FYI I have just placed the HD & SD versions of LLVJ-18 in the L-L Store. The Madagascar piece will be at least a couple more weeks.

Whooohooo!!!

Thanks Chris.....I've got 2 segments downloaded already....working on the whole set....two at a time.

Cheers buddy...

Todd in Chicago

Thanks Chris! I'm downloading, one file - piece - at a time!

Chris.....

I've watched all segments but the Dykinga segment and I must say I was most noticeably impressed by the video quality of the Antarctic segment. Watching the HD version on my Dell 24 inch LCD in full screen mode was just beautiful! Anything different in this LLVJ vs. others?

Nice job guys....

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

Not really, the Antarctic video was shot in AVCHD on the Sony SR12. To my eye, this format seems to yield better low bitrate H264 .mp4 files than the obviously higher quality original HD files from the Sony EX1 reencoded for web download at the low bitrate.

A bit of a riddle, but somehow I think that since the originals from the SR12 are compressed in H264 (whereas the EX1 is compressed in Sony's proprietary EX format) it yields good results when re-encoded with the same codec. If that makes any sense to you!!

The Spring RunOff piece was all Sony EX1 originals and requires a much higher bitrate in the web downloads to achieve good quality

Basically my theory is:
H264 original > H264 web files = good low bitrate encodes
Sony EX original > H264 web files = need for higher bitrate

I could be wrong tho' - there are a lot of variables here. For instance there are a lot of blue or white areas in the Antarctic piece whereas the Spring RunOff is full of branches, moose hairs, rain, shallow DoF and other fine detail...

So far it looks great and marks the first time that quicktime has actually played a LLVJ for longer than about 3 minutes before crashing.

Chris - I've only had time to watch the Antarctica segment....Outstanding. Really captures the experience we had. This segment will be on my laptop for years to come....l

Many thanks - that's great to hear!

I second that...

Congrats, Chris!

I think this Antarctica segment is so well made that I watched it again yesterday evening just for the enjoyment of it.....very well done! Really REALLY makes me me want to save up my pennies (nickels, dimes, quarters, etc!!) for a future iteration of one of these trips. Michael has a great narration voice for these travelogues.

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

I saw on Art Wolfe's blog that he is doing one in 2010.

Ummmmm......(Todd looking furtively over to the half full milk jug full of quarters....)....I may need a little more time than that to save up over $10k!


But I think I will make this one of my "lifes missions"....to accomplish sometime before I shuffle off.....which hopefully is still many, many years away.

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

I am a bit confused... In the shop it says the VJ18 is 3.3GB, but the download is less than 1.2GB???

There is always crime.

Also got a note from the Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris people that they're knocking $1k off their Antarctic trips.

There is a large Madagascar segment still to come.

Michael

The 3.3GB figure was actually my error (a hangover from copying the LLVJ-17 product). Thanks for pointing it out. My guess is that the final size will not be much more than 2GB with the Madagascar segment.
Chris

Thanks guys. This is the first VJ i have bought but after buying and watching the excellent Lightroom 2 videos (wich was worth every penny I might add, and really improved my knowledge of LR), I wanted to check out what the VJ's are all about so I am looking forward to wathcing this weekend.

Hey Chris,
Thanks for LLVJ 18, I was jonesing man!
Is it me, or is the color a little muted?
Michael, I heard that you down in my neck of the woods awhile back, Big Bend.
Is there going to be an LLVJ of your Big Bend trip?
Regards to all.

Larry

Hi,

I ordered LLVJ18 download some hours ago, paid by CC, received the credit card receipt but not the second email I'm supposed to get. LLVJ18 still shows as being in my shopping basket and of course I can't download. Have sent an email to customersupport.

Any idea when I'll have any news?


Edit: Thanks for the support,problem solved.

First I'd like to agree that the Antarctic HD version does indeed look very good on my 70" screen, obviously better than any SD DVD I have viewed recently. Congrats for the recipe! I need to replace my tape based HD camera soon and have been holding back for AVCHD to mature. Seems as if it has? I am not overly concerned about large end files since I do not send out any HD via the web, but I am concerned by looooong overnight waits between having the original AVCHD files on my PC and being able to edit, e.g. is it still necessary to convert them to another codec (mpeg2 or whatever?) before editing, or are the editors these days able to edit AVCHD directly? You say that you retain the same codec, so presumably you work with AVCHD throughout, without converting at any time. Just wondering. I use Vegas for editing and so far I simply retain mpeg2 from my tapes throughout, but that does end up with very high bit rates (12GB per hour at 1080). AVCHD is much more compressive, but your end quality is also very impressive. If no loooong conversions are involved then I am about to purchase a hard-disc AVCHD camera soon...

Sorry to bring this up. But since it is quite a long time between 17 and 18, I forget what is the step to get it.

My account said that

"Video Journal Subscriptions
Current Shipping Issue: LLVJ-17
You are subscribed up to and including Issue 18"

Does it include this download and if so, it does not show up anyway in the account statement. I recall that you get something like a order with $0 and you then download it. Any hint and who shall I contact. I quite remember I have converted to video download from DVD subscription. (But that is also a long time ago).

Contact Customer Service (& please read the FAQ). You likely were sent coupons by email to make the no-charge purchase.

