Do me a favor, would you? Scroll down to the post below called Raid Sweden: The Movie, click the link at the bottom of the page, and watch the movie--or try to. It's a pretty cool scene, these little open Swedish pilot boats screaming along in 25 knots of breeze. But I suspect the load time was too long for most people. We'd like to post more moving images here, but might have to fine tune our protocols a bit to do that.
So, give it a try, and describe your experience with it in the comments. (We're not looking for a critical evaluation of the cinematography or sailhandling. You can mention these if you want to, but what we're really after is your opinion on the load time and general quality.)
Matt - it's a cool little movie but it takes a long time to load...and I'm on cable. Dial-up folks could go to lunch, come back, and it would still be loading.
Posted by: Doug | January 25, 2006 at 10:28 AM
Great site.
I will download the movie later. You might try a web storage site. Much faster that way!
Take a look at my site and you will see.
Rocko Delray
rockodelray.blogspot.com
Posted by: Rocko Delray | January 26, 2006 at 06:19 PM
Twelve minutes loading time on a cable hookup... well worth it. I believe Tom thinks he got his money's worth for that sailboat ride.
Posted by: Robb White | January 27, 2006 at 12:53 PM
Matt,
What a neat little movie. Surf's up! Thank Mr.Jackson for me.
It took about 7 minutes to load over a basic DSL line.
On the subject of Raids, how about WB organizing participation in one? A trip to the Baltic or where ever, a charted boat or two, accomodations, etc. Similar to your other trips, like the one to Norway, but with the chance to sail in a Raid.
Russ Manheimer
Posted by: Russ Manheimer | January 28, 2006 at 08:37 AM
It took me just about four minutes to download the file, while I was on a university network connection. My browser handles .mov files by showing them in Quicktime, which I don't prefer. As a hobbyist videographer, I work with .wmv files. A more ubiquitous viewer, which defaults to streaming play, and has more available video editing software. Try it out at http://www.intronfilms.com/Mercantile05_Trailer.wmv
Peter Eipers
Posted by: Peter | January 30, 2006 at 02:48 PM
Mine took about 2 minutes on a T1. Still it froze the machine while it loaded and then was teeny tiny image, with no sound. Pretty poor experience for an online mov file.
Posted by: Gary Powell | February 06, 2006 at 06:38 PM
Peter Eipers .wmv file downloaded in a minute (work network). The .mov took a lot longer.
Great clip and at two minutes long it's better than most clips available.
Posted by: Derek Byrne | February 08, 2006 at 09:29 AM
The .mov took two minutes and change to download over a cable connection, with a downstream average of about 150 KB/sec. The .wmv took half the time, but then it's half the size. I wouldn't mind seeing larger, higher resolution versions of these files.
Personally, I could stand more of this sort of thing. The Raid clip has beautiful boats doing what they were meant to, and sound would really make it come alive.
Posted by: Matthew Kershner | February 15, 2006 at 11:44 PM
Movie to quite a long time to load. I was ready to quit and go onto something else when it suddenly began to play. I liked it quite a bit. Sound would make it even better, even if you just added music.
Tom G. (Seaweed)
Posted by: Tom Galyen | February 18, 2006 at 04:17 PM
Movie to quite a long time to load. I was ready to quit and go onto something else when it suddenly began to play. I liked it quite a bit. Sound would make it even better, even if you just added music.
Tom G. (Seaweed)
Posted by: Tom Galyen | February 18, 2006 at 04:18 PM
Took no time to load , movie was small but fun to watch, wish I were on-board!
Posted by: Ben Bishop | February 28, 2006 at 08:16 AM
About the movie: 10min over crude wireless broadband network. My old dial-up (I thought I was the last person to have given that up) would have taken about 30min or more, but would have been do-able and well worth the effort. Good lunch time download, as someone else mentioned.
I wonder, however, of the .MOV format was the best choice. While I love most things from apple, the quicktime platform has to be it's weakest link. It seems like files of similar size and complexity in .mpg or .wmv (shudder) would have taken less space (hence faster d/l time/smaller file). Also I find quicktime to be less versatile than it's windows or other aftermarket counterparts, although I'm no expert, which may explain it.
About the Movie itself: Thank you, thank you, thank you for that. When those Swedish pilot boats began making a scene in the wb community they have made me swoon. Thank you for your coverage of them and your official notice of the raid network in which they seem to be prospering.
Posted by: Rick Starr | March 07, 2006 at 11:02 AM
The video downloaded over a cable modem connection in about four minutes. The quality of the photography was excellent. It was some exciting stuff, but not as good as some 505 sailing videos I've seen on Phillipe Kahn's Pegasus racing site or some of the Volvo Ocean Race videos.
Raids do look like a lot of fun though. I'll bet they are well worth taking part in.
Posted by: Will Parkes | March 15, 2006 at 09:42 PM