Below is a link to a video I made riding home yesterday early evening. It was an uneventful ride with moderate level of traffic.

There are a few areas of interest:
-The merge left after the intersection - I was looking back and signaling left with arm. I should have taken the opportunity to get in front of the green jeep (0:50), but hesitated. I was firmly signaling to the dark grey pickup (1:03), but instead of slowing they speed up and I popped in behind them. Worked out fine.

-Then a bit later I get passed by a car who didn't fully go into left lane (1:36). Didn't bother me, but just showing it happens. Note I was a bit further right than I should have been, but also note I had moved right so as not to go over the manhole cover. So my slight change in position toward the right perhaps encouraged this type of pass.

As to my lane position, the camera is aligned so the bottom center of the frame is the track I am riding on, generally a bit right of center in the lane.

Enjoy if you have the bandwidth/time. Its a 6.7MB file, right click and 'Save Target As..." to your hardrive, then open it to view (if you click on link directly it doesn't play) Also you may want to turn off volume as its just abrasive vibration/wind noise.

Jan 4, 2006 Straight mulitlane NOL

(It was reduced 2x in size and compressed using Indeo 5.1 quality 25)

Al

Love those guys that just have to get right in front of you...

Sigh...

In this case it is often because they cut off a car in the left lane to pass me and then move back to rebalance, just like water would after going thru a constriction. When I am not riding in the right lane, traffic is fairly evenly distributed between lanes.

Al

Here is another one (3.6MB) from earlier during the same commute home:

Jan 4 2006 curved multilane NOL

There is a point (0:35) where a I move to the right and a car passes me. It can't be seen from this front only video, but what happened is that I saw this vehicle move into the right lane (the one I'm in) they then saw me and merged back a bit left to pass and the same time I reacted and moved right.

Al

I don't use Windoze and have been unable to view your video.
Got sound (wind noise) but no picture on the Mac.

Did you right click on link and save? I know if you just click on link and let your browser play the video you just hear noise (at least on Windows)
If this is not the problem, I wonder what codec I need to use so it works on multiple platforms?

Al

I just clicked on it and that's what QuickTime did. I'll try more when I get home. I might have to download a plugin. What codec format is it in?

I pretty sure the issue is trying to view the video direct from the server, not from your hardrive. I have no idea why but maybe it can't stream it fast enough for video, so sound only comes out? If it still doesn't work after saving video to hardrive then playing it, let me know.
The codec is Indio 5.1
Al

I right clicked, downloaded it to my Windows computer hard drive and got sound, no picture and a message about "wrong codec" on Windows Media Player 9.

Thats odd, as experiment I played video on a 'virgin' install of WinXP before doing any Window Update or any other SW install and it played fine. It was an older version of Windows Media Player (7 maybe)

Anyway for Windows users if you download VirtualDub (intended for editing videos) you will get some codecs that will let you play most videos (thru VD or WMP) and edit and save them if you want. Recommended even if you are just playing videos.
http://www.virtualdub.org/

Al

It was a cool video.

I have Windows Me, not XP.

Thanks, which one? - the straight NOL or the curved NOL?

I thought these videos may be useful to share experiences, but really since it only shows a narrow front view it still only conveys a small sliver of what is going on. One could put facing rearward, but same issues applies. And if one uses two cameras front and back, good luck making a video showing both side to side and syncronized.

I do find them useful for me to look at and think post-event (even if not a dangerous event) as to what I did and what I could have done differently or better.

Al

Ahhhh, interesting stuff about the codec here, explains why SP2 has issues and Mac:
http://ligos.com/index.php/home/support/indeosupport/

"Service Pack 2 - With the 2004 update to Windows XP (known as Service Pack 2), Microsoft has made changes to the OS and Windows Media Player 9 and 10 that prohibit the playback of Indeo content online. Users will find that they will no longer be able to automatically play video files posted on the web if they were encoded with the Indeo codec. Windows Media Player will only play Indeo files if they are local (on your hard drive). Questions and comments should be directed to Microsoft through one of their support channels."

and

"Indeo for Macintosh Platforms Indeo codecs are no longer offered by Apple for Macintosh platforms or QuickTime. There are no plans for an OS X version of the Indeo codecs."

Al

I followed your instructions, downloaded Virtual Dub and received the following dialog box when opening the file:

Also Irfanview.exe (which opens almost everything)returned the following message:
Video not available: cannot fin 'vids:iv50 decompressor

Next step; delete all of the downloaded extras.

I appologize if I wasted any of your time. I don't know much about this stuff either, what works or what doesn't or why. A few of us on the forum were sharing videos before the holidays and most seemed to be able to play the ones I encoded with Indeo. Back to the drawing board...

As a side note getting codecs gets into the sometime not so clear area of what is legal and I've heard some of the shadier places to get them you may end up with more than just a codec. I don't use, nor will I direct folks to those places.

Al

No need to apologize; you're doing the right thing. Can you post a short summary of what the video displayed and what a sensible person would see and/or learn?

I don't know what Indeo is, but hopefully it can generate a video format that is compatible with something other than the latest proprietary kludge (XP) developed by the clowns in Redmond.

I did a little research and found the Indeo 5 drivers on the Intel site, downloaded the file and could view your file with no problem.

The file is :
CODINSTL.EXE

downloaded from:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...&ProductID=355

Thats great. Now all we have to do is help Helmet. ;)
Al

So does my girlfriend. You have my sympathy.

I'm appalled by some of Gates' business practices, but I have to say, as a former Mac user, I've been very pleased with XP. No crashes, fast, intuitive. I'll probably go Linux next time, just on general principles....

Back on topic -- I deal with similar situations (and drivers like Mr. Mitsubiatchi) all the time. Hard not to give 'em the old AirZound. I like roads like that only when they're: a) empty; or b) congested enough so everybody's moving slowly. Is that road your best (or only) option?

I havn't used ME in awhile, so I could be wrong. Windows Media Player 10 plays the clip well enough, and there could be a version of the latest WMP available for ME.
Does anyone know if WinAmp can play it? I suspect the latest versions should.

I live off this road, so basically yes for 2mi - side streets don't interconnect.

I've ridden on this strech on the video over 300 times and what you see in this video is moderate to how nasty it can sometimes get. This was at about 4:15pm. At 5:15 traffic density is much higher, speeds the same (or sometimes higher) and drivers even more agressive.

When my wife and I use this road to get groceries in the winter (1/2mi each way) when its dark at 6pm and traffic is still dense from rush hour we use the sidewalk. Oh no, don't tell my vc friends. ;)

Al

Guys, I am using Camtasia which is available here: http://www.techsmith.com/

The player itself is available at this url:
http://www.techsmith.com/products/studio/player.asp

It has worked well for all of the AVIs I have seen so far. I run Win 2000 Pro.