD or HD model. With the standard it's not really an issue. With the 170 degree wide angle lens you just need to point it in the general direction you want and it will see pretty much everything. With the HD in one of the widescreen modes it becomes a little more important to aim it precisely. A laser would have been nice for the 1080p mode for sure (1080p mode reduces the wide angle to 127 degrees) but it's still not THAT big a deal. They alledgedly have plans for some add ons for the HD model that will make it a non issue anyway. Supposedly they have a wrist worn remote/lcd screen in the works so you can see what the camera is seeing and start/stop it via the wireless device. That'll be SWEET if it really comes to fruition. I've heard there's plans for a wireless mic also which would be cool because the built in sound kinda sucks.

[Vootie]

Thanks, that's some great info right there, I never really considered computer hardware and software. I used to use Sony Vegas for video editing a few years back, but I don't have a copy of it anymore. Any recomendations on a realtively inexpensive editing software that's capable of HD editing? I liked Vegas, but I haven't used any other editing software other than movie maker. As for my computer, I'll need another hard drive, but other than that, I run 2 gigs of ram and a Geforce 8800 gts, which was a pretty good card just a couple years back. I can view HD video pretty good, so I'll assume I'll be alright on that front? I'm willing to spend some money for HD quality, but I don't want to go over my head either and end up building a new pc just for that purpose.

That's too bad about the laser, but I wasn't thinking about the wide angle lens, so I guess that won't really be a problem. It's odd, I have a cheapie tony hawk helmet cam, and that thing had a laser, albiet it didn't really help much. Well, it looks like I have some more research to do before any purchasing happens lol. Thanks again for the info.

[Russell 350X]

That was way to cool. I need to go next year....

[Dirtcrasher]

Awesome awesome awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW i HAVE A PC THAT CAN SEE AND HEAR IT IN ONE SHOT!!!!

[Dammit!]

Thanks, that's some great info right there, I never really considered computer hardware and software. I used to use Sony Vegas for video editing a few years back, but I don't have a copy of it anymore. Any recomendations on a realtively inexpensive editing software that's capable of HD editing? I liked Vegas, but I haven't used any other editing software other than movie maker. As for my computer, I'll need another hard drive, but other than that, I run 2 gigs of ram and a Geforce 8800 gts, which was a pretty good card just a couple years back. I can view HD video pretty good, so I'll assume I'll be alright on that front? I'm willing to spend some money for HD quality, but I don't want to go over my head either and end up building a new pc just for that purpose.

That's too bad about the laser, but I wasn't thinking about the wide angle lens, so I guess that won't really be a problem. It's odd, I have a cheapie tony hawk helmet cam, and that thing had a laser, albiet it didn't really help much. Well, it looks like I have some more research to do before any purchasing happens lol. Thanks again for the info.

I'm still experimenting with Adobe Premiere Pro. My old 2.4Ghz P4 system can't handle any of the HD stuff though. I'm in the process of trying to piece together a new quad core system. So far my experimenting with Premiere has been really disappointing. I'm sure there's got to be some settings I can tweak to make it look good but EVERY single test I've done with it has yielded very degraded image quality with both SD and HD footage. The program really doesn't get along with the gopro files so you need to convert them to something else. Using quicktime to convert to MOV seems to help and there's no apparent loss in image quality doing just the conversion. Once I export a move file though it looks like crap. I'll figure it out once I have a new PC built. I'm sure it's capable of doing the job.

From everything I've seen on youtube, the best looking HD vids are being done on Macs with Final Cut Pro. That's not an option for me right now though.

Awesome awesome awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW i HAVE A PC THAT CAN SEE AND HEAR IT IN ONE SHOT!!!!

I have a lot of vids on youtube you might not have ever seen yet.

[tecat-z]

WOW! I'm sure glad you understand all that goes into the video making/editing process. Cause i'm lost just reading throught this thread. But as i've said before, you do awesome work! So keep the good stuff coming!

[dcreel]

Definitely another awesome vid.. We've got the calendar marked down for next year for the invasion.