AboutTheVideo

AboutTheVideo

The videos presented on this web site are QuickTime files with extension ".qt" or ".mov". QuickTime is available for free for the PC and the MAC from Apple.com. To view the clips presented on this web site you will need to install QuickTime movie viewing software on your computer if it is not there already. To find out if it is, just try clicking on any of the video download links and see what happens. If it plays you're good to go. If not, go the the Apple.com link above and follow the directions for downloading QuickTime for your type of computer, PC or Mac. QuickTime now comes as part of the operating system in Windows and MAC OS, so if you have a newer computer QuickTime should already be resident on it.

QuickTime gives you more options when you run it as the primary viewer instead of an extension of, or feature within, your web browser. If you are viewing the clips of this web site using MicroSoft Internet Explorer, the video player window may appear small within the browser window, and the video image itself may be even smaller than the video player window due to cropping to save file size, as explained below. If this is a problem, or your browser is giving you an error when you click on the download link (possible software version conflict), there is still hope. Place the pointer over the video download link, then RIGHT CLICK and hold & then select "Download Link To Disk" (MAC, near the bottom of the pop-up menu) or "Save Target As" (PC, third selection from the top of the pop-up menu). This will allow you to send the file to your choice of destinations within your computer or network, giving you the ability to open it directly in QuickTime so you are not hindered by the browser.

The QuickTime viewer gives you some excellent options for studying technical details within even the shortest video clips. The space bar on your keyboard will play and pause the viewer, and while it is paused you can move one frame at a time in either direction with the direction arrow keys on both PC and MAC machines. You can also scale the size of the viewer screen by using ctrl+1, ctrl+2 or ctrl+3 for normal, large, or full screen size respectively on the PC. Likewise, command+1, command+2 and command+3 give the same result for the MAC. The MAC command key is the one with the 4-leaf clover and the apple. Earlier versions of QuickTime, 4.0 and before, only have the smaller two of these three screen sizes available. If you are using NetScape Navigator as your web browser, you will need to copy the video file to your computer using the RIGHT CLICK trick described above.

Once you get QuickTime running and a video clip up on the screen, you can also see exactly where you are in the timeline of that clip for finding maneuver rates and other specific information in the clip. To do this, select the "Get Info" (ctrl+I or command+I) window from the "Movie" menu in the menu bar at the top of the viewer or screen. Scroll down in the "Annotations" box of that window using the vertical arrows next to the "Annotations" box and select "Time". This will show you exactly what frame of the video clip you are on while you play the clip or still-frame throught it. The numbers to the right of seconds are not decimal seconds but rather frame numbers, with 30 frames per second. The Hand Launch Aerobatic movies are typically set to play at only half that frame rate for reasons described below, so you will only see even frame numbers. Each successive frame represents 1/15 (one fifteenth) of a second of time.

The moving imagery presented on this web site is recorded using various miniDV camcorders and reduced/compressed to QuickTime clips using Final Cut Pro V1.0 software on a PowerMAC G3 desktop computer. The exception is when some other specialty camera is used and the signal is ultimately recorded using a miniDVCR. This technique allows for an extremely high compression ratio possible while still maintaining image quality. A good example it the "MiniJam1" clip (found within the "Dyanmic Soaring" topic) is 42+ seconds long and contains very reasonable image quality to portray the subject, while the size of the clip is only 1.3 MB. This is truly a remarkable compression ratio, considering the original DV data stream is over 3 MB per second!

Much more information is crammed into a given duration of the moving imagery presented here then you will typically find with other motion imagery available for download from the web. This is accomplished using a frame rate of only 15 frames per second instead of the typical ~30 fps of standard NTSC video, continuous zooming, cropping and scaling made possible using Final Cut Pro software, and the Sorenson compression routine within QuickTime movie viewing software for both the MAC and the PC. This allows you to download a greater amount of information, more video clips per time, than with other techniques. Hand Launch Aerobatics is an extremely dynamic visual art, and therefore you'll want to see as much of it as possible without waiting for a slow connection to the web. A large degree of effort has gone into compressing the graphical information presented on this web site so that you can download it as quickly as possible. We wish you a pleasurable experience - happy viewing!

The models shown are Hand Launch Aerobatic machines that you can learn about in the Laboratory. The light weight parts and specialty tools used to make the Airplanes shown are available in the Hand Launch Aerobatics STORE. For web site feedback, contact the site-admin at SiteAdmin. Be sure to leave you e-mail address if you would like a response.

Tim Harris