Myanmar Magic

On my homepage I've embedded a Flash video of 6 and half minutes of footage shot with my Sony Z1 on a couple of recent liveaboard trips to Myanmar (Burma).

I'll also leave the video for longer on my Myanmar scuba diving page.

The opening minute or two is topside footage from Kaw Thaung on the border with Thailand. I love to shoot the kids there, so to speak.

Look out for the shadow of the whale shark "hiding" behind the barracudas. Yes, I missed it, but it came around half an hour later.

Editing was done in Vegas 7, nothing was cropped but a few clips were colour-corrected. Video size is 400px x 225px. It was output as a SonyYUV AVI file then encoded at "medium" standard settings in Flash Pro 8 (400kbps video, 96kbps audio), On2 VP6 codec, 25fps. I modified one of the standard Flash Pro player skins.

This the first time I've published any HDV material, and the first time I've published anything with Flash, so please let me know what you think, if it works correctly, and if you needed to pause the video to let it buffer.

Hi Nick,

I'm on Broadband in the UK (Virgin claim it's 8mb/s but there is no way it is), if i hit play straight away it doesn't play smoothly. Are you using the all videos plugin? If so you can use actionscript or the xml file (i cant remember which) to make it start automatically when it has downloaded/buffered enough to play smoothly.

Who do you use for hosts? Are they aware you are hosting video? Sometimes they'll bump you up to a faster server (for free) if you ask.

I have some video files in my gallery of about the same size, some on medium some on high, i think i pay £50 per 2 years for hosting and they seem pretty fast on downloads. www.streamline.net.

Originally i had mine as a pop-up window with playlist, i have recently moved them to the gallery so they are searchable, but i think the popup window is a better option as it allows the viewer to easily browse through the rest of your site while they wait for it to download.

Cool video, i'd love to go diving out there... Lovely whale shark shot! Was that with the LMI and Z1?

EDIT: Oh, and we all have the same music from that download site!

This the first time I've published any HDV material, and the first time I've published anything with Flash, so please let me know what you think, if it works correctly, and if you needed to pause the video to let it buffer.

Worked well for me, though there was some starts and stops as it downloaded/bufferred (FWIW I am on a Mac in case you wanted to know if it is working on various platforms.) After that very smooth and not a long download.

Great video, and looking at it bought a smile to my face and made me forget for a few minutes that I have another four inches of new snow out my window, I do wish I was there instead The was some shots at the beginning where it looked like the current was kicking up and the camera did not move - nicely done.

Wonderfull there Nick.

Played no probs my end.

Flash is the way to go that's for sure.

Good to see you get some dirty water as well

The W Shark looked fat.

Cheers guys.

Simon, my site's all hand-coded, no CMS, so no allvideos plugin. But there may be Flash parameters I can set to force it to buffer a bit more. I'll check that out.

My site is hosted by United Hosting in the UK (great service but not much storage/bandwidth) so the video files themselves are hosted by Verio (crap service but big storage/bandwidth). Streamline looks like good value. Do they reply and act on enquiries quickly?

496kbps (video + audio) is quite a high bitrate to embed right in the site's homepage, but I figured with it being a video site, and with viewers' bandwidth increasing all the time, that I'd go for it. Pop-up windows are nice but seem to be going out of fashion. None of the likes of YouTube use them.

Yep, all with the Z1 in the Light and Motion Bluefin.

Drew, go ice diving! Would love to do that.

Wags it was indeed a chunky whale shark, and lumps around the pelvic fins which made us think she's probably pregnant... or eaten something she shouldn't have! She showed up right at the end of the 3rd dive at Black Rock and I ended up running out of air and blowing 4 mins stops to get the shots. Tut tut...

Nice Nick! Played great for me. Hand-coded site...wow...i am a novice when it comes to web coding.

Are you looking for feedback on the content of the video or how it plays, or both.

Anyway, appreciate you sharing and can't wait to get wet with my cam again.

-shawn

Thanks Shawn. Firstly I just want to make sure it works OK before I put it on my homepage proper. But comments about the video itself are always very welcome as I'm keen to improve.

My comments on content are only general. You have some really stunning material there. You also have a good steady hand. This makes each shot nice to view.

I also notice you have some footage that is pretty cloudy. I think this detracts from all the good stuff (looks like you are shooting into the sun in not so good vis). Also, the kid shots are cool but don't tie in as welll as the rest of the footage. Can you find a way to tighten that up? Finally, i notice you grouped all the moray shots together. Would it be better to spread out or are you focusing on species at a time.

Hope you find these comments helpful. I really enjoyed the film and great work.

-shawn

Video is now here:

http://www.bubblevision.com

and for longer here:

http://www.bubblevision.com/scuba-diving/Myanmar-Burma.htm

Link in first post has been updated.

Thanks for the comments Shawn. I kind of knew some of that anyway but needed someone else to tell me

Nick,

Played perfectly this end

Absolutely stunning clip.

Very nice editing with a lovely pace.

Today, my day did not start that well, but watching your clip, most certainly made me feel a whole lot better, which I thank you for

Nick,

worked for me as well. Smooth download, no hickups.

Loved the footage. And like Shawn mentioned, it is rock steady.

But Nick, can you imagine how good the footage could have been if you had used a rebreather. No sound of bubbles, closer to the fish, ...

Just kidding m8.

Peter

Cheers guys.

 

Simon, my site's all hand-coded, no CMS, so no allvideos plugin. But there may be Flash parameters I can set to force it to buffer a bit more. I'll check that out.

 

My site is hosted by United Hosting in the UK (great service but not much storage/bandwidth) so the video files themselves are hosted by Verio (crap service but big storage/bandwidth). Streamline looks like good value. Do they reply and act on enquiries quickly?

 

496kbps (video + audio) is quite a high bitrate to embed right in the site's homepage, but I figured with it being a video site, and with viewers' bandwidth increasing all the time, that I'd go for it. Pop-up windows are nice but seem to be going out of fashion. None of the likes of YouTube use them.

Streamline are pretty goodon their support, it's all web based, not telephone and i think the support center is out in Asia as they always reply in the middle of the night.

It would appear i have the slowest Broadbandever!

No CMS? I used to hand code my sites, but since i moved to CMS i've found life a lot easier, especially when it comes to quick changes when out and about. Its a total pain to begin with though, i have a test site on awardspace (free hosting) that i used to make sure it was the correct choice for me.

Mmmmmmmmmm Myanmar.... Well that was my piece of paradise for the day. I'm off to work now, but hopefully I'll have a couple of daydream flashbacks during my tea break!

Thanks for posting!

Cheers, Simon

edit - It played fine for me and I'm normally on a very dodgy wireless connection that drops all the time.

Some lovely stuff on there Nick..

Could do with a bit of narration. Just to give it some body and let us know whats happening. Something I find thats missing on a lot of films.

Loved the Floppy and the Lionfish and the Morays and the etc..etc. Beautiful.

Dive safe

DeanB

Flash is a good tool to publish videos. It is interesting, that for example the increasing of the resoluting do not mean the equal increasing of the size of the file. I have tested wiht my recent video: 480*270 was about 91 megabyte, a 950*540 was about 98 megabyte, a 800*450 was about 93 megabyte, so you could publish your work in bigger resolution also. I have choosen 1000 kbits, it works well.

The footage is excellent, I loved the macro shots...