Watching YouTube videos

I took a little while out last night to watch David's videos of the cross country and to compare what we produced against other film taken.

I also recently watched my first ever YouTube video which was of the Arthur Jones Fell Race just two years ago. I didn't even use a proper video camera (it was just the video function on an ordinary camera) and I was using the free Windows Movie Maker software. I concluded with a caption "they will get better".

I think that generally they have but one of the things I think I got right on the very first one was to move around and to not take all the footage from exactly the same spot. I subsequently started using a second camera on a tripod and although this added extra options the footage is not generally as interesting as following an athlete for a short period and using different backgrounds.

I thought that David did this very well at Parliament Hill. He got a nice balance of showing the leaders, our own club athletes and a selection of others. I thought the film was much more interesting that filming the whole field from one place.

It also gave me a chance to watch the films with a different perspective. Usually I am trying to make them as interesting as possible or I am being critical of my own work.

What I found so interesting in these films was not only the speed and skill of the top guys, but the closeness of the battles. Have a look at the mens race from about 5 minutes 18 seconds for the next half minute of so. You will see Kevin Loundes hanging onto a little group and then a small gap appear and then Kevin closing them down again. Its what the race is about.

Another site for sporting videos

I received the following email which may be interesting but is one too many challenge for me. If anyone is interesting, they use the contacts given and if you start publishing videos let me know so that I can link to them.

Fell Running Talent

Hi, I've been having a look at your videos on YouTube and wanted to get in touch about a new website that we're about to launch. It's called TalentNation and it's a sort of cross between YouTube and Facebook with a bit of X Factor thrown in. It's going to be showcasing the up-and-coming young sporting talent and we're signing up some top sports stars to pick the best. Then we'll be awarding cash grants to help young sports people with equipment, training etc. We're fully funded, ready to go and the site will be completely free to users. I wondered if you would be interested in posting some videos on our site and becoming a Founder Member of TalentNation? If you could email me at d.brown@talentnation.com and include your YouTube user name (or get your mum or dad to if you're under 16), I can give you some more details and give you a sign-on so you can upload videos to our site.
David Brown TalentNation

Third time unlucky

Despite my earlier post, I tried for a third time to post a video of the Arthur Jones fell race this evening. This time I fell foul of Universal Music Group's limited licensing of their music to YouTube.

Sony, one of the "big four" record companies have recently renewed their deal with YouTube and I think that the EMI agreement is still be honoured. But with Warner Group and UMG restricting their use, the range of music is getting more restricted. Previously UMG used to require the consent of video owners to allow advertising on their videos before they would let you use their music.

Opinion is divided about the views of record companies. Some argue that the music on YouTube videos might inspire you to go and buy it in some other form as you would hardly copy the video music as the quality is poor. Others say that the artists receive so little for the rights it is not worth their while and detracts from sales. Then there are the complete idiots on forums who use foul language to criticise every step taken by the record companies to generate income and protect their intellectual property.

YouTube made me late for my mother-in-law and almost for work

It was great to see Manx Harriers doing so well in the National Cross Country on Saturday. Another big step forward for Kevin Loundes in particular. I understand that Keith Gerrard had stomach problems. It’s a real shame when anyone’s performance is affected by this. The only consolation I can think of is that on some of the days we have enjoyed good results someone else has been affected by similar bad luck.

I’m always conscious that some people think I favour some events over others. If I was really hard I would say “tough” and ask people to use the forum or to ensure that their club websites cover all the events. But I am not really hard and so I try to feature as many events as possible. In the case of the National Cross Country, because David Griffiths provided me with some useful statistics, and I have my photo library, it was much easier to do a feature before the event and not after. I shall have to leave it to others to either add further information and comment to the forum (if they can) or follow the links from PJ’s Manx Harriers website (he is away this week and so can’t update the site). David is also going to let me have some film for YouTube.

YouTube seems to have dominated things this weekend.

My schedule was pretty tight yesterday. I was up early as usual and went for a short run soon after 7 am (I had done my long weekend run the day before) and then I started to prepare the family lunch whilst catching some of the Match of the Day repeat. I am far from a perfect contributor to family life, but I did undertake some years ago that, at the very least, I cook Sunday lunch for the family. The timer on our cooker is often employed on a Sunday. Robbie was supposed to be ready for a 9.15 departure to the fell race but inevitably we were a few minutes late.

Unfortunately Marie was suffering from a migraine at the weekend and I promised to take her mother out for a drive at 2.30. As always I enjoyed watching the fell race and taking my digital photos and movies and left before the end to start the video editing. I got it finished in time to upload it whilst serving and eating lunch with the aim of getting the photos uploaded afterwards and the front page tidied up. I didn’t count on YouTube being unavailable for uploads for an hour or two and I was late for my afternoon engagement.

I had another delay which I was rather more pleased about when Ben rang to say that he had set a personal best by over 13 minutes in the Pocklington 10 in Yorkshire! He had only run one ten miler before, his first ever race just over a year ago, but even so his 64.45 was a pretty big improvement.

Newspapers are one of my many addictions and with a copy of the Sunday Times adding to the pile of most of the barely read recent additions of the Independent, catching up with some of the world’s events put me behind schedule to revert to my website, blogs and email.

When I got up this morning, however, YouTube was back to haunt me as Jimi Hendrick’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” had been removed from the soundtrack. I hadn’t realised that it was Warner Brothers music which is no longer licensed by YouTube. So instead of cutting the film to suit the length of the music track, as I normally do, I hastily looked for a track of the right length to add to the existing film. It almost made me late for work.

I expected Oasis to be on the soundtrack by now but that too has been disallowed. This was my prompt to write this lunchtime piece whilst watching the film in silence - like the rest of you will have to as I’m not going to spent time looking for a third soundtrack!.

out of time again

Best of intentions, and I have spent far too much time in front of this screen tonight, but I've failed to deal with a number of emails I targeted tonight or have I completed the feature I was going to do after "I had done one or two other things first".

Chris Maddocks feature additions and move

Chris Maddocks(centre) looking a lot happier than runner up Ian McCombie (right) and Mark Easton (left) at Roundhay Park in Leeds in 1989 after winning the Commonwealth Games trial (photo Murray)


I've just moved the feature on Chris to:

http://www.manxathletics.com/ChrisMaddocks.htm

I've also added a few things:

Somehow when I copied his 20km times I missed his third best of 01:23:38 at Lancaster 09-May-92 just six days after his personal best.

Steve Taylor gave me these stats on Chris's rankings on the all-time GB list:

10km - 40.17 1st
10 miles - 67.01 4th
20km - 82.12 2nd
30km - 2.11.09 3rd
35km - 2.36.19 1st
50km - 3.51.37 1st

Chris a total of four sub 2:12 30km walks. In addition to the one I listed:

(1) April '85 2.11.43 2nd Commonwealth Trial, Edinburgh.
(2) 1st 2.11.38 Sept '89 Comonwealth Trial, Roundhay Park.
(3) Dec 30 89 Open Club track 2.11.54 just a few days prior to going off to Austrailia and onto New Zealand.

Chris rates one his best races was finishing second to Carlos Mercenario in the 1989 New York Marathon. He did a high 3.11 and Chris did a GB best of 3.14.37. Among those that he beat were Andrei Perlov (Russian who 3 months earlier set a new WR for 50km and also became the 1992 Olympic Champ) and Mauritzio Damilano. Plus Bo Gustaffson, Geovanni Perricelli etc.

Finally here is the interview I did with Chris in 1997:

Arthur Jones Fell Race on Sunday

I hope that I didn't have too many people checking their diaries when I listed three events taking place in 3 days time. I was just checking the site at lunchtime when I suddenly realised my error.

As if I didn't have enough websites already

I didn't get a chance to do much on the manxathletics.com website last night as I was working on a new one.

I bought a pretty cheap domain www.isleofman.in (I'm open to offers if anyone wants to buy it from me!) and I've created a single page website with pictures of the Isle of Man and featured sites which just happen to be mine! Search engine rankings have to be worked on!

Actually, it has to be remembered too that building up our holiday business provides some profit towards funding the non profit making websites that I run.

Speaking of which, I have two more features planned for this week. I hope to get the first (in the opposite order to what I had originally planned) out tonight or early tomorrow.

Take my advice...and don't get a British record

Chris Maddocks (right), and 1984 Olympic walker Phil Vesty (seated) with Marie and I at my mother's house in Kirk Michael in either 1984 or 1985. It was the only time that I can ever remember every single piece of food being eaten at one of my mum's Sunday lunches.


Following on from the feature about Chris Maddocks, I have one or two stories to tell.

Here is the first. It goes back to 1990, although it doesn't seem that long ago, and I can still remember where I was when I had the phone conversation.

Chris had been competing at 50km and believed that he was in really good shape. I can't remember where the race was or what the time was but he finished well outside of his target and the performance is not among those listed on my feature. Something had gone horribly wrong.

He was keen to have another crack at a qualifying performance just a few weeks later. I cautioned against the idea and suggested that he would be much better taking a recovery, building up over the winter and proving how fit he was in the spring.

He ignored my advice and the British record that he set still stands to this day!

Chris Maddocks

Following up from the front page story, here is Chris after his victory in 1985. I've run out of time to do any more tonight and plan to be up to train in a few hours.

To be continued.

Northern AC Cross Country

James Broughton on his way to victory today.

Only five seniors and one junior took part this afternoon but I took quite a few photos.



http://www.manxcrosscountry.fotopic.net/c1654164.html

The good, the bad and the maybe about being on the Isle of Man

We've been out to see Les Miserables tonight. I am not very "arty" but I though the show was fantastic. Proud to be (almost) Manx.

What a difference with the performance of the House of Keys, or one member anyway, this week. Makes me ashamed.

I've had some sympathy with people not being able to see the forum in the past couple of weeks but it brought it home to me more tonight when I couldn't get on myself. There is nothing on the internet about anyone having problems with Bravenet sites so I am inclined to think (at the moment) that it is a local internet service provider that is blocking the site for some reason.

On the occasionthat my mind drifted tonight I was thinking that my tenner was safe on the competition to name the walker, the year and the event in the old walking photo. I was amazed to get home and find that Robbie Lambie got the answer right - Marie thinks that knowing Robbie's resourcefulness he probably phoned Martin up!

Last word tonight for my darling wife - as we made our way up "the gods" in the Gaiety tonight she said "we're really up in the old part here aren't we?" The Victorians were obviously clever people building the tops of buildings before the ground level!

Catching up - just a little

The sister site to this one, http://www.parishwalk.com/ has kicked off on 1 December for the past two years but I have tried to keep the front page stable and use a blog to add the news. The exception to this is the Current Featured Walker page where I aim to get a new feature produced each month.

I had hoped to get the update completed by last weekend but my target wasn't available until last night. It suited me well to delay it as I had so many things on the go but last night turned into a pressure point to try and complete the feature which I published at around 6.15 this morning. I've just re-read it and taken out a few typos.

I hope that you like the feature and that you learn something about Gordon that you didn't already know.

The main features on the site this week were on the Cross Country Championships.

I included a picture of Mike Garrett and commented on his growing reputation for accidents but I didn't know at the time that he had lost the sole of his shoe when running. On Wednesday night he collided with a cyclist when running on the prom. I'm training with him in the morning but hopefully I won't have too many stories to report.

Sometimes I like to go outside of athletics as an excuse to use some of my family photos and so I dug out the old snow photos. Despite my jest about not getting snow like we used to, I am sure that it has been pretty unpleasant for a lot of workers this week whilst many of us have stayed in warm offices. Thanks to everyone who had to brave the elements for more than training.

I'll add the links to the fireman's results when I pick up that they have been published and I'll try and supplement any coverage on http://www.manxharriers.com/ of the winter league walks but I'm afraid I won't have the chance to visit or make videos.

Hopefully I will have time to catch up with some of my emails over the weekend.

I'm less optimistic about solving the forum problem that some people are experiencing. I'm inclined to think that Norton software has taken a dislike to Bravenet sites.

Some people having problems with the forum

A number of people have told me that there is a problem with the forum but it is working.

I can access it from home and from work, on my desktop and my laptop, using Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. I have removed any IP addresses that I had blocked (but I hadn't added any new ones for month anyway). 33 people have read the message I posted at lunchtime so it must be there.

I have posted a message on a Bravenet user forum at http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1453609281/show/802418

Do those that can't see it all use Manx Telecom, or Wi-Manx or some other Internet Service Provider?

Is there anyone off the Isle of Man who can't see the forum?

Any clues welcome either by posting a comment here, on the forum (if you can see it) or by email to murray@manxathletics.com

Thanks.

Murray

I've just had another thought. Are the people who can't see it all using the same security package? I'm using AVG at home and Zone Alarm at work. Perhaps its an update by that infamous "screw up your computer" package known as Norton Internet security which has taken a dislike to the forum?

Video production is similar to racing

You feel like giving up when the line drops or you make the mistake of using a soundtrack which isn't licensed by YouTube as I did with the third one tonight.



I've spent a good part of the evening putting the finishing touches to the film that David Griffiths took yesterday afternoon of the cross country and kindly dropped aound to my house on DVD this morning.

As soon as you finish though you know that you will do it again!

Guernsey Race Walking

Rob Elliott gave me lots of material and news for the website in the early days and I've just picked up from my Google Updates that there is now a site for Guernsey race walking. I found that he had a picture of me (with him) at http://sarnia.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/past-national-10-miles/

Google Updates are useful by the way. Its a free service and you receive an email if your defined words, eg manx athletics, appear on the internet anywhere.