Travel Videos I've made

[camperkilgore]

I posted this under the rv parks, campgrounds, and attractions, but I'll put it here also.

I've made some travel videos which some might find entertaining. They cover many of our rv travels to national parks in the U.S. Maybe some of you that are planning to go to some of these parks might enjoy what you might see when you go. My wife and I are retired now, and finally got to visit some of the places on our bucket list.

This link will take you to my album on vimeo where you can watch the videos, but they are pretty long videos so you can fast forward if you want. My wife and I really enjoy watching them and reliving our adventures: Best watched with headphones plugged in for the music, and you might have to take it off HD if the video does not play without stopping.
http://vimeo.com/album/2818274

[camperkilgore]

Gjac wrote:
Years ago I shot and edited hours of underwater video with a Sony TR-81 video camera. I dropped the camera out of my backpack in a stream and it no longer works. The editing took along time. I have a new Cannon S-50 with a 50x zoom and video capabilities which I would like to start using to document my trips. I have not played much with the video part yet but your videos have sparked some interest. I like the stills with a little video mixed in. Which software system in your opinion would be the easiest for a beginner to use?

I started with Power Director by Cyberlink. There's another called Serif which gets pretty good reviews. I don't have any experience with that one. But Power Director will get your feet wet in the editing arena, and it's got some pretty neat canned effects.

The reason I got away from Power Director is that there is a freeze of the last frame in the cross fade transitions from clip to clip, and it just bothered me. In my Glacier NP and Yellowstone video you can see it in the transitions. Nobody else in my family really thought it was a problem, and it is very subtle, but I changed to Sony Vegas anyway. Vegas offers much more, but the learning curve is huge. I bought a dvd by a guy that is an expert with vegas and it helps a lot in how to use the software. Youtube has many videos on how to use Power Director also and that helps a lot.

I don't know what your aggravation toleration level is, but if I can do this stuff without having a stroke, then you probably can too.

[Gjac]

Years ago I shot and edited hours of underwater video with a Sony TR-81 video camera. I dropped the camera out of my backpack in a stream and it no longer works. The editing took along time. I have a new Cannon S-50 with a 50x zoom and video capabilities which I would like to start using to document my trips. I have not played much with the video part yet but your videos have sparked some interest. I like the stills with a little video mixed in. Which software system in your opinion would be the easiest for a beginner to use?

[camperkilgore]

Gjac wrote:
These are very nice videos and stills. Were these taken with a digital still camera with video capability? What system did you use to edit them?

Thank you,

I have used several cameras over the years for stills and videos. The Glacier/Yellowstone video was done with a Sony HX100V Super Zoom camera. The Desert SW and the Smoky Mountain 2012 was done with a Sony hdr-cx700v video camera primarily. The others were shot with a combination of Canon hf G30 video camera, Sony RX100M2, and Sony HX100v.

To edit I first used Power Director for the Glacier/Yellowstone as well as the Smokys 2012. Then the others were with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 11 and 12.

It takes a pretty fast computer to handle the avchd files from these cameras, and even though I use a laptop, it is a gaming type laptop which has a fast quad core cpu with 8gb ram and a good graphics processor. It also has 2 500gb 700rpm disk drives. If a slower computer is used, it makes it difficult to handle large files generated by these cameras.

You can shoot with these cameras using mp4 selection, and this is a smaller file size, but it is less quality. I sometimes like to slow down a clip on the timeline of the video editor for slo-motion effect, but the higher bit rate avchd codec is better for slowing down clips.

Then there's the upload to Vimeo. The longest of my videos took about 4 hours to upload via dsl connection. But if I render the video at the Vimeo standard mp4 at 750p then it does not take nearly as long.

Thanks for your interest, and let me know if I can answer any other questions.

Keep on RVing
Tom

[Gjac]

These are very nice videos and stills. Were these taken with a digital still camera with video capability? What system did you use to edit them?

[tragusa3]

Thanks for the idea. I've put my laptop near the TV at times to use HDMI, but I never thought about running a long one back to my recliner! I should probably do that.

[camperkilgore]

KY JOE wrote:
Very nice!!!! We love the Smoky Mountains too! your pictures and videos make it feel as if we where there with you. A++++ very very nice...Thanks for sharing with us

Thanks for the kind words,

We also love the Smokys, and visit a couple of times a year when we aren't long distance traveling. One of the things we like is getting away from the darn mosquitoes here in Florida.

We have also been in your state of Kentucky to the Land Between the Lakes, and had a great time fishing along the bank, but we got ate up by redbugs and almost itched to death. Lol.

Keep on RVing

Tom

[camperkilgore]

tragusa3 wrote:
I want to watch them on our TV so the whole family can watch. However, the tv doesn't play from this website. Are they also available on YouTube? Any ideas?

Sorry, I haven't put them up on Youtube partly because of the length of the videos and also the very strict music copyright thing. I might put some up on youtube at a later time when I can conform to their requirements.

We don't have a smart tv which can stream stuff for viewing, but I did run an hdmi cable from my easy chair to the tv so I can show stuff to my family. It is a little trouble to have to hook up the cable to my laptop, but it is foolproof(which is what I need).

I don't know how this is done, but when I check my Vimeo, I see where some have downloaded some of the videos. I've never done that, but I guess there is an option at the bottom of the player that allows you to do that. Then maybe you can get it to your tv from your computer some how.

[KY_JOE]

Very nice!!!! We love the Smoky Mountains too! your pictures and videos make it feel as if we where there with you. A++++ very very nice...Thanks for sharing with us

[tragusa3]

I want to watch them on our TV so the whole family can watch. However, the tv doesn't play from this website. Are they also available on YouTube? Any ideas?

[Steeljag]

I watched one this morning over coffee, nice job! Will watch the others later and thank you for posting!

[camperkilgore]

JJBIRISH wrote:
Sounds great but I can’t watch the videos, when I push play I just get a black screen

Sorry you had trouble. The site seems to be ok. Did you try clicking on the HD at the bottom of the picture to take it back to standard definition? Sometimes the large file size of High Definition (HD) will cause a video to lock up or 'stop and go'. The videos don't look as good at standard definition, but usually can be viewed.

Also if your computer is doing something in the background that is taking up cpu time(like a scan by your virus software) that will cause problems with watching videos.

Tom

[JJBIRISH]

Sounds great but I can’t watch the videos, when I push play I just get a black screen

[othertonka]

Very professional, brings back a lot of memories in glacier and Yellowstone. I was afraid that the motorcycles where going to get rammed by the bison. Will look at the rest of them later. thanks for posting, Great job

[camperkilgore]

B's Bunch wrote:
Nothing short of Excellent. Thanks, Larry

Thanks Larry,

We love Tennessee and will be camping in Townsend again soon. It'll be nice to get away from the mosquitoes down here.

Tom

[B_s_Bunch]

Nothing short of Excellent. Thanks, Larry