SpeedyCam News
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It's Friday 13th! Better watch out... acutally, it's always my lucky day... I've received a couple of new movies today and also spent quite some time on the road filming. In the next few days, those movies will be added to the trip archive.
I've had some big problems with a visitor to this site today. That person abused the tell-a-friend form for their own purpose. I needed to change the forms on all of my sites to prevent this from happening again in future...
I'm waiting for Sorenson Media to release the latest version of their Squeeze program which compresses the movies to the smallest size while maintaining the best quality for web video. As soon as I get the latest update, I will post several new movies.
Beware! Speed cams are everywhere! After 10 years of driving, I got caught by a speed trap (laser gun). Apparently I was driving too fast in a 50 zone but it's hard to recognize the driver. Check out the official police photo.
I've just returned from 3 days at the Alive Festival. Lots of great artists and bands played at this local festival including Sisters of Mercy, Die Toten Hosen, Fiddler's Green, Junkie XL (Elvis vs JXL), 808 State DJ's, Apocalyptica, Brings, Sub7even, Hyperchild, Semitones,... Our family business, Euregio.Net AG, was the Internet sponsor for this big event. Here are lots of photos from the festival grounds.
My Spanish road movies are now online. Please check them out to see the route from Lloret de Mar via Girona to Barcelona and back again.
I'm back from Lloret de Mar (Spain) and my holiday pictures are already online. You can see some nice pictures from the beach, nightlife, Lloret de Mar and Barcelona on this site.
I'm leaving for a vacation to Spain today. Once I'm back, you'll be able to see some new European road movies.
The Irish movies are now online. Watch our trip from Dublin to Waterford, the Copper Coast Tour and the trip from Kilkenny to Dublin.
While I'm still busy with creating web versions of my Irish movies, you can already look at my Irish photos. There are images from Waterford, the Copper Coast cliffs and Kilkenny (among others).
I'm back from Ireland and I've got 13 GB of Irish road movies. They are still in post-production but they should become available on the site very soon. So please stay tuned!
Happy 1st Birthday to SpeedyCam! It's been a very exciting first year of SpeedyCam. The site has come a long way since it was started. Right now, I'm in Ireland shooting more road movies. If you are interested in the music I listen to while driving, please go to the music page. Just before leaving to Ireland, I added my latest favorite songs to the site, so check it out...
A serious problem with some of the movie pages was corrected today. Now you can see all the movie previews again. Enjoy!
From May 23rd to 26th I'll be shooting some new road movies around Ireland. Please stay tuned and check back next week for movies from the Dublin area and the Waterford county.
I've fixed a couple of small mistakes which I discovered after testing the new design in different browsers. Also the web cams comparison article was updated with some interesting and useful software.
This was a really long night... I updated the design of the SpeedyCam site. You look at it right now. I reckon it looks much better than the old "blackish" design. I had thought about creating a new version for the 1st anniversary of the site (which is on May 23rd) but yesterday, I received a few comments from other webmasters which prompted me to start working on it right away. The past couple of days, I've been hanging around at a webmaster forum which is mostly used by webmasters from my region. If you'd like to check it out, please go to Webmaster Forum (East-Belgium) (it's in German...)
New car pictures have been added. If you like great muscle cars, then you might want to check out the pictures of the Holden Commodore SS V8, the new Monaro and great HSV cars. Those pictures were taken during my stay in Australia. My link list was also updated with some new links to motor sport associations and car manufacturers
I'm back from Australia and so are my newest road movies. There are 12 new movies. Check it out on the movies page! By the way, some of my next trips this year for business and leisure include: Ireland, Spain and Poland. So better bookmark this site now to see all the latest movies as they become available!
Woohoo! The 20 GB PowerBook hard disk arrived in Adelaide today. You can really rely on DHL... UPS is not my favorite courier service any more... I installed the disk in no time (less than 1 minute to open the package and slip the drive into the PowerBook to have it working). I also shot my first movies driving to the Adelaide airport where we picked up some relatives. The movies are great although as soon as we got into the car, it started to rain. It was the first rain in 56 days... doh! The movies will be online once I get back to Belgium.
