Video Experiment

So I said in my last post that I dragged Husband out to the barn and he videoed from the ground and I videoed with my helmet cam. Well he finally got the video software working last night - it decided it didn't agree with several of the Windows 7 updates and he had to figure out which ones to remove. I was able to do an overlay so both videos played at the same time, so a duel vision video is out there!

The main point of this whole experiment was so I can see what his frame looks like when I think he feels good.

Here, look at my favorite picture of the evening to break up this block of text.

I wish the software would let me "crop" the helmet cam video into a portrait view that I could have made larger off to one side of the ground video. Maybe it does let you do that and in the five minutes I spent fiddling with the overlay settings didn't find it. It was 11:30pm by the time I sat down to mesh the videos together!

**edit: I mentioned it to Husband this morning via text, and he did the smart thing and Googled how to do it. The first thing that popped up is a YouTube tutorial that shows exactly what I wanted to do... I was looking in the wrong spot, it's apparently a video effect, not an overlay setting. Oops. I'm going to go ahead and post this anyway, maybe I'll make a new video and post again, haha.**

We'll do better next time- I think this was a worthwhile experiment, but it'd be a little better if the helmet cam was looking down more (possibly see my hands and less of the arena, haha). Since I've done this once, I can give Husband direction like: "Keep me in the right hand side of the frame so I can cover the left side with the helmet video." For this particular video, the program let me drag part of the overlay out of frame, effectively "cropping" one side of it away (so you don't have to stare at the side of my face, haha).

More text-block-break-uppage.

I had to let the computer process overnight. When I tried to play back the video before finalizing it, the whole thing got jumpy and weird. Too much video trying to play at once and the computer couldn't handle it. So I made all the adjustments I could and sent it off to render and process and whatever else it does after the rendering stage. I slept through most of the rendering stage and all stages after!

BTW, matching up the two videos isn't too hard- the indoor had a lot of references (the wood beams running up the walls, the arena doors) that I could use. I imagine doing this kind of thing outside would be MUCH harder (we don't have a solid rail so I can't even use fence posts). I'll give it a whirl anyway!

I like this picture too, except I wish he was a little more uphill.

So it's about 15 min long, and here's some backstory: I had zero warm up before the video starts. I got on, did a lap around the ring so Penn could stretch and look out the arena doors, we did a check of what the helmet cam could see, I went back to the rail, and off we went! I didn't expect that many distractions that evening- 3 people were riding outside, children were running around the barn and near the outdoor, horses were coming in for evening feed, the tractor was out and about, and the place was in general a busy place! While that's bad for video, it's good practice for being in public and dealing with distractions.

The main video blacks out when I canter left for the first time- Husband's camera has a file size limit so that's when it stopped the video, saved the file, and started a new file.

If you want to skip the walk work, trot begins at 3:40.

My own thoughts: it looks a lot better than it felt. He still needs to be steadier in the bridle, but his poll is more up (but not as up as DT had me ride) and that's a plus. I think I need to make his trot bigger (not faster), but that's a little beyond his strength level right now. He needs a more uphill balance, but I think this is fairly appropriate for his level of training. I need to make his walk leg yields steeper and slower- just do a bit more insisting. The trot could use the same, but I need to half halt stronger to get more over and then it'll be ok. I was very pleased with the single turn on the haunches (12:25) - it's not second level worthy, but it's installed and functions decently. I mostly did it because I wanted to change directions but I needed to stay away from X. There were spots I remembered felt really good and were on the hairy edge of too deep. For the most part, I think I've done an OK job at reprogramming what's too low and what's not through enough.

So just for comparison, here's my T-2 test from 1-31-2016:

Ohhhh I just had an idea. Once the weather gets better and the sun is up more so we can be outside, I'll have husband stand at C like he's a judge, then I'll wear my helmet cam, and we can ride a dressage test from both views too! Hopefully other people get enjoyment out of this too, and it's not just me haha. You'd all get spammed if I could convince Husband to come out more often than he does, so you can think of him as a Video Spam Filter! :-)