A few days ago, I received my DriftHD sportscamera. Came with all the bits 'n bobs needed to hook it up to my helmet, so -first thing I did- set it up and started experimenting.
Looked great, sounded crap.
So I hooked up a microphone I had lying around and gave it a go.
Figured I might as well make a decent video, while I was at it.
I'll post it here for you guys to tear apart :icon_mrgreen:
I'd love some constructive criticsm (in case you think there's something there...)
or just give it your worst (I've been around internet forums long enough to put things into perspective)
My first thought is that the video is a bit too long.
But try to sit it out until the end, there's a small inside joke for you guys... :thumb:
had no criticisms at all. you arent kidding it is difficult while driving/riding etc and talking at same time. and not screwing up. even after multiple takes, id say go for it. id keep watching. ( i do alot of this. Watching daily vlogs. Kinda gives an insight into other folks lives )
I had no issues with the vlog either. I thought the mic could have picked up less wind noise but it wasn't bad. IDK what mic you're using but I have read the condenser mics with windscreens work really good. My Shoei X-11 had a part that goes right under the chin to keep wind from coming up in the helmet. Maybe yours does?
Great Job,
Interesting point when you opened your visor the sound improved vastly?
You might want to look at the placement of your mic as this seemed strange.
Your mic should really be to the side of your mouth in the cheek of the helmet and not directly in front of it as this causes the vibrations in your voice I think I can hear?
Anyway you have done a bloody good job either way :thumb:
Quote from: codajastal on March 29, 2013, 10:32:21 PM
Great Job,
Interesting point when you opened your visor the sound improved vastly?
You might want to look at the placement of your mic as this seemed strange.
Your mic should really be to the side of your mouth in the cheek of the helmet and not directly in front of it as this causes the vibrations in your voice I think I can hear?
Anyway you have done a bloody good job either way :thumb:
good points.
Great stuff. I'm subscribed.
Cheers guys :cheers:
Much appreciated!
I noticed the improvement in sound too, as I opened my visor.
I've seen the same thing in a lot of others vlogs as well. Everything coming from outside sounds clearer and my voice sounds less muffled (because it doesn't bounce back from the visor, I suppose).
The thing is: it only works while I'm standing still. As I start riding at normal speeds, the mic pics up too much wind. In this vid, the mic was bare (little foam insulation fell off a long time ago), so I guess that's an easy fix.
I did try a few other positions for the microphone: further back, in the lining around my cheeks, etc.
But that didn't work very well. Seems this little mic needs to be very close to my mouth.
I'll definitely give it another go sometime soon ;)
Subscribed as well.
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The only thing ill add is watch pause and filler words. Um, and, uh, so, ya know, and so on, etc.
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Excellent video...I was going to say for a first attempt, but it was damn good even if it was your 20th vlog...I've never been able to get my audio to work out very well, especially at any thing over 60kph...I'll be trying it again this season, which should be starting around April 11th (work out of town...so can only ride every third week)
Keep them coming!
Later.
This is awesome. Good sound, especially if it's a bare mic. For my Drift Ghost, I set the mic behind the right cheekpad in my helmet, but that might not work in a modular helmet.
And man, your English is amazing. I could've sworn you were English if it wasn't for driving on the right side of the road.
Not to be a downer but you said it yourself. It's hard to concentrate while you are trying to talk and ride. I'm dead serious every time I ride. I think vlogging has no place with bikes on the road. Just as cell phones have no place in cars. 110% of your attention belongs on the road. Sorry, but even my neighbors (husband and wife), who are professional riding instructors, agree it's a distraction and has no place in biking.
Have you ever notice how long it takes to explain the simplest thing on these "vloggs". There is a reason. It's called splitting your attention....very dangerous. Sorry, just calling it like I see it.
No disrespect. Be safe...don't compromise your safety.
None taken, Pliskin. ;)
The route I took for that video was a string of local roads that I randomly picked as I was riding: I've been round all of them 'a million times'.
Reason why is pretty obvious: as soon as I was riding/talking my way through unfamiliar terrain, 2 things started happening:
- even more ah's and er's, not nice to listen to.
- screw-up after screw-up: bad shifting, lousy cornering,...
I've been thinking the vlogging thing through:
Like I said in the vid: it was a spur of the moment thing, not a life-long ambition or something.
But, on the other hand: making the video was a lot of fun.
So I'm having another go, but not 'live'.
Record my trips (110% focus on the road), add a voice-over at home (110% focus on the talking).
Sound quality will also improve greatly, so that's a plus.
Only possible downside: maybe this'll interrupt the whole 'stream of consciousness' thing that makes these vlogs so entertaining to watch. On the other hand, there's some pretty good scripted stuff on YouTube too...
