Cruisin' Video Clips #4 - A Little Levity (excessive happiness)

Our fourth in a series of Cruisin’ Video selections is entitled A Little Levity. This video documents a little-discussed hazard of cruising –- excessive happiness caused by dessert. Please note that no one in this video was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If you can keep a straight face while watching, you need to cruise very soon.

Click here for A Little Levity (Windows Media, 1:59, 5.3 MB, Stereo)

Other videos in this series (so far):

1)Leaving San Juan at Night

2)Young Men in Black (Teens in Tuxes)

3)Sailing Under the Baltimore Bridges

All the best,

chesterh

Thanks for sharing Chester. Your videos always make me smile, and wish that I were on another cruise! :D

Lisa

GREAT VIDEOS

Still laughing

Thanks Lisa and Hav2. Whenever I need a little cheering-up, I just watch this and relive the moment. BTW, we only knew our tablemates from a dinner or two when this happened.

chesterh

I really wanted to see this clip and I can't get it to work.

Sorry, Tashaf. Were you able to see any of the clips in the series? If so, then this one should work fine, and you might simply try again. If none of them work, let me know and I'll try to help figure out what's going on.

chesterh

I still can't get it. I did try watching one of the others as well but wasn't able to. Media Player opens but won't do anything. It's like it's in permanent thinking mode.

Chesterh..... I often wonder why a person would put his home videos on the net, and I equally wonder why a person like me would watch them ( i commented on your Men In Black before, and loved the sons, that was a riot, I was worfsmom then).... but I watched your inlaws anniversary video, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a long term care nurse, and work with Alzheimers residents everyday..... it was a real boast to see your FIL have a lucid moment. One of which he enjoyed along with everyone else..... what a gem of a memory to have! You'll be so glad the camera was there that day, and you were recording! I imagine there were no dry eyes at that moment!:) Thanks

Tashaf – The videos are compatible with Windows Media Player version 9 and up. The current version from Microsoft is v10, and it is only available for Windows XP. You can determine the version of your player by starting it up and looking under the Help menu – you should find a selection for some variant of “About Media Player”, which will display information including the version number. If your player is too old, the only alternative is to update it. You might find a selection under the same Help menu to “Check for player updates”, or you can download a new version from Microsoft. Version 9 is still available for Windows 98, ME and 2000 and Mac OSX. Click here for the available downloads.

Another possibility is that your connection to the internet is slow and needs more time. To test this theory, you can download a copy of the video file to your computer and open it when the process completes. Try this: Right click on this link and select “Save Target As”. A box will pop up asking you where you want to save the file – pick an obvious place like your Desktop so you can find it later. When you click ‘OK’ a progress box will appear and remain on the screen until the download is complete. An icon for the movie file will appear on your desktop – you can double click it to open the video in media player.

That about exhausts my ideas – let me know how you make out.

From Worfsmom to Rykersdad – that is a remarkable transformation. How did you manage it?

I’m glad you enjoyed the 50th Anniversary video. My FIL Dave sang in barbershop quartets and choruses for decades, which is why we hired a quartet to perform at the party. For a man who at the time could not, in any sense, utter a complete thought or sentence, it was remarkable how the music brought out not just the words and harmony, but the performance gestures as well. In the scene where he gets up to sing with the group, he is joining his son who was making a ‘guest’ appearance with the quartet.

Yes, I’m glad I captured the moment and assembled the video. It was quite literally the last glimpse anyone had of the man who used to be.

All the best,

chesterh

Dear Sir!

To date the only vid I watched was the Levity one. And I was amazed at myself. I found myself smiling.. then laughing and wishing I had been a guest at your table! What wonderful people! and you captured the very best of them!Thank you ChesterH!:)

I will be on the NCL Sun this Nov 6th 205 out of NOLA. I have a canon optura 40 and a canon elph s 500. I would love to vid some of those experiences. How did you make them into a movie? and then again, how did you get them on this site?

you may email me at BlueAngelDiver@aol.com with those answers if it would be easier for you.

All in all, those few moments that I sat watching, smiling and feeling quite good are precious. Thankyou

alwaysblue

OK, Blue - you asked for it. I'll have to resort to some techno-babble to answer your questions - sorry...

The Canon Optura is a good start, since it produces DV (Digital Video) format - which is the best for editing on a computer (avoid cameras that record directly onto DVD using MPEG format). Beyond that, you'll need:

Computer

Something fairly recent and fast (2+ GHz, Windows XP). Lots of disk space: DV consumes 3.6 MB per second of material, or nearly a gigabyte for 5 minutes of tape. The computer will also need a "firewire" board - a few computers come with this interface, but most likely you'll need to add it (a $20 board, easy to self-install if you're willing to try).

Software

1) A digital editing program. I've tried many of them, and they are generally troublesome. In frustration, I finally settled on Adobe Premiere, a professional-level program. Adobe recently introduced a de-featured version aimed at consumers (Adobe Premiere Elements, $99). I would certainly recommend it over anything else I've tried.

2) Windows Media Converter. This is a free program available for download on Microsoft's website. It will take the edited version of the DV file and compress it to a form suitable for Internet viewing. Note that Adobe Premiere has the ability to output for the Internet directly, but I get much better results using this converter.

How to make a movie? The process below oversimplifies, but gives the general idea. The software used is capable of doing all sorts of advanced things, and there is definitely a learning curve. You will want to get a book (or two), and practice with some tutorial exercises...

The Process

Using the editing software, "capture" the desired video from the camera via the "firewire" connection. Edit to you heart's content, add music, transitions, titles, etc. Save the edited result to a new DV file. Convert this file, using the Windows Media Converter, to a ".wmv" (Windows media video) file.

Sharing on the Internet

To make the video accessible for others to watch, you need a defined storage location on the Internet. With still pictures, there are a lot of options. Various web sites will let you store and share your pictures for no charge. As far as I know, there is no such service for video files - the files are simply too large. The solution is to have your own web site, which is what I do. For about $7 a month, I "rent" web hosting services that give me essentially unlimited storage and server resources. This allows me to store the files on my website, and share them simply by making a "link" to the video file in messages here on CruiseCritic, or wherever I want.

If you happen to have a Macintosh computer, you can ignore most of what was written above. Your computer will already have firewire, and should have IMovie - a simple and effective video capture and editing program. IMovie will output an Internet-appropriate format called quicktime, which most computers can view using a free software update. That still leaves you on the hook for Internet-based storage, but there's no way around that one...

I could go on and on, but that's the general idea. I first tried my hand at editing in the late 90s, and it is amazing how far things have come in that short time. Be forewarned: Digital video editing is a blast, and can become an all-consuming hobby. For example, I made an hour-long "season highlights" video for my son's high-school football team. When I added up all the time I spent shooting and reviewing the 20 hours of source video, selecting music and editing, I was shocked at the total: 300 hours. I remember spending 40 hours to get one 3-minute segment "just right". It was great fun...

Thanks for watching, and have fun,

chesterh

Dear ChesterH! wow!!

obviously I am somewhere on that learning curve! So much to go get and install so I will probably have to get back to you in some time once accomplished... but wanted to say THANK YOU very much and will be back soon!

Your avid student!

Thankyou again sir, ( cuz I have alot of admiration for your thoughtfulness, intellect and kindness)

alwaysBlue:)

Whenever you're ready, Blue. You know where to find me...

All the best,

chesterh