Hi Chris,

I am a bit confused. You say here that the Antarctic segment was shot in AVCHD on the Sony SR12. In your report of the video capabilities of the Canon 5DII (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/5dmkiivid_cs.shtml) the second video clip seems to partly identical with the Antarctica segment.

nevertheless, the Antarctica segment is awesome.

Regards

Bernd

I am enjoying the segments I can get, they're beautiful, but that big one with Jack Dykinga is giving me fits! It just keeps hanging up. I'm assuming it is traffic on your server as I had to try more than once on each segment but I got everything else. I would hope that it is because you sold a ton of these, but just in case, is there a chance I can do anything differently?

Bill in WV

Got it! Guess the server was busy. Another good interview and another great LLVJ. Thanks to all at LL.

That's the issue with AVCHD, including too many proprietary mixes -no single standard. PPro and other apps are only just now supporting that format, but it's processor intensive, and so much easier to just convert to "I" frame only mpeg transport streams (HDV), or cineform AVI's. I cutting a piece for a musician friend whom had someone else perform a four camera shoot of his concerto. Three of them in HDV, and the fourth, the main camera locked off on his piano was shot in AVCHD. What a PITA. 8-hours to convert in software and the result failed due to corruption. I'm now redoing this via hardware on my AJA board, now only 4 hours. (I'm sure that Cris is doing better on FCP).

In regards to hobby or home, AVCHD is ok if you can wait overnight to edit in something else. I shoot HDV to tape on Canons and when the warranties are up, I'm switching to XDcam on Sony. However, in lieu of AVCHD, at least for my workflow, it's much slower than sticking with tape and waiting for ingest.

BTW, cineform just announced support for direct conversion of the 5DMKII files if anyone is interested.

Any word as to how close to releasing the Madagascar piece?

Steven Sauve is still completing the music. Once that's done and I have mixed the soundtrack it will be finished. Fortunately/Unfortunately Michael & I will be in Arizona shooting with friends next week, so I will be mixing the sound after we return. I expect the video will be available for download by the week of April 19th.

Chris

I have just added the HD version of the Madagascar video to the LLVJ-18 HD product. It weighs in at a hefty 717 MB.
The smaller 400 MB SD version should be posted later today to the SD version of LLVJ-18.

Chris

THe DL for the new segment is timing out after a few seconds for me - you guys getting hammered?


EDIT - 5th time seems to be the charm.

go mine first try, no problems, pretty quick.

Of course I spoke too soon, failed at the end - well if one went through ok it's just my connection to it, so I'll just try later. Thanks for the feedback Tim.

Got it

That was a nice segment. When is LLVJ 19 due?

...about two years ago?

LOL.

Just keep em coming Michael/Chris - I REALLY look forward to and enjoy them. :-)

Chris,

Am I the only poor sap still having trouble with the download? The Matagasgar segment is killing me, maybe I should just start ordering non-HD version? I had trouble with the Dykinga segment but finally got it. This one just does not want to come to WV.

Got any ideas?

Bill in WV

It took me quite a few tries too, but eventually went - I think some ISPs have connection issues now and then.

It does not really surprise me that there are some folk having problems downloading this file. I am always 'pushing the envelope' and the Madagascar file is about 200 mb larger than any file I have placed in a product. In these days of web 'traffic shaping', my guess is that certain ISPs are going to cut off or slow a single connection after a certain amount of data usage; and once a connection to our server goes inactive, that connection will be cut off after 30 minutes.

The only viable solution would be to put up the Madagascar file in two separate segments of less than 500 mb each. But that is a bit of a PIA for many viewers since they will end up with two separate videos - easy enough to join or put in a sequential play-list for those used to such arcana but beyond some viewers' reach. So far, I have only read of Bill in WV's problem but if others are having similar difficulty, I will try that alternate method.

Chris

That certainly wasn't the case for me - I download a lot bigger files than that. Mine was just a glitch. Once it cleared up it went no problem, same as all the other files - got it in a couple minutes.

Most problems are probably due to local ISPs. I have really never had any problems, with this segment or earlier VJ, here in Norway.

Ronny

No download problems here, but the download speed is capped by the LLVJ site to 200KB/s, 700MB take's quite some time. Maybe capping at a higher speed would give less problems...

No cap for me, I got them all at better than 5x that speed. Your cap is your connection.

Just downloaded at more than 4x times faster from another website, the cap on my connection is still higher btw. There could be a cap somewhere inbetween, but it was exactly 200 for the Madagascar video.

That's what I said. I didn't say your ISP. Somewhere between you and them - but it's definitely not them specifically.

While it's possible, I would be surprised.

There is no imposed speed limit on the LuLa servers - they will fire out whatever the net will take to the limits of the equipment.

There is one rare exception which I welcome - if there are more than 100 simultaneous download connections, the speed will be pulled back to 200 KB/s to allow as many 'reasonable' connections as possible. This has only happened once that I am aware of: when we introduced the Lightroom 2 Tutorial and there has been a substantial equipment upgrade since then.

Chris

I found my problem: I had a rather small TCP IP RWIN (receive window) and the connection to LuLa has a higher latency than more local servers. --> The LuLa server was waiting on ACK's from my PC.

I made the RWIN a lot higher (8x) and now a test download went more than 3x faster.

Thanks for the remarks, my internet expecience will be faster ;-)


BTW. I had to patch the old proximitron webfilter to do this + some changes inside the registry.

Alain

Surprise!

Indeed and not a nice one actualy, thanks for you're information the previous days