Tag: camcorder

Scooby Doo Chia Pet

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Well I set up the Scooby Doo Chia Pet this morning after soaking it and the seeds for a full 24 hours.  I video taped the process but I think I’m going to wait until the time-lapse is finished and then just add that.  But maybe not.  I think that my video today was about 8 minutes.  We will see how long it is after I finish with the editing heh.

It’s kind of strange seeing my laptop sitting on the dining room table.  I have a light blue sheet sitting on the table so that I could do a blue screen.  I was thinking of adding a cartoon with blue screen but I’m not sure if it will even work because the light blue is washed out on the screen so it looks white.

The picture is a bit fuzzy, it’s not crystal clear so it’s not going to look wonderful, just ok.  I wish my camcorder had time-lapse photography with the SD card so I don’t have to use my laptop.  Oh well.

Eh what the hell, I might as well edit the video I did today and put it on YouTube tomorrow then I’ll post it here.

Bike Cam Part 2 Troubles

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

I took the camera with me this morning and turned it on just before I got to the tunnel to go past Manor St.  I went through the tunnel, over the bridge and through the woods to grandmother’s house er um wait no that’s not right… ok, I went through the tunnel then over the bridge … then kept riding.

As I went over the 2nd bridge the bicycle went over the usual bumps before and after but the 2nd bridge screwed up the camcorders ability to auto focus lol.  I tried fixing it but it just would not fix so I stopped recording but I just could not fix it.  I turned it off hoping that would help and it did.  So I turned it back on and kept riding.  I went all the way to the end of that part of the bike trail and turned off the camera.

I get home and plug the camcorder into the computer and the program I use ImageMixer 3 gives me errors.  It cannot download from the camera at all.  I have a feeling it’s because of those darn bumps but then I go to watch it from the camcorder onto the computer with PowerDVD and it stops after only 20 seconds which was when I first started filming so I’m a bit stumped.

This morning at 8am they closed that part of the bike trail from the first tunnel to the 2nd tunnel until tomorrow afternoon at 2:30pm so tomorrow morning I won’t be doing my 22 mile trip, instead I’m going to have to settle for 16 miles so I won’t be able to do it over tomorrow.

The video plays just fine in the camera so I thought that maybe I could just plug it into the TV and record it with my DVD recorder.  Well, when I plug it into the TV it shrinks the video from 16:9 to 4:3 so that doesn’t do me any good.  I’ll need a widescreen TV to be able to do that.  So instead I just put the mini DVD into the DVD recorder and recorded it to a VHS then recorded it back to a regular DVD.

I tried putting the DVD into my computer but it won’t recognize dvd’s that I’ve recorded on the dvd recorder so I had to put it in my laptop.  It’s uploading now so as soon as it’s finished I will transfer it over to my computer and work on it.  I will try to get it on YouTube today and when I do I will post it here.  Well, as a new post.

Bike Cam Part 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

When I did the Bike Cam video the place where I stopped at was my half way point, the place where I would rest before I got back on and turned around to go back home.  That was 16 miles round trip.  Well, since then I’ve added to my bike ride.  I was going 19 miles then 20 miles then 21 miles and now I’m going all the way to China Grade so my bike ride is now 22 miles round trip.

So since I’m going to China Grade now, the next time I ride I will bring the camera with me and when I get to Manor St. instead of going through the tunnel I will set my camera up on the handlebars and then continue through the tunnel from there and go all the way to China Grade before stopping the camera.

This of course means that I will have to leave the house at 5am instead of the usual 4:30am because when I get to Manor St. the sun isn’t even up yet and I don’t think doing a video in the dark is very productive lol.  Especially since I don’t have a light for the camcorder.

Anyway, tomorrow is my day off from riding, I do 3 days on then 1 day off to give my body (and now especially because of the new seat) some time to heal.  So Thursday morning I will take the camera with me and video tape it and then by Thursday afternoon the video will be on YouTube.

If you want to help me before then, suggest a couple of songs for me to buy to put in the video via a comment.