Letting it sink in for a while. Other stuff to do today anyway (just finishes hiding a sh*tload of easter eggs for my 3 kids). :woohoo:
Happy Easter, everybody! :thumb:
I'd make an epic vlogger. Don't have the camera mic or time.
Good stuff.
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300 km round trip planned for tomorrow.
40km or so through Belgium, another 40 through the south of Holland, 70 km into Germany and back.
Camera will be running ;)
I think my only suggestion would be to keep your vlogs under 10min even say 7min even. Unless its a big like event or crisis type thing short vlogs are the go the keep the audience tuned in. And you have an advantage of an accent as well. Take baronvongrumble for instance he pretty much vlogs on the way to work or popping off to the shop. His vids are short he is hilarious in his stories and his griping but the roads are essentially boring his British accent is half his appeal.
W79 theres this option as well. can always ride the ride w/o talking, then narrate it. can town the voice down via editor so it doesnt sound like youre talking over a movie , bur rather with it. as far as wind noise, a poor mans windsock are fabric bandages. they work wonders.
Hi everyone...
I've been away for a few days (reason why explained in the video), but I'd just like to say that in the future I'll try to upload one video every week / every two weeks. Don't know if that will be possible, but I'll give it a shot.
I screwed up the opportunity to shoot some great video last week (again: explanation in the video), but I made this short clip anyway, just for the fun of it.
Let me know what you think ;)
ahhhh ... well ok then... seeing as you took time to post the kite footage!! .. :D ... made me a bit (http://c1.cowcow.com/img/4-15517652-0-1-1) with the camera swirling around though.. ;)
I .. for one... shan't persecute you for lack of ride footage....
although i might say .. "coughcoughcoughsparebatteriesyoufool!! ;) coughcoughcough"
I can view it via the embed on the forum but it won't play on my appletv or my youtube app on my phone.
ATM the video is being processed by YouTube to reduce the camera shake (big mistake > makes it even worse by skewing the picture in an attempt to keep everything stable > messes up the captions). I'll probably have to reset it to the original upload.
Maybe that's causing the problem? All other settings are the same as the previous video, should be available on all platforms...
Lol.... Yeah leave the footage as it was originally Wim, ... I fully expect a kite vid to be swirling all around!!! .. Only put the green face in there as a stir up!! .. :flipoff:
I've got a little baby 'version' of your kite... Only dual string and only good for 25knot winds.. Not a parasail style but a frame and skin... Always wanted to get one of those big kites though.... And a buggy ... And a big long empty sandflat .....
And a wingsuit to go jumping off mountains with :icon_twisted:
..... If the footage 'was all stable and level' ... It'd just wreck the whole kite feeling eh!! :thumb:
Kites are great fun. I've always loved them.
I first saw a Nasawing over 15 years ago while I was surfing in the south of France.
Kitesurfing was still very new then (at least to me), so I wasn't used to seeing kites that big.
Walked up to the guy flying it, started chatting.
He pretty much told me everything I needed to know to get me hooked:
I love the NASA-background thing (boys never grow up :icon_mrgreen:), but -truth be told- this thing has had so many things changed that it's quite a long way from its brake-parachute origins. The original ones were supposed to hold their position, while a kite obviously has to be controllable.
I bought this 3.4m² shortly after, and even made a 2m² myself. Found building instructions on the internet, borrowed someone sowing machine and gave it a go: turned out pretty good, considering that it needed more than 100 meters of bridle, divided over 40 or so bridle lines, all of which needed to have a very exact length...
The 'wing' ended up being too limited for me: it only has a narrow 'window' (all kites generates some kind of traction when they're 100% downwind, good traction kites keep pulling, even when you steer them 80° to the left of right).
I bought two or three foil-kites (big mattress type of things: more stable, more powerful) and a landboard, so I could ride.
A few years later, I bought some second hand kitesurfing kit. One day that monster (12m²) just picked me up randomly (fluke gust of wind) and slammed me back down on the beach. Sold it the next week. L. was 6 months pregnant with our first daughter back then, breaking my neck was NOT an option.
By the time we had three kids, the opportunities to go kiting were few and far between (don't live very close to the coast), so I sold all the foils and the board. I did hang on to the old Nasawing, and I got myself a Revolution.
Don't know if you've ever seen one of those? They're 4-line stunt kites, giving you total control. I'm not very good at it, but in the hands of experts, these things are amazing:
Great feature of the DriftHD: you can turn the lens 360°, so that you can always level out the horizon, no matter where or how you attach the camera... :thumb:
Not so great: forgetting that you used this feature when you mounted the camera to your son's gocart.
