Pardon the dust - this is still evolving...
Total running time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Basics |
mm:ss |
| Introduction to Basics | 12:41 |
| Six step system | 12:19 |
| Light Wind Techniques | 1:28 |
| Indoor Flying Basics | 3:45 |
| Bridle Adjustments | 1:31 |
| Total (Basic) | 33:44 |
Advanced |
|
| Snap Stall Group | 3:54 |
| Advanced Axle Group | 8:23 |
| Flat Spin Group | 1:58 |
| Pancake Group | 1:25 |
| Flip Group | 6:15 |
| Rotation Group | 4:06 |
| Advanced Recovery Group | 5:04 |
| Combination Group | 7:27 |
| Total (Advanced) | 42:32 |
Additional |
|
| Introduction | 0:58 |
| NewTech Kites In Flight | 6:26 |
| Flying with Dodd Part 1 | 16:05 |
| Flying with Dodd Part 2 | 6:16 |
| Credits | 0:30 |
| Total (Additional) | 31:15 |
The DVD should play in any set-top DVD player released in North America. Use the remote control arrow buttons to change the menu selection. A small kite icon indicates the current selection. Press the Enter key on the remote control to activate your selection. For non-North American users, please refer to the PAL section.
When a video track is playing, you can use the Menu button on your remote control to return to the correct menu. Use the Next Track button to jump to the next track. Depending on your current viewing mode, the video may jump to a menu after playing a track, or continue playing the next track. You can adjust this in the Setup on the main menu. When first inserted, the disc defaults to returning to the menu after a track is finished playing.
Use the DVD player software that comes with MacOS 9 or Max OS X DVD-equipped Macintoshes. The multi-angle function can be activated using the Angle button available with the secondary controller buttons.
You should have received DVD player software with your computer's DVD drive. This software emulates the remote control of a set top box. Additionally, you can use the mouse or pointing device to select and activate the buttons.
We have tested the DVD using PowerDVD under Windows98 Second Edition. The following notes some things we found during testing:
Double-clicking changes from windowed to full screen mode. To activate a menu selection, click once, pause, then click again. Otherwise the screen will jump and you won't select what you thought you were pointing at.
The video quality in full screen mode depends on the graphics card you are using. It looks great on my three year old AMD 700 MHz system with a GeForce 4 card.
There are two different ways to enjoy this DVD. One is as a normal video presentation, playing a series of tracks. This is like watching the original VHS videos. The other way is to set the DVD to return to the menu after a track is finished playing. This is most useful when you want to be able to jump to a specific section and review it.We've worked hard to make this DVD suit either of these viewing preferences.The DVD defaults to Review mode. To change this, use the Setup Menu off the Main Menu.
There's a special kiosk mode accessible from the Setup menu. By hitting the Right Arrow, you enable Kiosk mode. Hit Enter, and a movie loop starts to play. This loop consists of the NewTech Kites In Flight video, half of Flying with Dodd Part 1, and the credits. To exit the loop, use the Menu key on your remote, or use the Root/Top Menu button on your computer-based DVD player control.
The DVD is arranged in a set of hierarchical menus. You move around the menus using the arrow keys on your remote control, or your pointing device on your computer. To make a selection, move the kite icon to the item you wish to select, then press the Enter key. On most menus, one of two actions will occur. You will either be taken to another menu, or a track will begin to play.
The DVD was shot and encoded using the NTSC video standard. This is the standard format used in North America. Users in other regions need to check that their DVD player is capable of converting the NTSC signal to one acceptable to their television set.
This DVD does not have any region code set. It should therefore be playable world-wide.This is sometimes called a Region 0 (Zero) DVD.
The CSS digital copy protection system has been employed to deter creation of digital copies. The Macrovision analog copy protection system has been employed to discourage creatiom of analog copies. Neither of these mechanisms should interfere with normal viewing of the DVD on either a computer or a set-top box.
The video at times may look somewhat blocky or comb-like, especially when viewing the high contrast edges of a moving kite. This is due to the nature and interaction of interlaced video, rapidly moving, high contrast objects and graphics image codecs, which compress the data prior to storing the data on the disc. Briefly, the kite is moving continuously, but we're snapping an image every 60th of a second. However, we capture half of the 720 lines in one field, then a 60th of a second later, we capture the other half. These two fields are combined to form a single frame, but the kite has moved between the capturing of the first and second fields, When the fields are combined, a comb-like effect is especially noticeable at high-contrast edges. The faster the kite moves, the more pronounced the effect will be. Motion picture film captures this as a blurred image. It is this high contrast sharp effect that gives vieo its classic jittery effect. As the industry moves to progressive scan disply technology, this effect should disappear. In the meantime, we're stuck with it.
The principal hardware used in this production consists of a Macintosh G4 500 MHz equipped with 480 GB of storage, 1.5GB of main memory. A Sony TRV7 miniDV camera acted as a firewire-in/out viewing translator for the Panasonic BT-1360Y studio video monitor. The camera also doubled as a miniDV player, allowing capture of the video onto the system's hard disk.A Pioneer DVR-104 CD/DVD burner generated test DVDs. The final production was loaded onto a DLT (Digital Linear Tape) and delivered to the DVD replication house. The artwork was loaded on a separate CD.
Software used in the production of the DVD included Apple Final Cut Pro 3.0.1 (FCP), Adobe Photoshop 7 (PS7), PeakDV 3, Apple DVD Studio Pro 1.5.1 (DVDSP), Microsoft Excel v.X, CatDV 2.5.10 and BBEdit 6.5. The host operating system was MacOS 10.2.2. Some of the bonus video segments were prepared by DG on an Apple iBook using Apple's iMovie2 under MacOS 9.
The video was encoded to MPEG2 using the codec included with DVD Studio Pro using 6 MB/sec VBR. For some sections, we lowered the bit rate to fit all of the sections onto the disc.We did some initial limited tests of two other MPEG encoders: TMPGenc on a PC and Discreet Cleaner 6 on MacOS 10. The quality of the compressed video was usually worse than the same video compressed with Apple's codec at comparable bit rates, and took noticeably longer to compress. Both of these programs offer numerous settings. Due to time constraints, we did not get a chance to really see what these packages could really do.
Cover and disc artwork was prepared using Adobe Illustrator 10 by Kelly Turner at NewTech Kites.
The training section of the DVD (Basic and Advanced) were previously released on VHS videotape.The masters for these two tapes was available on miniDV tapes. These were loaded in their entirty onto the Mac hard disks (about ninety minutes of video, at 4.5 minutes/gigabyte for about 20 GB of initial storage). Most of the video needed to be corrected (mostly by performing gamma correction, somewjat akin to turning down the brightness knob). This causes another copy of the data files to be created through the rendering process, as the current system is not capable of generating these effects in real time.
Each of the video files was then catalogued by placing markers at every title section of the original in FCP. Additional markers were added in the combination sections. These markers become the jump points for the DVD menu buttons.
The DVD menu structure closely follows the original VHS program titles
The Flying With Dodd and NewTech Kites In Fliight were mostly shot with a Sony TRV900 3CCD miniDV camera. Some video was also captured with a Panasonic MX3000 3CCD miniDV camera.
Some of the venues featured in the bonus sections include Crissy Field in San Francisco, California, Ocean Shores, Washington, Galveston, Texas
