Gyro videos

[Timchick]

Does anyone out there have any good gyro flying videos?

Tim

[birdy]

Not yet,but I'm work'n onit.Not sure if its wot you want to see though.

[GyroRon]

Dan Leslie sells many many tapes of gyros flying. Look up his name in the member list here and send him a email.

[quadrirotor]

http://www.autogiro.be
videos.

[Timchick]

I came across Dan Leslie's web site awhile back and sent him an email inquiring about the availability of his videos on DVD and never received a reply. I wasn't sure if the site was a current one or not. I have a small high res video camera I've used flying with my friend in his UL and I was wondering if anyone else out there is doing the same thing with gyros. I've mounted the camera in different places on his UL for different angles with real good success. I purchased Sportcopter's video and it has some good flying video on it. Maybe I can hook up with someone at the next gyro fly-in I can get to and hook their gyro up with my camera to get some flying video.

Tim

[birdy]

Wot sort of camera do you use Tim???
The one I'm using is too big to fly comfortably and is hard to mount on the machine without it shaking.

[GyroRon]

Dan will be at the ROC fly in in a few weeks and will have lot's of videos for sale there.

[gyromike]

Dan Donley puts out a great video on gyros. It's a compilation tape of about 4 seperate videos that he offer to the Chapters. It's about an hour and 45 minutes long, and has some good music and great gyro footage. It's well worth the $20.

I don't have his email address, but he is the Prresident of PRA Chapter 1 in California. Someone out that way may have his phone number or email.

[iconnary]

I'm currently taking instruction from Dan Leslie and have purchased a set of his training videos. They're excellent, clearly the result of a lot of effort on his part. He also has many other non-training oriented videos to look through.

Best way to reach Dan is his office # (478) 935 8597. And he'll also be at ROC next month.

[gyromike]

Tim,

Here is Dan Leslie's website. (http://www.rotorwingsportstv.com/)

Click the FREEVIEW tab to download some free gyro videos.

You may have to scroll your screen to the right as it's a little wide, but there are 3 good videos to down load. The one called Getting Started is about 20 minutes long.

[Timchick]

Thanks for all the posts. I've downloaded the videos off Dan's Rotorwing SportsTV web site. The "Rotors over Russia" video is very cool. It's a good ad for the Dominators. That's the kind of videos I'm looking for. Something I can show non-flyers to show them a little about the gyros. The camera I've been experimenting with is a small bullet camera I bought off ebay. It's rated at 480 lines of resolution and it was about $130. It has a wide angle lens which works great when we mount it out on the wing strut looking back at the cockpit. It's small size offers shake free video. I run the video output from it into my Sony Digital8 camcorder. I'm trying to get another lens for it that's not as wide an angle. I was mounting the camcorder out on the wing strut but couldn't get a shake-free mount. I've been using the RAM mounts for both. I'll try to attach a still frame taken from my camcorder. It's not in it's native resolution (I compressed it when I uploaded it on theweb). We fly some with the camera pointing at us, land, change the camera angle, fly some more and afterwards I edit the video together so it looks like we had multiple cameras on the UL.
http://www.ctel.net/~thechicks/Tim/Bill&Tim.jpg

[barnstorm2]

Tim,

I have both Dan L's Rotorwing videos (some not all) and Dan D's videos. All excellent!

You can find some more footage if you are willing to use an FTP server here:

http://www.prachapter34.com/toppage7.htm

I have converted Dan D's videos to digital format (from VHS) so I can play them on my computer for non-gyro people and events. However, I don't know how he would feel about me passing out copies. I know the $20 he charges is just to cover his postage and materials so I assume he is OK with them being in the pubic domain. I keep meaning to write and ask him. If he is ok with it I could burn you a DVD with his material on it.

I use a Sony Digital 8 camera to film my gyro antics as well. I would like to know more about your remote camera.

[Aussie_Paul]

Birdy, how dare you!!! AK rotors don't shake!!!! LOL

Aussie Paul.:)

[Timchick]

Barnstorm2,
I'm going to try contacting Dan D to see if I can get one of his videos. I found the bullet camera I'm using on ebay. It's only about 3 inches long and 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch round. It has 480 lines of resolution. I just checked and there are a few listed on there right now. Go to ebay and type "480 bullet" in the search window and several should show up in that search. Mine came with a battery pack holder so I can power it using AA batteries. I purchased a longer video/power cable from Supercircuits (www.supercircuits.com) and also a small mic to record audio along with the video. Supercircuits also has the battery pack holders as well. When recording the bulletcamera video with your camcorder it will be in VCR mode so the camera mic won't pick up audio so you'll need an external mic to record audio. Supercircuits has those also for about $15. If you want to power the camera and mic from the same battery pack pick up a power y cable from supercircuits also. One problem I've encounter with the audio is it's too loud. When the camcorder records normally in the camera mode the built-in mic has an auto gain circuit that reduces the audio if it's too loud. In the VCR mode the camcorder auto gain circuit isn't on. The result is the engine audio is loud and distorted when I use the external mic. I'm working on a fix for that. I'm trying to find something to attenuate the mic level before it gets to the camcorder. I have a fanny pack big enough for my camcorder that I wear around front in my lap and it works great. To mount the bullet camera I use a RAM mount that has a u bolt bracket that I can put on round tubing. On my friends UL it works great. I can mount it out on a wing strut or underneath on the landing gear, etc. The small bulletcam produces rock steady video (as long as what it's mounted on is not shaking). You could also rig up a mount on your helmet for the bulletcam. The next time I go fly with my friend I want to try mounting the bulletcam up on the top of his vertical stab. I just use some plastic tie wraps to secure the video/power cable along the tubes back to the camcorder in my lap. Once I have the video I dump it into a PC and I use adobe premiere for editing, add some music and then burn DVDs of the finished product.

