Why I maintain an aviation video page

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
11,571
Location
Ingleside, TX
Display Name
Jay Honeck
Home Airfield
KTFP - Ingleside, TX
In the age of YouTube, some have asked me why I bother to maintain our aviation video page. This page contains over 500 aviation videos, collected over the last ten years, and can be seen here: http://ameliaslanding.com/aviation_videos.htm

Quite frankly, I've asked myself the same question, occasionally. It can be a PIA to maintain, especially when twenty people send you the same fake video with lots of breathless commentary -- all of whom need to be answered.

Well, today I was contacted by a gentleman who made it blindingly clear why YouTube can never rival the value of this page. Lt. Commander Neil "Waylon" Jennings, the pilot of an F-14 Tomcat that exploded in 1995 (and is the subject of one of the most popular videos in the "Military" section of the site) sent me his amazing story of bravery, survival, and split-second decision making that saved the lives of himself and his RIO.

Our video page is all about sharing knowledge, and learning. Even though few of us will ever have the chance to fly a fighter plane at Mach speeds, Neil has made a priceless contribution to this effort -- and it's a great read, too.

See the video here: http://ameliaslanding.com/images/Videos/f14aExplosion.wmv

Read Neil's story of that flight here: http://ameliaslanding.com/tomcat_explosion_3.htm
 
Thanks for sharing that, Jay. A hand-salute to CDR Jennings!
 
Awesome story. Had always wondered what happened in that video.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Awesome story. Had always wondered what happened in that video.
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What's sorta spooky is that they never really determined precisely what happened. It just...blew up.

He doesn't address this, but I wonder if this didn't speed the retirement of the Tomcat?
 
Also read it late last night prior to a 01:00 Linux patch-fest. Good stuff.
 
Jaybird180 said:
I read the story, but unable to see video on iPad:mad:
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Interesting. Steve Jobs didn't want anyone to view .wmv files?

Surely there must be some sort of a third party program that could play this extremely common video format on an iPad?
 
Sorry, not Jobs' fault.

There are nine different versions of WMV, all of which are Microsoft proprietary. WMV stands for Windows Media Video, originally built to compete with the growing popularity many years ago of RealPlayer's proprietary format. Microsoft has no interest in supporting iOS devices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Video

There are ways to both have another machine re-encode and stream in a non-proprietary format and there are also ways to convert to a non-propretary format and upload to an iOS device. But direct playback is not licensed by Microsoft.

Microsoft created a WMV supported player for Mac OS 9. They approve of only one player for OS X, which is a QuickTime plugin, but on the desktop there's a million ways around it, including the popular open source VLC media player.

The VLC player was in the App Store for a while, but was pulled for legal and license issues by Apple. Technically, many of the things VLC can do on any computer are illegal in the U.S. under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. (DMCA). People can load the program themselves onto a desktop machine, and Apple isn't involved legally. But without jail breaking the iOS device, iOS devices only load software from the Apple servers, and they can't distribute tools like a VLC, legally.

(Most VLC download sites are hosted outside the U.S. for this reason.)

The App Store is chock full of free and pay Apps that claim to play WMV format correctly. None will likely play any WMV file that has Digital Rights Management enabled. Many are by no-name fly by night companies who you get to choose if you trust putting them on your devices.

There's no official Microsoft support for any of it.

The proper solution is not to use proprietary video formats for public consumption on websites. Converting the original to something non-proprietary is probably the "courteous" thing to do these days. Back when that video was first posted somewhere, there probably weren't any good formats worth using besides RealPlayer and WMV. It's pretty old.

Handbrake works well on all platforms to convert videos between formats. Again, they host license encumbered CODEC code on servers outside the U.S., and if someone is downloading and using it in violation of DMCA, it's not their problem.

Assuming the video is DoD and was properly released, it's Public Domain and any conversion tool you like may be used on it legally. ;)
 
P.S. Don't take the above the wrong way, I'm not saying you should convert it Jay. The comments are "general" when I say that it's "courteous" to use non-proprietary formats.
 
denverpilot said:
P.S. Don't take the above the wrong way, I'm not saying you should convert it Jay. The comments are "general" when I say that it's "courteous" to use non-proprietary formats.
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Thanks for the info -- I know the aviation page needs updating. I just haven't had time to do it.

Is there an easy way to make these videos playable by all, directly from my website? The thought of converting 500+ files, one at a time, to another format is daunting.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Thanks for the info -- I know the aviation page needs updating. I just haven't had time to do it.

Is there an easy way to make these videos playable by all, directly from my website? The thought of converting 500+ files, one at a time, to another format is daunting.
Click to expand...

I have a similar issue, never got around to finding a batch converter for ATi's proprietary format. I have probably half terabyte of video on a purpose built media server that I no longer use. So for now, it sits.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Thanks for the info -- I know the aviation page needs updating. I just haven't had time to do it.

Is there an easy way to make these videos playable by all, directly from my website? The thought of converting 500+ files, one at a time, to another format is daunting.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't worry about it. We can figure out how to play the stuff. Unless you're really really bored. ;)
 
denverpilot said:
Wouldn't worry about it. We can figure out how to play the stuff. Unless you're really really bored. ;)
Click to expand...

If only. We're like one-armed paper hangers around here, thanks to a bazillion tourists and perfect summer weather! (Not that I'm complaining!)

Maybe I'll have time to monkey with this in the off-seasons, when I'm done remodeling, and I've finished the book that I haven't started yet. :rolleyes:
 
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