My underwater video site

Greetings,

I am new here and thought I would offer a link to my new Website.

Although the site is not complete, there is plenty there. I am actively finishing the RealVideo files at this time. Some of the pages may not work in all browsers. Web design is not my profession!

Craig Jones

Craig,

Your work is truly amazing. I have been glued to my monitor for the past hour looking at your videos. I commend you on your fantastic work. From what I've seen so far (I haven't seen them all), my favorite would have to be the pygmy seahorses. My opinion is a bit biased considering that they are one of my favorite sea critters though. Although I must say again, all your work is fantastic.

I just recently began filming uw myself and your videos are definitely an inspirtation for both going out and shooting as well as editting what I already have.

Your website is also very informative and the detailed information on your video setup is a real treat.

Thank you for sharing it all with us.

PS - Have you considered submiting your videos to divefilm.com?

I've just switched out of lurk mode, so I need to catch up on the community here. I am not familiar with divefilm, but I'll have a look.

I actually found this board looking for digital still info since I've been waiting for the right time to enter. I have a trip to Cocos in December and I'll probably take a still camera along. Video first, of course.

Hey, Craig! Welcome.

Fantastic videos! That is one serious rig that you're using. I've got a VX2000 as well, but have never taken it underwater. Don't even have a housing.

Eventually, I'll try it out. One foot in at a time, right?

Hey Craig,

These are wonderful, I'm very impressed!! Welcome on board, hope you like digital still as much as video.

Tom

Thanks again.

Eric, the VX-2000 is absolutely the right camera. I use Amphibico primarily due to my investment in the wide angle lens, but I am very pleased with it. Until you see first hand what its white balance can do, you won't believe it.

If you think you travel heavy with a housed SLR (which you do), wait 'til you add a set of high power video lights! I travel with 40 pounds of batteries and chargers. I never regret it, though. I've thought about writing up how to pack these things. I manage everything in 3 checked bags, a legal-sized carryon and a backpack for my iPod and headphones.

Craig,

Great website!

What do you think about Premiere 6.0? Have you used Final Cut Pro or

any other software?

Thomas

I'm happy with Premiere 6. I've looked at others but the color correction software available for Premiere (Video Finesse) is too important to give up.

Avid is liked by some I've talked to and it has a good color package available from 3Prong, but Avid is very expensive.

I don't have a mac so I don't know about FCP. I understand that its vectorscope software is limited.

Wow. What a great site! I am just getting started in underwater video and found your site really helpful. (Thanks for including the gear/software stuff!) I've got a bit of footage (an hour or two from hawaii and another 30minutes or so from Cabo Pulmo) that I am now planning on editing and putting together finally.

norm

Hi Craig,

i enjoyed your videos very much, thanks for sharing.

How did you like your Komodo cruise ? (i was there in September 2001 and loved it, my best diving so far)

Sabine

I have some technical questions:

1. Which version of scenealyser do you use (freeware or the new one)

2. How do you produce your rm clips ? Real Producer or something else ?

(I'm still playing around to get acceptable results for different clip sizes)

3. Did you ever try to produce streamable mpeg videos ?

4. Does your provider offer a special streaming server ?

I've tried to produce streamable mpeg versions of some of my clips for the Real player but it seems that i might have to upgrade my webhosting package to be able to do that Right now my test videos don't stream, they kind of splutter

5. I was too lazy to get the sound for your videos but noted that you seem to be using popular songs ? I'm not sure about the legal situation with private video clips published in the internet. Did you ever find any useable GEMA free stuff ?

1. I use a registered copy of scenalyzer, but not the most recent one. I'll upgrade soon.

2. I have been making my .rm files mostly with the builtin Premiere export module, although the Fiji ones are made with Media Cleaner 5. I used mostly default settings for dual ISDN and 512K broadband. I know I could do better if I worked at it, but I get more complaints about small sizes than poor quality. I think resolution of my files should probably be set lower than it is.

3. I've tried making mpeg files but not streamable ones. So far my quality has been too poor to publish. Originally I wanted to provide a format that linux users could watch and figured mpeg was the way to go. I'd still like to do that if ever learn how.

4. My site is served out of my study, so I'd be buying the server software if I wanted to stream.

5. I do use copyrighted music, but until very recently I never distributed. The web videos are of poor (audio) quality and I provide links to Amazon. I haven't looked at redistributable music since I don't plan to sell.

Bali had some very beautiful diving. The reefs were in great shape and the fish life was outstanding. We had some issues with the boat and crew being brand new, mostly in dealing with equipment problems and tides/currents. The boat is very nice but not really a dive boat. The island and the hotels are fabulous. My travel group has two return trips to Bali next year and I'd definitely return.

Craig,

Thanks for sharing your website. Your video clips are the best I've seen, simply unparalleled! Outstanding job.

I'll be working my way through viewing all of them over this upcoming weekend.

Meister

WOW !!

Great site, the best clips I sow on the net.

More kudos!

As for the tech stuff, I work on Adobe Premiere so I think there are some items I can help you with.

Both the Real functionality as well as Windows Media support has been enhanced in Premiere 6.5. As for "streaming", there are different flavors of streaming technology.

Generally people don't want streaming, they want progressive download. In other words, you should see something (the first frame) as soon as you start downloading the movie. Then, as the software judges download time, it will begin playing back as soon as it is convinced that it won't "catch up" to the downloading section. (If that makes sense.)

Also, all of the current formats are "bandwidth aware" allowing them to choose a version to download based on the connection speed. (Assuming that it is set in your video format preferences.)

If you have any specific questions, let me know.

Daniel Brown

Sr. Evangelist > Adobe Premiere and After Effects

Adobe Systems Inc.

danielb@adobe.com

Thanks. I'll look into the 6.5 upgrade. I'd assumed that 6.5 didn't offer anything for me but it sounds like I was mistaken.

6.5 seems like a subtle upgrade, but there are some incredible additions in there. The new titler is almost an entire application built right inside of Premiere. Text on a path, textures, fills, shadows, glows, warps, etc., real-time playback of effects, transitions, titles, etc. and DVD Authoring.

F.Y.I.

Daniel Brown

Sr. Evangelist > Adobe Systems Inc.

danielb@adobe.com

www.adobeevangelists.com

Hi, Daniel! Welcome to our forums!

Can you point us somewhere where we can find more information about the DVD authoring functionality of Premiere 6.5? I've been using cheapie third party ones that are pretty bad.

Hi Eric!

I think you must be the one and same Eric that James Watt was raving about while we were in Bonaire. He said we'd have a lot to talk about and it sounds like that's true.

ANYWAY, the product that ships with Premiere is DVDIt! LE from Sonic Solutions. It's not a professional-grade product with scripting options and the like, but it's enough to get your video content onto a DVD with menus (which you can build in Photoshop and import) and get something usable.

I believe they have information about it on their web site.

I can also publicly mention that Adobe licensed some DVD authoring technology about 6 months ago if memory serves... I'll let you all come to your own conclusions from that information...

Daniel Brown > Adobe Systems Inc.

might consider going to Premier Pro 1.5... looks like it has everything

in it that you would need for underwater video editing