We continue experimenting with our Sony HDR-HC3 high definition camcorder. One of the things you see all the time these days are time lapse movies of clouds zooming across the sky. Although it was 104 degrees, the clouds today were perfect for capturing this kind of footage.
Once you capture the footage, which for these clips ranged from a couple of minutes to 8 minutes each, the best solution is to use Apple’s Final Cut Pro to compress the timeline down to what you desire. A 10 to 1 or even 20 to 1 ratio gives good results, depending on how fast you want the clouds to move.
Because of rain on July 4th, Stillwater’s Independence Day fireworks display was postponed a day until July 5th. That worked out pretty great for us because we got a chance to try out our new Sony HDR-HC3 high definition camcorder in a challenging outdoor environment.
For those of you who missed Independance Day, you don’t have to sit through all 20 minutes of glorious explosions as this is just the 30 second highlight of the finale.
This video was shot was a Raynox wide-angle lens with mostly default settings, except for manual focus set to infinity, in glorious 1080i High Definition video. The night sky is a little grainy, but still nice video, especially when down converted to something a little less than HD.
In October 2001, I set up a web site called hdtvok.com to track the digital television transition in Oklahoma. At the time, none of the local TV stations were broadcasting, despite my having spent a long, hot day in September putting up an outdoor UHF TV antenna that I had read would let me receive free HDTV programming.
Nearly five years later, all of the stations in Oklahoma City and most in Tulsa now have transmitters sending out digital signals that can be received around the state. In Oklahoma City, there are six TV stations that broadcast HDTV at least some hours of every day.
Last weekend, I completed the transition of this site from an older web technology to one that will let it grow as a community site. Not only does this site have a new, improved modern design, but it is the most accessible site I have done in 11 years of creating web sites.
In the transition, nearly 3000 articles ranging from announcements as each DTV station went on the air to tips on navigating the often difficult customer support mechanisms at cable outlets, satellite operators and TV stations. More than 13,000 comments have been posted by nearly 1,000 users.