2008 Cascade Cycling Classic Day 4 Highlights

Highlights from Day 4 of the 2008 Cascade Cycling Classic.

2008 Cascade Cycling Classic Day 3 Highlights

We are helping document and capture the action of this years event. This really has been fun!

Quick Update...

Working on Stage 3-4 video of the Cascade Cycling Classic right now. Should be up in about 1 hour.

Cascade Cycling Classic video update

No update tonight as it's late and criterion has just finished, look for the update of day three after tomorrows stage.

2008 Cascade Cycling Classic Day 2 Highlights

Day 2 highlights. Tomorrow will be focused a bit on the time trial, but more on the criterium in downtown Bend. Thanks to my extremely great moto driver Brad.

2008 Cascade Cycling Classic Day 1 Highlights

We are proud to be covering the 2008 Cascade Cycling Classic. This is highlights of today's stage.

Kent Couch after Landing...

So I thought I would go ahead and post this great picture of me taping Kent probably about 15 minutes after landing. Photo credit www.couchballoons.com.

Oh yeah and something else...

There might be one more event to cover this week....

My head made international news...

See the bottom right hand corner... Yep that is my head. Kent made it today all the way to Idaho. Stay tuned for more! (photo was on the AP)

The Chase Begins...

In Prineville! Check out the website!

Kent Couch and His Chair

Here Kent Couch discusses the details of his lawn chair



Video courtesy of Smart Solutions and Pinnacle Media Inc.

Kent Couch Final Preperations

Here is Kent talking about final preparations for tomorrows flight.



Video courtesy of Smart Solutions and Pinnacle Media Inc.

Two more videos coming tomorrow!

We are in the final run up to the launch of Kent Couch and his cluster balloon flight. Tomorrow we are going to sit down and talk to Kent about preparations and more about the chair. Stay tuned as we have made preparations for the possibility of at least 2 if not 3 videos from the road during the chase thanks to Wireless Source here in Bend. If we are not able to get them up during I will post as soon as we have wi-fi coverage.

Proud to be a part!

We are proud to be documenting this historic flight. Kent couch will be attempting to fly to Idaho with his cluster balloons. Head on over to here to find out more.

What a meeting should be

I really enjoy Seth Godin. His post today is very much relevant to how I feel about meetings. Make them different and watch the results. Click on the link to find out some more specifics.

The new television show we have been working on!

I present you with episode 8. Enjoy!

Business Travel Today vs Days of Yesterday

When I began this venture a while ago I set out to create a nice little niche for myself in Bend. I have slowly began to travel more and more for work with a culmination of a recent trip to Atascadero for some consulting work. What I was struck with was the difference of travel today vs what even a generation ago would have done.

I was hired by a company out of Portland to travel and set-up two Final Cut Pro workstations for Charter Media in Atascadero California. What I realized was the first difference was being able to leave from Redmond and be able to end up in Santa Barbara. Kind of a mistake flying in there as it is about a two hour drive, but hey it was a good drive. While I am completely comfortable in the computer world I struggle with being in cities that I do not know. I had a bit of anxiety over making it and where I was going so the next difference was renting a GPS from Enterprise. I am pleased to say it did not take me into any ocean and took me right to my destination. This was truly a trip down memory lane as growing up my grandmother lived in Nipomo. I decided to stop. Thanks to a quick call to my aunt I was able to find the house that does not look much different than it did when I was growing up. I arrived rather late into Atascadero, but was greeted by a very nice hotel called the Carlton that is just down the road from the job. Now the whole thing was arranged by the company I was working for over the internet with confirmations sent right to me. Very easy and a very different experience than you would have even 8 years ago.

The hotel had wifi and a wired connection for internet which was a pleasant surprise and a very nice feature as a lot of hotels in this price point force you to pay for internet. A welcome change and a definite selling feature. In the morning I woke up and traveled to the job. I was able to get the two stations configured including wiring up an entire one after moving 3 decks from an existing edit bay. This is where the story has another interesting side note because of some improvements to our infrastructure I was able to edit a spot while in the hotel and upload it back to Bend. This is a definite time savings and allows me greater access and flexibility. A special thanks to Darren back in Bend who put it back to tape.

On the final day I was able to spend about 4 hours training the staff who have virtually no experience editing with Final Cut and it was great to see them understand and hopefully catch hold enough to begin doing spots. I then followed my trusty GPS back to Santa Barbara and filled up with gas so I would not be charged the service fee. Finally on my way home, I type this in LA as I await the 9:00 to Redmond. This will be posted in the wee hours of the morning on that series of tubes.

So what has changed within a generation-
-2 states in 3 days
-240 miles being tracked by a gps
-2 non-linear editing stations with 3.6TBs each
-TSA (good experiences this time around)
-1 spot completed and delivered while on the road
-1 crazy picture of the propeller of the plane (taken with my BlackBerry)
-1 very tired consultant- Okay this was probably true back then also

Thanks Jo for picking me up!

I find this interesting...

Courtesy the Economist

We have a long way to go...

Boys And Girls Club of Central Oregon

We finished this yesterday to be used at this mornings breakfast. If you haven't heard they have been in a bit of a financial crunch of late. This is an extremely valuable part of our community and we support their efforts.

The HD/SD Dilema- Can it get more confusing.

Do you produce in HD?

A question I think I have had once. I said yes because if we have to deliver in HD I will and can. We do not have an HD camera, but there are plenty of people I know that do. The dilemma is that as I am walking the floor of NAB there is no clear direction for HD. The manufacturers have their flavors and then you have to figure out which flavor you like.

I was at one of those manufacturers parties last night and got the opportunity to sit next to a DP (Director of Photography) who shoots for Dateline, 60 Minutes, and CNN. His dilemma is that each of his clients, the networks, are asking for different flavors also. One of the clients even said that they would only accept packages shot on one of the most expensive solutions out there. Needless to say he is not liking the option of having to have different cameras for each of the flavors.

In Bend we are greeted with a different dilemma. As I wright this I believe that neither of the HD stations, KTVZ or KOHD, do not offer HD playback of content i.e. commercials other than news. I know that they say they are HD, but that is only during their news and the packages that play back during those.

So what are we to do. We will support HD production because it is the next step, but most of the projects we do will not be delivered in HD because the only way is through brodcast or on blueray. With broadcast it does not exist currently in our market and there are not enough blueray players right now.