The hard disk finally arrived in Belgium. However I'm in Singapore already. Bad luck! Now my parents are going to send the disk to Australia by DHL. I hope I'll get it as soon as possible. Mid-next week, we are driving to Loxton, South Australia. That's a 3 hours drive from Adelaide and I'd love to film that road for SpeedyCam.
They screwed up at UPS. MCE had the hard drive picked up by UPS and they received a tracking number. However UPS somehow forgot to forward the package to their shipping hub. The disk is not here yet and I wonder if I'll get it before I leave for my vacation...
I've cancelled my order at DevDepot for the hard drive and placed a new order directly at the manufacturer's online shop. They confirmed the order and said that it will be shipped by UPS Express. That way, I should get the disk before I leave for Adelaide, South Australia on March 21st. I really need the hard disk when I'm in Australia in order to shoot and store more road movies...
The hard drive is not here yet but I'm still hoping that DevDepot will ship it eventually. In the meantime, I found some time to update my road music... I've added 5 great CD's with lots of recommendations of great driving songs.
Word is that the 20 GB hard drive will be in stock today. So hopefully they will ship it next week.
The additional RAM for my PowerBook was delivered today. There was a problem with the order as some items were backordered. They shipped the first part of the order last week and I'm still hoping for the hard drive to arrive soon as well. The 12 volt car adapter has been discontinued, so I need to find an alternative for it.
I went to the International Motorshow at Brussels with a couple of friends and my brother Mike. We saw several great cars. I really liked the Volvo S60 D5 as tuned by MS Design and the MG ZS-180.
Today I ordered some new stuff for making more movies: a 20 GB hard disk for my PowerBook expansion bay and an additional 256 MB of RAM. However what good is so much storage if the battery doesn't run long enough to fill the disk. To solve this, I also ordered a 12 volt car adapter to run the PowerBook from the cigarette lighter. The order was made at DevDepot
Frank Lehnert sent some great new photos which he took at the presentation of the Toyota Formula One Team. You can see his photos on SpeedyCam in the "More Drivers" category or by clicking on this link.
Happy New Year! Drive Safely!
In the past couple of weeks, I received several new movies from SpeedyCam visitors. Today, I found some time to put the movies online. The AVI version is not ready yet, but I hope you'll enjoy the QuickTime version. Click here to see the new movies.
Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! I filmed some more snow movies. It was really sunny outside, so don't forget to put on your sun glasses when watching these movies. Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Yes! It's snowing! In the past 24 hours we got more than 30 cm of snow (12 inches). It's been pretty cold and more snow is expected for tonight. So we'll have our first white Christmas in many years. This afternoon, I drove around a little bit to shoot some more snow movies. Enjoy!
Yes, I'm still waiting for some better weather. If you live in an area where the weather is nicer and you've got any movies, please send them to me. I'll include them on SpeedyCam! Meanwhile, I invite you to watch the pictures from the webcam in our back yard...
I'm still waiting for the weather to get better so I can shoot more movies. Right now it's only raining and very foggy making road movie filming too hard. Once we get snow, you'll get movies of my car drifting and spinning around the country. In recent weeks, SpeedyCam received more coverage in many news sources around the world. See the awards page for more details...
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I'm currently reviewing a few more movie submissions, so I guess there will be more movies within the next couple of days. As the snow is melting again, I have to postpone the snow movies until it's snowing again.
Thanks to all the people who have written in to comment on my articles and movies. A few of you sent in their own movies and photos. These are now being featured in the new "drivers" section. Watch a Corvette cruising in Montana at 150 mph or photos of German Touring cars (DTM).
Keep those awards coming... they make my servers scream for more... :-) Today I felt very honored because SpeedyCam became a USAToday Hot Site. Click here to see all the awards and read what the editors had to say about my little pet project.
It started snowing today (up to 3 inches), but I haven't found any time to mount my snow tyres. So I guess I'll have to put them on as soon as possible in order to shoot some snow movies.
Woohoo! I mean Yahoo! SpeedyCam was chosen as a pick of the week by Yahoo! Thanks a lot guys! You really made my day! I just hope that the server will handle the load. On a side note: it's getting colder here in Belgium and soon I'll have to put my snow tyres on my car. Of course I'll also shoot some snow driving movies. So stay tuned!
