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Hui-Chen and I bought a car last week. We took a ride up in the mountains through an area called Fushing, that leads to Lalashan (Lala mountain). On the way I noticed that several sections of the road, route 7, have been taken out by landslides and are in the process of being replaced.

This bridge used to be green, but now its purple. Its a really nice walking bridge that is lit up at night.

Hui-Chen with Lalashan in the background.

Another shot of the lovely Hui-Chen with a mountain community clearly visible behind her, along the ridge. We had dinner in a restaurant up there and I have to say that the food in this area is excellent.

This man-made waterfall used to be beside the road, but the road has moved due to a huge landslide that took it out. The new road section remains unpaved.

Not Fushing, but a part of Dasi. When you have such a cool picture, one must post it in their blog, regardless of the relevance. We were on our way home from Fushing so its on-topic!

I have a video of the landslide area with my comments but I will have to post the link to You Tube later (it takes forever to upload to that site).

Addendum, December 6, 2005: Finally, I was able to upload to You Tube:

iDear DV-30 Has Returned From The Factory!

I need to test it out for at least a week before finishing my review.  It’s a strange unit alright!  The store guys tested it out and it recorded a continuous video until the card was full, and it saved the video flawlessly.  What I discovered is that the factory had set the video quality to the lowest setting.  I shot a few test clips with it on that setting and the video is noticeably pixilated, even jagged in some conditions, but it absolutely did save large file videos with no issues.  This lowest quality setting is unacceptable to me, so I set it back to the highest quality level.  I did a couple of test videos of 15 minutes duration and the unit exhibited the exact same problem that I returned it to the factory for in the first place: locked up and requiring a hard reset (battery removal).  The really weird part is, last night I performed more testing on the high quality setting over several hours and I could not get the unit to fail!  So, for some strange reason, its working!  I need more time with the unit to discover the reason for the discrepant test results.

The videos that I have posted to the blog recently were made with the DV-30, but processing by YouTube renders the video of a lower quality than the original file.  Still, the videos are very watchable.  Recently I made a VCD of some of the videos I shot with the DV-30 and I was surprised by the quality of the images for a camera that cost less than NT$6,000.  I will be using the DV-30 to shoot Customer information videos and making VCDs for them.  I have no reservations about recommending the DV-30 for such business documentation purposes.  Its also great for shooting family events and making VCDs to share with family and friends.  The only caveat that I need to reiterate is the limitations it has when photographing in low light conditions.  Its just not very good indoors unless its bright.  I found that normally illuminated home interiors are insufficient to produce acceptable results.  Still, the DV-30 is more than just a toy video camera.  It’s a useful tool.

I have a very full schedule over into December, including Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.  At some point during this time period I will have enough experience with the DV-30 to give you the full 2nd half of the review.  In the meantime, feel free to ask specific questions (blog comment) and I will answer them in the blog comments area.

Last night I took the advice of one of my readers. While picking up my repaired iDear video camera, I walked around and checked out the DVD players to see if any of them could be hacked to multi-region. The salesman had a list of hackable players! They even had one that is multi-region by design. That one is made by Hitachi and also has karaoke support. So, I might have a Sampo KN66(N) for sale, soon. Anyone interested?

I have a new video for you. “Yeah!” is a short of Hui-Chen’s little nephew, and its pretty darn cute. He’s extremely smart and I frequently tell him that he’s going to engineering school when he grows up! He loves the video camera and came running over when he saw me shooting, saying “Hi!” and then a big “YEAH!” hence the name of the clip. Next you can see him trying to snap his fingers because he saw me doing it earlier. Its pretty funny because he can’t get the same results! lol! Enjoy!

Yeah!

By the way, I’m supposed to be getting my iDear back today. Its been 3 full weeks since I took it back to the store and it went back to the factory for repair the next day. I hope they got it fixed because I need it.

Anyway, here is the companion video to Chicken Guts. So I present to you, Duck Guts.

Duck Guts
Please comment on this video at the hosting site, if you are so inclined. At least help me out and rate it. Thanks!

I’m having fun making videos (so much so that I haven’t posted my Taipei 101 pics yet!). Here are the 2 latest videos that I have made. Please take the time to comment on them if you decide to visit the hosting site.

Strange Thai Bug Sounds

It was mostly business, which explains why I didn’t write about it in my personal blog. However I did take some interesting videos that I shot with my new iDear camera (review is here). Up until now I haven’t been able to show you any of the videos because I did not know of any video host. Thanks to my friend Chris, I have uploaded one of the funniest (i.e. stupidest!) videos I have ever seen, let alone shot.

The story is simple. While waiting for the rain to subside, several of us were gathered under the canopy of the resort where we were staying for the weekend. I broke out the iDear because I thought it would be entertaining. I was right! Hooked up to the television in the bar, the Thai workers (and Hui-Chen) were laughing their heads off as I was trying to get a shy young man to give me the classic Asian style “peace sign” that people do here whenever their photo is being taken (it means “I’m happy”). I had to coresce him into doing it, but I finally was successful.

Addendum: I realized later that I should mention the processing done by Youtube makes the iDear video look poor. I assure you that the original video is near DVD quality! Do not judge the iDear by the quality of these posted videos!

Click the arrow to play the video, or anywhere else to visit the hosting site.