General Musings

Finally on Saturday morning the Computer interface bit and the Video Software I had ordered arrived. As I had paid extra for fast postage and signed for delivery, I was not impressed that it came via normal second class post. That's an issue I will take up with the supplier.

However, over a cup of tea I read the destructions and after a quick check for email and backing up my computer, I set about installing the hardware and the software. That part was very simple, and I connected up the camera and started to load up my footage. While not a fast process everything seemed to be working fine.

As I need to learn how to use the software, I took my time and while I though I was doing everything correctly, I kept on getting a message telling me that my film would be lost when I tried to shut down after thinking I had completed uploading the footage to the computer. I just could not understand it, and for most of Saturday I kept on trying to discover where I was going wrong. I knew the footage was being recorded on the hard drive as I could see my gigabytes being eaten away.

On Sunday I had to go on a site visit to a conservation area where my input and ideas had been requested. Because of the difficulties I was having I decided to leave my cameras behind. I hope I can return as there are some wonderful areas that will soon be carpeted with bluebells in this wood. The rest of the visit was very straight forward. Its a chap that I know that has bought seventy five acres of scrubby woodland, and he was looking for conformation that his ideas will regenerate the wood, the habitats and the wildlife. Most of the work will not be done until next winter. Delays meant that until the first of March he didn't own it. This actually means he has the best part of a year to discover what is living in the wood, and adjust his plans accordingly.
It was the discovery of some very rare flowers and amphibians on the land that delayed his purchase. However, as he wants to keep the land as a wildlife haven anyway, it seems all is well there.

So feeling buoyant I returned home to try and unravel the mystery that is my video stuff. So I decided I would start again from scratch and removed the software and reloaded it. I then re-transferred the video films to the computer. This time it appeared to work. So I was able to transfer my filming to DVDs ready to edit them latter. I still don't know what was going wrong before, but that's often the way with computers.

It will take time for me to learn how to edit the films, but apart from trying to watch badgers, monitoring migrations, filming otters or not, doing my washing cooking and cleaning, well I have to find something to fill my time.