The Tour de France bicycle race rode through the town of Preuilly-sur-Claise, about an hour south of Saint-Aignan, this past week. Preuilly is where new friends of ours, Susan and Simon, live. Their blog is called Days on the Claise. Simon blogged about the passage du Tour here.
Simon invited us down to see the Tour ride through, but we couldn't go. However, we did watch it on TV and we recorded it. The nice thing about the France2 TV coverage of the Tour de France is all the aerial photography of beautiful French countryside and villages. Preuilly-sur-Claise was no exception.
I made this movie by putting my digital camera on a tripod and aiming it at the TV screen. I played segments of the recording of the Tour we made and voilà — a little editing in Quicktime and there you have it.
P.S. I just watched it after uploading, and the quality is not great. I think I need to look for a different way to post video clips. That'll give me something to do this morning.
Ken, how did you acquire all these computer skills (adjusting the colours on a new monitor, installing a new hard disk, etc...)? Not simply by writing about it during your professional career, I suppose? Bravo .. you're a real wizard! Martine
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun to see somewhere you know well on TV, isn't it? Watching London on the coverage of our marathon always makes me feel a bit better about the place.
ReplyDeleteWhat with whatever happens in the camera, whatever happens in whatever processing software one uses, plus whatever Blogger, Youtube and the like do when processing uploaded videos, there's plenty of scope for quality to degrade. And I've been rather disappointed with the results on Youtube.
The best results I've had have been through taking the video at a larger display size than you expect to see in the end, and using the highest-quality export settings in Windows Moviemaker (no doubt paid-for dedicated software could do better still) before letting the hosting site loose on it. But with Blogger's 100MB limit that's not going to be a very long clip.
Happy Tour de France and Bastille Day (almost:))!
ReplyDeleteHere in the U.S. there's only one station (that I'm aware of) that gives full-time coverage of the Tour: Versus (versus.com online, too--used to be called Outdoor Life Network). I'm lucky to have it as part of my basic cable, because lots of people don't even get it (did they have coverage in San Francisco?). All they get is the occasional mention (if you're lucky) on the news, and an hour-long wrap up on Sundays on one of the sports shows. But! We have it, as I said, and I love watching it everyday! Versus gives the same kind of beautiful panorama views.
I just got back from my first trip to New Mexico... Santa Fe primarily, a trip to Taos area and Albuquerque for a few days... and I loved it! So so so so different from anything I've seen before. Hve you or Walt ever been?
I was wondering if you would get a chance to watch the tour zip by as it went through your corner of paradise. I wish I was there! I will stand on the street side and watch one day.
ReplyDeleteThe French countryside is so pretty, the farms and villages are so wonderful.
Enjoy!
DG
Thanks for posting that Ken. I couldn't see Simon, but the helicopter camera angle is all wrong for the first half through Preuilly. It was nonetheless very interesting to see the town from the air.
ReplyDeleteSusan
Susan, I have a DVD with better- quality videos on it, including aerial footage of Le Grand-Pressigny, Preuilly-sur-Claise, and Azay-le-Ferron. I will send it to you and Simon.
ReplyDeleteJudy, I've been to Santa Fe a couple of times and loved it. Walt and I went when we were leaving California.
DG, you are right about the French farms and villages. Just beautiful.
Autolycus, I haven't yet found a good solution to the video problem. Maybe I will just post some stills of the aerial shots I grabbed from France2 TV...
Ken
ReplyDeletereally looking forwards to seeing our town on TV
The library here doesnt have flash enabled so I cant watch them until I get home. :(
I waved at ALL the helicopters. I am guessing the only one to really notice the loony waving to Australia was probably the Gendarmes......
Simon