Took another nice drive tonight, with the camera (batteries charged and everything !) only to realize afterwards that everything I shot is tilted 70° to the left :2guns:
Boy, I really am a slow learner :embarrassed:
This week's vlog is up.
Because talking when riding was always a compromise (unsafe, not very nice to listen too... ah... er...)
I decided to pre-record all the audio and just put it on top op some video.
Like the end result, but I think I dialed out the engine/ambient noises a bit too much.
Let me know what you think :icon_question:
By the way:
very nice to hit the 'upload' button before going to sleep, and waking up to see 2 'regulars' have already left a comment.
Cheers guys :thumb:
Busy weekend ahead, so I already posted my next episode.
I think it's on an interesting topic: countersteering.
I started riding on a Vespa. No shifting, light, nimble: good fun.
Never really thought about how I got the thing round a corner. I just got on it and took off.
But my wife didn't. She had a lot of difficulty taking corners properly, running wide on every turn.
I didn't know what to say other than 'lean over more'. Somebody on vespaforum.be suggested
teaching her how to countersteer.
Good suggestion, but at that time I didn't even know what it was myself.
So I looked it up, and it was a real eye-opener. I realized quickly that I'd been doing it all along,
but doing it consciously allowed me to control my scooter a lot more accurately.
Especially evasive manoevres at speed became a lot easier.
Anyway, since then I've watched over a dozen of videos explaining countersteer.
Some do very well, some don't.
Decided to give it a try myself, hope you enjoy the result...
Well put I liked it
Next vlog is up, and this time it's a video response to slipperymongoose's Pet Peeves video.
Thanks for the inspiration, mongoose, I gave you a shoutout ;)
I think you should go back to live vlogging or at least leave the sound of the video on at a lower volume and overlay your talking? :thumb:
Cannot comment on your motive for the response on slips vlogs as I havent watched any of them :dunno_black:
I did that, cods, but I've been having some sound issues...
I have a hard time finding the sweet spot for my external mic, and on the last few runs the wind noise was so overwhelming that I toned it WAY down (so low that it's hardly noticeable apparently).
Working on an improvement. Live vlogging is not coming back anytime soon.
Quote from: W79 on May 06, 2013, 10:31:38 PM
Next vlog is up, and this time it's a video response to slipperymongoose's Pet Peeves video.
Thanks for the inspiration, mongoose, I gave you a shoutout ;)
Cheers for the shoutout I shall return the favour soon got a few more lined up.
Quote from: codajastal on May 06, 2013, 10:56:25 PM
I think you should go back to live vlogging or at least leave the sound of the video on at a lower volume and overlay your talking? :thumb:
Cannot comment on your motive for the response on slips vlogs as I havent watched any of them :dunno_black:
Oh really? Hmmmmmmm ok
And the next one's already up...
Won't be around to film/edit/upload next week, so thought I'd get this one out early.
Nice story about a guy who 'saved my day'.
Did a 180km stretch just to get to the starting point of a roadbook I wanted to try.
When I got there, my satnav started screwing with me...
That's when a good samaritan came along and helped me.
Sound issues have been adressed. Not perfect yet, but definitely better.
Quote from: W79 on May 06, 2013, 11:10:11 PM
I did that, cods, but I've been having some sound issues...
I have a hard time finding the sweet spot for my external mic, and on the last few runs the wind noise was so overwhelming that I toned it WAY down (so low that it's hardly noticeable apparently).
Working on an improvement. Live vlogging is not coming back anytime soon.
put a fabric bandage over the mic ;)
Cheers, Yama! I'll give that a go as well.
For now I've got the foam cap of another old microphone wrapped around it. Seems to keep some of the wind noise out.
Also, the position inside the helmet seems to matter a lot.
I used to have it behind the cheekpads, but I think I had it too close towards the external shell, so it could pick up a lot of noise from that.
Now it's sticking out just above the cheekpad, seemed to work well enough.
The vague 'static' sound you can hear in the last video is interference from my intercom system (I was using it for the satnav).
I also forked out for a new ram-mount and a longer ram-arm, so I can mount the camera to a few other positions on the bike itself.
Looks like I'll have to use the internal mic on those. We'll see how that works out.
This next vlog took me a bit longer to make, because I've been experimenting with some new software (Pinnacle Studio 16).
I think it's a good one :thumb:
two parts in the video:
- my thoughts on people who buy a bike only to put it in a garage for five years and then sell it
- some clips of me going around my 'test track' at dusk.
How do you find the new software? I have 15. Ill have to watch a comparrasion video
the fabric bandage i made mention of is the part with the pad. ( middle )
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21wovA5gTWL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
coulda just said bandaid to start with Yama!! even the walmart brand ones... i bet most .. well a lot of... people still call them bandaids :icon_rolleyes: :thumb: