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Who's ready for VTH5?
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
I am, almost! I dug it today!
For those new to the forums, "VTH"= Virtual Treasure Hunt, which is a game where I go out and dig a predetermined number of targets.
Then each player gets to pick one target (#1, #2, #3, etc) in advance of the results, and those who preselected the best find(s) win prize(s).
Some of the early VTH's were epic affairs with multiple diggers and scores of targets. We even gave away a new detector once. (Do a search on this forum for "Virtual Treasure Hunt" to see the old VTH events.)
The last VTH (and first for which I posted a movie) was Virtual Treasure Hunt IV. (Here is the VTH4 video.) I dug one round and John Boggs ("goldrush00013") dug the other.
That was a vast simplification from past VTH's. Shorter and simpler means more video-friendly.
VTH5 will be smaller and simpler yet... and a solo affair dug solely by yours truly.
There will only be ten targets. But now I have a headmounted videocam, so ALL of the action is on video!
My last movie (VTH4 round 1, 20 targets) was mostly still photos and had only one short video clip. I was using Ladymarcovan's handheld point-and-shoot camera at the time. So I had to dig something, put everything down, then pick up the camera and shoot the pictures or video after the action had already happened.
My new little camera shoots nice video (if a bit fish-eyed, with its 170-degree lens). I was very happy with the results.
The bummer is, it's gonna take me a while to edit all of this video into a presentable movie like the VTH4 one above.
My new videocam shoots in QuickTime, so I have to find a converter to edit the clips into MP3 or a format I can use with Windows Movie Maker. Any suggestions? I found a lot of crap sites when looking for an online converter. Lots of spam and spyware and stuff. Finally found this one, but it doesn't seem to be working for me from this computer at home. Might be my spotty satellite connection. I might have to try from work later.
So once the files are converted, I can make my movie and post it on eBa- uh,-whoops- I mean YouTube.
Now... the part you're probably wondering about... the prizes...
This time around, for VTH5, there is potential for more prizes but they will be smaller in terms of monetary value.
Basically, if the target you preselect is something I decide is a "keeper", you'll get a $5 PayPal gift from me.
If your designated target is NOT deemed a "keeper" by me, but YOU want it, it is yours for the cost of shipping. Of course a lot of the non-keepers will be junk, but not always. You might find some of those interesting, who knows.
So the upside for you is that it's not just the "best" target that can win. With ten targets in the game, there is the potential of ten prizes (in the unlikely event everything I find turns out to be a keeper). True, you only stand to make five bucks, or to get a prize I didn't choose to keep myself, but hey, at the very least you'll get a movie to watch, and more than one person will possibly get paid five bucks to watch it!
So as soon as I can figure out my video conversion and start editing my video into a little movie, it will be time to start assigning the targets to players.
I might opt to dust off my dormant Facebook account and do the target assignments there, to branch out beyond these forums a bit. (I also plan to eventually start a dig blog again.)
Stay tuned for VTH5... on video!
This could take me a week... or a month, depending on life's whims. Hopefully only a few days. Once I learn how to do the video conversions, my production time should shrink a bit for future movies.
For those new to the forums, "VTH"= Virtual Treasure Hunt, which is a game where I go out and dig a predetermined number of targets.
Then each player gets to pick one target (#1, #2, #3, etc) in advance of the results, and those who preselected the best find(s) win prize(s).
Some of the early VTH's were epic affairs with multiple diggers and scores of targets. We even gave away a new detector once. (Do a search on this forum for "Virtual Treasure Hunt" to see the old VTH events.)
The last VTH (and first for which I posted a movie) was Virtual Treasure Hunt IV. (Here is the VTH4 video.) I dug one round and John Boggs ("goldrush00013") dug the other.
That was a vast simplification from past VTH's. Shorter and simpler means more video-friendly.
VTH5 will be smaller and simpler yet... and a solo affair dug solely by yours truly.
There will only be ten targets. But now I have a headmounted videocam, so ALL of the action is on video!
My last movie (VTH4 round 1, 20 targets) was mostly still photos and had only one short video clip. I was using Ladymarcovan's handheld point-and-shoot camera at the time. So I had to dig something, put everything down, then pick up the camera and shoot the pictures or video after the action had already happened.
My new little camera shoots nice video (if a bit fish-eyed, with its 170-degree lens). I was very happy with the results.
The bummer is, it's gonna take me a while to edit all of this video into a presentable movie like the VTH4 one above.
My new videocam shoots in QuickTime, so I have to find a converter to edit the clips into MP3 or a format I can use with Windows Movie Maker. Any suggestions? I found a lot of crap sites when looking for an online converter. Lots of spam and spyware and stuff. Finally found this one, but it doesn't seem to be working for me from this computer at home. Might be my spotty satellite connection. I might have to try from work later.
So once the files are converted, I can make my movie and post it on eBa- uh,-whoops- I mean YouTube.
Now... the part you're probably wondering about... the prizes...
This time around, for VTH5, there is potential for more prizes but they will be smaller in terms of monetary value.
Basically, if the target you preselect is something I decide is a "keeper", you'll get a $5 PayPal gift from me.
If your designated target is NOT deemed a "keeper" by me, but YOU want it, it is yours for the cost of shipping. Of course a lot of the non-keepers will be junk, but not always. You might find some of those interesting, who knows.
So the upside for you is that it's not just the "best" target that can win. With ten targets in the game, there is the potential of ten prizes (in the unlikely event everything I find turns out to be a keeper). True, you only stand to make five bucks, or to get a prize I didn't choose to keep myself, but hey, at the very least you'll get a movie to watch, and more than one person will possibly get paid five bucks to watch it!
So as soon as I can figure out my video conversion and start editing my video into a little movie, it will be time to start assigning the targets to players.
I might opt to dust off my dormant Facebook account and do the target assignments there, to branch out beyond these forums a bit. (I also plan to eventually start a dig blog again.)
Stay tuned for VTH5... on video!
This could take me a week... or a month, depending on life's whims. Hopefully only a few days. Once I learn how to do the video conversions, my production time should shrink a bit for future movies.
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I think it's a little late so I'm a bit confused (loooong day), so have you already gone on the hunt and we need to now pick 1-10?
This is gonna take a lot of tweaking, but it's all good practice for me to get under my belt before the England trip.
I hope to figure out the video conversion in the next 48 hours! Downloading some software now... hope it will work.
<< <i>good luck with the video editing! I haven't figured out how to merge two videos from my iphone yet, so that's why everyone here gets one simple video. Hopefully more than one good thing doesn't come up per hunt or you'll get two videos. >>
I know I can do that- I did it with the stills and the video in the VTH4 movie I linked to above. I've got at least an elementary understanding of Windows Movie Maker, so I can splice multiple clips into one movie, no problem. My problem is the .MOV (Quicktime) format my camera uses- it doesn't play with Windows Movie Maker because it's an Apple product, I guess. So I have to convert the .MOV files to some other format that does work with Windows Movie Maker.
I had to download a program, because it's a verrry sloooow procedure (at least on this computer).
So I'm cropping and trimming my scenes and will shortly begin assembling my movie.
Think I'll do the virtual target allotments to players here on the forums as usual, since my blog has not yet been launched and I'm not a huge fan of Facebook like everybody else on the planet. Maybe for future VTH hunts I will do the target allotments via Facebook and/or the blog, to push traffic towards the latter.
But for now, I'll stay with the good ol' CU Forums.
Hope to have a working draft of the movie ready by tonight.
Final edit by the end of the weekend, if circumstances don't intervene. (Signs point to a potentially brutal weekend at work on my horizon.)
Look for the VTH5 target allotment thread soon.