Merry Christmas & Magnum Video

Merry Christmas to all! I haven't been able to post for several months, work, life, etc. You know how it goes. I would like to wish all a very Merry Christmas.

Also, I have made a video about the Magnum XL-200, and my experiences on it. It is a compilation of on-ride pics, video I have shot, scans of 35mm pictures I took, plus some POV stuff ripped from a Cedar Point coaster video. It is set to music. Obviously, I can't actually publish it, due to copyright issues, and I made it for "private" use. However, if you would like to see it, you can find it at this URL:

http://home.earthlink.net/~bretzhome

I am sorry it is so tiny. The Roxio software I have only gives me two choices of Windows Media Video sizes. It ends up at 645kb, or 34mb. Unfortunately, the earthlink web hosting limits me to 10mb, so I can'y put a better quality version up right now. If someone can help me figure out how, I am open to suggestions!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and once again, Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year to all!
*** Edited 12/25/2005 3:40:17 AM UTC by Tank***

Merry Cristmas Tank.I enjoy reading your posts and thanks for the video. Have a safe and Happy New Year.

Oh man, that makes me miss this summer.

Tank: It barely plays on my system; I don't know if that's because the compression you used cuts the frame rate to almost nothing, or if that's because it's WiM. But what I can see looks pretty good.

I don't know what you're editing with, but I'm guessing it's Windows Movie Maker, which likes to pretend that only Windows Media exists. Export the file as an .AVI (deprecated, but WiMM will export to it, at least as a DV stream) and get a copy of DivX, or of 3IVX, or of QuickTime Pro. Any of those will allow you to encode your video in a variation on the MPEG-4 format, which gives you low bitrate and high quality. My Dragster video is around 9Mb using an older version of the 3IVX encoder via QuickTime Pro. In QT, when you export a file you can access all of the controls available in the codec (I don't know if WiMM allows for that, or if it just passes defaults to the codec) so you can play with the image size, the maximum and minimum data rates, the quality options, and all that neat stuff until you get the size and data rate you want.

(with QuickTime 7 Pro, you can also encode to H.264, which is an even lower bit rate than MPEG-4, but to be honest with you, while I haven't heard any horror stories about QT-7 on Windows, on the Mac it's been a little rough going, so I don't have it yet...I'm waiting for 7.1, since they went from 7.0 to 7.0.1 to 7.0.2 to 7.0.3 in less than a month...)

Merry Christmas!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave - I used the Roxio DVD Basic 7 program. It apparently allows output only in WMV format. I guess I need to pony up for Quicktime. The Roxio software only offers 1.5mbs or 28bps, so you get either a really huge file, (34mb) or a very tiny file (645kb) and nothing in between. All I can say is that it looks really great at 29fps as an full size digital AVI video file. I burned it to a DVD, and after that, copied it to VHS, and it looks pretty cool. I am quite proud of what I have learned about video editing in a short period of time. It might work better if you download the file instead of playing it online. If I buy Quicktime, I will update the file on the web site, and let you good people know.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

Very nice video - well done. The original camera mount on the original shoot on Magnum was very unique. That shoot has only been done on a couple of coasters. Please notice the camera was mounted real low on the vehicle, down between the 2 track rails and just above the track ties. The mount bracket for the camera was mounted on the vehicle frame (front). When the train approaches the brakes the shoot is just inches above the brakes. Nearly all camera mounts are done mounted up on the seat area with brackets - cables - turnbuckles - ropes and back up safety mounts. Again this shoot is one of about 3 that was done this way. If you see any in the future where the tracks are even with the camera - it will be the other 2.

Try free.prohosting.com. They have 100mb free hosting so you could at least get your 34mb file uploaded. I've never used them before but they were the first decent listing I found on Google that gave more than 25mb.

I miss the greatest ride in the world (TM). :(

Excellent video Tank, I had a lot of fun watching it. The beginning brought back memories of the first time I rode Blue Streak, though it only took me 5 min. to want to ride it again. :)

Very good, Tank. Thanks for the effort putting it together. I'll look for you in May.

GOES

OK Folks. I upgraded to Quicktime v7.0 Pro and have crunched it to about 8mb as an MP4. Much better quality. I hope Rideman can see & enjoy it now. It is at the same URL listed above, just select the MP4 version. You can just click on it, or do a SAVE TARGET.

I hope everyone enjoys it. It was a lot of fun to make. Happy New Year to all!

Wow, really great job.

Now that it actually runs smooth (Thank you, Quicktime!), I must say, nice job. Magnum was my first "big" coaster that got me into coaster riding today, and although I have only ridden it once, your video was a good reminder of what a ride it was.

-nesdude

In trying to recall the 2 other camera mounts I mentioned above (where the camera was mounted down between the track rails or in Raptors case up near) - I think the Mean Streak and Raptor were the ones. If you see either in the future you may notice this feature. OR it may not be that important.

Thanks. Anything to take my mind off the *gasp!* offseason. I'll be watching that one for months.

i miss the magnum so much it was my favorite ride to work and ride and i miss my crew so much love ya guys

Jim Hancock said:
In trying to recall the 2 other camera mounts I mentioned above (where the camera was mounted down between the track rails or in Raptors case up near) - I think the Mean Streak and Raptor were the ones. If you see either in the future you may notice this feature. OR it may not be that important.

I know Corkscrew was one.

The MP4 version plays wonderfully on my iPod. :)

Magnum 2005 forever!