How to make it work
In order to access these movie clips, you're PC has to be configured to display .mpg files. If you're prompted to save the program, your PC is will require a movie player. Microsoft distributes several free players. Windows Media Player and Net Show are available from www.microsoft.com. RealNetworks RealPlayer G2 is available at www.real.com. Realplayer G2 does require a free plugin to play .mpg files.

Old Faithful erupting, September 1998 (video only)

Picnic at Fort Mott State Park in NJ (video and audio), July 1996

Card game at Bill and Susan's (video and audio), July 1996
These movies takes about 3 minutes to download with a 56K dialup connection.

Please drop me an email to let me know if this worked or didn't work for you.

How I did it
The movies are captured from our Sony camcorder to our PC using our ATI All-in-Wonder card's video port and audio-in using our Soundblaster card input. The ATI software captures the file in .avi format. The file is then converted to .mpg (Moving Picture Experts Group) format using XingMPEG Encoder software. The resulting file is about 1/3 the size of the avi file.

Why aren't the movies longer?
There are several reasons why they aren't as well as why they can't be longer. First, I have to limit the file size to a maximum of 1 MB. That requirement is from our web page service provider. Since it is a free service, we can't complain.
This causes me to have to limit the capture rate to 15 fps (frames per second) and a small window of 176 by 144 pixels. Also, the XingMPEG software is shareware which limits me to a maximum of 30 seconds per conversion.

Page design by Sam Sayers, 1998/1999