Bike Cam Video

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

I went back on the bike trail today with my camcorder hooked up to my mount that I made and when I came home I immediately hooked the camcorder up to the computer and it didn’t fail the import, it failed on Saturday morning.  I’m still confused as to why it did that but that’s ok because watching the video showed me how much I need to stop moving the bike from left to right so much when video taping lol.

It’s always a learning experience right?

So anyway, now that I have it on the computer I can make it go fast and add some music to it.  It’s a 20 minute video but I’m going to speed that up so it fits about 2 or 3 songs so hopefully about 8 or 9 minutes.  I don’t want to bore people too much but at the same time I don’t want it to go so fast that you can’t see what’s happening you know lol.

So, I’m going to be working on that for awhile.  I can’t upload it to YouTube until I get some money because this program that I use which is the best program, Pinnacle VideoSpin.  It’s a free program with conditions.  You get I think 2 weeks free use out of it then after that you have to pay $15 for the codec, otherwise you won’t even be able to import your video into the software.  I’ve tried other programs like windows movie maker, I also bought Adobe Premiere Elements 3 and those 2 programs won’t let you make your movie for YouTube to be able to have it in widescreen.  Your video ends up having the bars on top and bottom but also on the right and left.  That’s no good.

So, until I get the codec for it when I get money then I will upload that video.  I’m also going to take the opportunity to do some other videos while I’m at it of some video games then just do them all on the same day.

Bike Video

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, ExerciseLeave a comment

I brought the video camera today on my ride and when I got to the bike trail I hooked it up and started recording.  My starting point was Truxton and Mohawk and my ending point was Manor St.  The whole video was 20 minutes and 25 seconds.

I turned the video camera off and put the camcorder back in the camera bag inside the grocery bag on the side of the rack.  I get home and watched it on the dvd player (which is actually a dvd recorder, I deleted a scene with me talking because my head was cut off) then I put the dvd back in the camcorder and hook it up to the computer to upload it.  Failed import. I don’t know why or what happened.  I put the dvd into the dvd drive and it also failed.

So what this means is I gotta do it again lol.  I was hoping to be able to take the mount off and put it in the camera bag for future use if I ever wanted to use it again somewhere else but I guess it will have to stay on the handlebar until I get it right.

I formated the mini dvd-ram (that’s what my camcorder takes, mini dvd’s, a dvd-ram is better though) so that tomorrow when I go back out there won’t be any reason for it to do that to me again.

Dream

On By Michel McDonaldIn Dreams, PSP, TechLeave a comment

I have the weirdest dreams. I had to blog this before I forgot it. I am already starting to forget most of the dream but the main thing I want to write about is that we were running around and we had these duffel bags and my duffel bag had a camcorder and my PSP and my house keys inside it along with clothes and whatever, I don’t know what else actually.

Anyway, we stopped carrying them and at some point we were passing where we left them and they were gone and I said our bags are gone and Darrin looked at me like OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW!!!! And I turned to him and said “don’t worry, this is just a dream. I will wake up and that stuff will be where it’s supposed to be.” Then when I did wake up I was like whew hehe. But I find it strange that I knew that it was a dream so I chose not to stress over it in my dream.

PSP GPS

On By Michel McDonaldIn PSPLeave a comment

WOOHOO I just read at www.pspfanboy.com that the GPS for PSP is coming to the US in 9 months YAY! I can’t wait. If the GPS is coming in 9 months the camera and tv tuner wont be too far behind. You know what this means don’t you? That will make the PSP the ultimate device.

As it is the PSP is a mp3 player, a picture viewer, movie player, game machine, website browser, cell phone and internet radio player. All we need now are the GPS, Camera and TV tuner. The PSP already has the camera option in the pictures menu so we don’t need to worry, just plug in the camera and were set.

EDIT: Ok, I just read some more news, the camera for the PSP will never see the US so you have to buy it from an asia website and unfortunately it’s back ordered lol.  But I have a camcorder with a SD card that I can do video on mini DVD’s as well as take pictures with the SD card so I don’t care about that but the good news is that the GPS hardware is coming this holiday season which is faster than 9 months.  It’s more like 4 or 5 months which is awesome.  I can’t wait because when we take trips I have to use my laptop for our GPS and it gets hot sitting on my lap and if I have the GPS for PSP I can just get a mount for it.