[TheForge] videotaping (was: Abana conference)

[Roger R Degner]

The below listed option would be good for lectures but what happens when
you want to see what is being forged at the anvil and then they turn
there back to go to the power hammer.

I have been reviewing some of the titles that don't have a good index or
subject listed at www.umbaonline.org  You can tell when I am not in the
mood to watch the demo as I have been some what disappointed in the
quality of the movie.  As for editing I try to pause when noting is
going on.  Sometimes this misses a snippet of what happened but I feel
is better than watching 5 minutes of the piece taking a heat.
Right now there are over 600 hours in the library on 127 disks.  Someone
mentioned the rocky Mt smiths.  They do a different tape for each
subject the demonstrator did at a weekend.  Where I combine events to
get 6 hours approx per disk.  This is of lesser quality video (not as
sharp) but I don't want 1000 different titles to try to keep track of
either as an unpaid volunteer.

Our library makes a little money at a time with high volume sales which
adds up to a great profit for the club at the end of the year.
Basically we are trying to spread blacksmithing knowledge around at a
reasonable price.

If any person or group would like to have their footage converted to DVD
I would be interested in doing this at no cost, of course we would like
to add it to our listing but this is not required.

Roger R Degner


For what it's worth, I read about a camera that followed the
speaker/demonstrator automatically.  The speaker wears a clip-on mike
that is in radio or optical contact  with the recorder.  The camera is
robotically directed to the signal from the mike.  I was under the
impression these were commercially available, but have no contact or
price information.  Wouldn't be cheaper than volunteer cameramen, but
might be cheaper than professionals. Bruce NJ