[birdy]

Paul,mate,I can make any blade/machine shake :D .[someone said it had something to do with changes in coning angles at certain g loades] :p ;)

[Timchick]

Birdy,
Do you use the PAL video standard down under?

Tim

[daveb]

Birdy,
I been using a Panasonic NV-EX3 for years as a sort of video notebook. ...and will set it up on my gyro once I feel I can spare some of my attention for anything other than flying (and engine outs!!). Its very small and has a fair size flip out screen for monitoring which I think would be needed to get good shots. 200,000 pixels, Mini DV format and old enough to find one for a good price. Mine cost two gorillas, but it was new...

...and for those who care, we operate on PAL rather than NTSC in Australia.

Dave

[barnstorm2]

Tim, GREAT info! thanks!

We should get together at Bensen Days in the spring and swap data.

I used to use premere but it kept locking up on me after I had spent an hour geting things setup. I need to go buy another Macinitosh for this stuff the PCs are just too flakey. I gave my last mac away to a friend who was disabled for about 6mo after an injury.

[Timchick]

Tim,
I'm using Premiere on one of HP's multimedia PC's and it works great. I haven't had any problems at all. I haven't found DVD authoring software I'm real happy with yet. I've tried a couple and right now I use MyDVD (The version that's around $100). I'd like to see some of the others in use before buying anything else that I may not be happy with. I'd like to have more control setting up the menu page. MyDVD limits where the thumbnails can be placed, etc. One of the cool things I like about it is the motion menus. When viewing the menu page all the thumbnails simultaneously play a loop of the first 10-15 seconds of their video segments. Very cool looking. Are you going to ROC?

Tim C.

[birdy]

PAL,NTSC?? No idea wot you blokes are say'n.
I'v been use'n a small handheld dig camera but it's too big[@6"x4"]to have sitt'n on me lap without git'n in the way.I need a small remote setup but this cam dos'nt have an AV in hole.

[daveb]

Birdy,
Don't laugh but with your existing camera, if it has an adjustable view screen you could get an old belt and gaffa tape and strap it to your chest. I've done something like this by putting a thin bit of wood lengthwise to balance the load (vertical stabilizer :D ) and a mount a small bracket to hold the device I wanted to carry with a screw through the belt to hold it all together.

Your body would dampen most of the shake, sorry - vibrations really well and once you had the angle of the lens sorted you could just lean and twist slightly to frame the shots, while checking your view screen. If it was fairly high on your chest it should be clear and out of your way and give a pretty good result.

Dave

[Timchick]

The camcorder I use has a small flip out screen so even though I'm recording the video signal into it from the small bullet camera I can look at the camcorder's small screen to see what is being recorded.

Birdy,
Maybe your camcorder has an accessory cable that connects to your camera so you can connect the camera to a TV, etc. On some cameras the same cables that route the video out of the camera also route video into the camera when it's in the VCR record mode. What make and model is your camera. Maybe I can find some more info about it for you.

Tim

[birdy]

Tim,it's a Panasonic NV-DS15A.It's small as far as cameras go,but big when it's in your face while your try'n to do loops.
Dave,I tryed that sort of setup but had trouble keep'n the bloody thing from look'n at me crouch.I'v got a stem mounted on the frame of the gyro that holds it in frount of my guts and use the lap strap to stop it from shake'n but it's not the easyest setup to fly with.

[daveb]

Dave,I tryed that sort of setup but had trouble keep'n the bloody thing from look'n at me crouch.

Here's what I use as a monitor when doing hand held shots. Its quite heavy with the battery, but rock solid. It would need something more robust than my simple mount with your camera and in a gyro, but you get the idea.

Dave

[Timchick]

Since the cameras we're using are fairly small another option would be a helmet mount. Skydivers have been using them for years. They even have a small ring sight that is a lens that sits in front of one eye. In the center of the lens is a black dot. When mounting the camera on the helmet align the center of the camcorders view with the dot so when you turn your head whatever the dot is on is the center of the video picture. If you wear goggles or have a visor you could probably make a sight by sticking a small piece of tape on your goggle/visor.

Birdy,
I couldn't find any detailed info for your camera model. Do you have cables that plug into it to connect it to a VCR to transfer the video onto a VCR tape?

Tim

[Timchick]

The bullet camera I was experimenting with had a wide angle lens on it, 3.6mm. While it worked great the shots were a little too wide. I found a site that sold different size lenses for the bullet cameras they sold so I ordered a 6mm lens to try on my bullet camera. Unfortunately the lens I ordered did not work on my bullet camera :( so I will probably order one of their 480 resolution cameras. Here's the web site that has the cameras and lenses and other stuff to go with them"

http://www.helmetcamera.com

They also have a PAL version for you guys in Australia.

[birdy]

"Do you have cables that plug into it to connect it to a VCR to transfer the video onto a VCR tape?"

Yes Tim,it will transfer from it's own small tape to a regular vidio.

[Timchick]

Birdy,
Those same cables may route video and audio into your camera to record using it as a VCR. Put your camcorder in VCR mode and instead of connecting those cables to the video/audio input on the VCR connect them to the Video/audio output on the VCR. Press play to play a tape on the VCR and then press record on the camcorder and see if it records the video from the VCR. Some camcorders have a small switch beside the cables jack that switches the cables from "In" or Input" to "Out" or "Output". If your camcorder does not have a little switch anywhere on it, it may do it automatically when it detects a video signal on the cables. If this works and you are able to record a video signal from your VCR into your camcorder then you should be able to use one of the small bullet cameras with your camera.