Last Monday I drove to the International Airport at Düsseldorf (Germany) to pick up my brother who was coming back from his holiday to Egypt. You can see my trip from home (Wirtzfeld) via the German Autobahn to Düsseldorf on the recent movies page.
Over the past 3 years, I've used a variety of webcams. Some of these cams were used to film the time lapse movies on SpeedyCam. My new webcam comparison page describes the features and qualities of those cams.
Today, I received more photos of the Michelin Driving Experience. There are some really great snapshots. You can see the pictures here: Thumbnails 1 | Thumbnails 2
The road movies are now also available as AVI movies (Windows Video / Windows Media Player). That way more people can enjoy the movies although the QuickTime format still provides better quality with smaller file sizes. The QuickTime movies also start playing before they've been fully loaded (i.e. fast start).
The photos and story about the Michelin Driving Xperience are now online. You can read all about it right here...
I'm leaving to Valencia, Spain today to participate in a one day racing event sponsored by Michelin Tyres. Being one of the 14 winners of Michelin's contest, I'll be able to drive around the track in several race cars such as a Clio Trophy, Chrysler Viper GTS and a genuine F1 car.
The time-lapse movies of my trip to Frankfurt are now online. Take a look at the recent movies page for the newest movies featuring the German autobahn.
Today, I'm driving to Frankfurt, Germany to visit the IAA (International Automobile Exhibition). Of course I'll take my web cam with me to film the German autobahn. You can see those movies within the next couple of days. Stay tuned!
After looking at the statistics for last month, I'm really amazed. So many people came to SpeedyCam and spend a lot of time downloading and viewing the movies. One of the most favorite movies is the night driving movie from Liège to Wirtzfeld. I guess if you don't live in Belgium, you can't understand what it looks light to drive at night on a highway which is completely lightened... :-)
I'm glad the Alive Festival is over. It was pretty exhausting. I had some problems with my Capsure USB... suddenly, it only broadcast black and white video. Duh! I'll have to get it replaced under warranty. There seems to be a loose contact. The festival was great though. Dog Eat Dog and Sub7even were fantastic.
For the next couple of days, I'll be at the Alive Festival. This is largest music festival in our region. This year, the top acts include Iggy Pop, Dog Eat Dog, Front 242, J.B.O. and Sub7even. I'll be doing live broadcasts on the Internet using up to 3 web cams. It should be fun...
The web cam arrived today. It had been back ordered, so it took a bit longer to get here. It's an iREZ Kritter SV camera which will be connected to the laptop using the iREZ Capsure USB device. This S-Video camera has an awesome quality. Just wait until you see the first movies using that cam.
"It's my party and I cry, euh..., drive if I want to". Today is my birthday. I was driving around a bit and when I got home, I ordered some new stuff for my computer and SpeedyCam. I hope that new web cam and video capturing device will arrive soon. Once it gets here, you'll get plenty of new movies in high quality.
It's time for a party... The annual parish fair will be held this weekend. So I won't be able to drive around to shoot more movies... The parish fairs always means an excess of beer and wine. Always remember: Don't drink and drive! (You might hit a bump and spill your drink which would be a pity.)
What a week! After having been featured as the "Cool Site of the Day", traffic sky-rocketed. I didn't sleep too well during the last couple of night as I wasn't sure if my server would handle the load. However no problems were apparent. Thousands of road movies were downloaded during several hours.
SpeedyCam has now been on the Internet for 5 weeks and today it was featured as the "Cool Site of the Day"! I've been designing web sites (although of a less entertaining nature) for several years and it's been the first time I received this prestigious award. Thanks Mike!
As the weather wasn't too bad in recent days (in fact it was very hot), I decided to shoot some more movies. Yesterday, I drove around for 4 hours and was really exhausted/thirsty when I got home. However it was worth it as the number of movies has now grown to 30.
Lots of new movies were added to SpeedyCam. I spent most of the afternoon driving around with my younger brother. He has had a knee surgery the other week and can't go anywhere. So I took this opportunity to drive him around and shoot some more movies.
Today, we received our first guest book entry! Woohoo! Thanks Harald Mathie :-)
After having had the idea for SpeedyCam for some years already, we are now ready to launch the site. The first design goes online today. The site was created faster than it took us to film the movies... :-)
The SpeedyCam.be domain name was registered today. This should allow us to start this exciting project in the near future.
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