A super day at the MTT at Burscough their annual open day with frequent bus links providing lots of interest and a splendid line up of visiting buses. Great to see so many familiar faces and make new friends. The day flew by so quickly and before you knew it we were home watching the girls do their bit at Wembley, as a non sport fan it was still splendid to see us win something for a change and get one over on Germany. I was making the final touches to our Birmingham olympic bus trip tomorrow when I discovered that the main athletics aty the dog track don't start until Tueday which great as the weather had gained on the earlier forecasts and looks like being just light cloud and I can catch up with editing. Something to note was that just like the Ribble running day at Morecambe there were no programmes on sale although I believe they existed, great learning for us at the NWVRT who were well represented  at today's MTT event. Here are some shots and coming tomorrow lorries for a change!

Although I've had a good old fashioned cold it has been so long that I suppose its hit harder. Many did two tests and nothing positive. So the car is packed and ready for our stand tomorrow at the mTT Burscough premises annual open day. With my first 100% improved trial with AI I'm looking forwards to introducing more of the down your way series with really old section upgraded to HD ( Youtube and Download) remember good old DVD cannot take HD. It takes a little more time construction each DVD programme but it does mean that everything is always multi back up and nothing builds up awaiting processing although still photos are several months adrift, they are now printed and posted within the UK. Here are some York bus shots

As well as filming in York and Harrogate I've got my first trial A! enhanced film done from old 1940s bw film, colourised, enhanced frame rate and size to HD, film steadied and all 'noise' removed. It takes 4 or 5 processes but the results are astounding and I hope to have something I can put on Youtube soon. Here are some Harrogate pictures. Don't forget we'll be at Burscough Sunday. I will be filming the Commonwealth games buses next week.

I'm starting to play with some of the technology that the new computer can access without render time in weeks. I've coloorised a short sequence with Pixbim and now sharpening and upgrading using AVC tools, many people recommend doing it in B&W then colouring. That's what finding out the best thing for you is all about. Deoldify was for a long time the holy grail but seems stuck in a rut. The whole process will never show 100% of the original true colour and best taken as a way of making the scenes more acceptable to eyes and brains of the HD generation. When I've found the best path to follow I'll try a longer film and pop it on the Youtube channel. The first HD downloads are now on the PMP shop, I also keep a high grade copy on the extension drive as well as the master DVD and all the original files for the video as shot.

Today I went the short distance to the A500 west from the M6 and hopefully have some nice scenes from a handy location I seem to have neglected, shame the council doesn't cut down some of the weeds and grasses, I had to use the tripod as a scythe! Some shots from yesterday at Burton on Trent as I get ready to load the files on the shop and create the cover.

I looked it up and Weebly have a 3GB limit on file size although no limit on files so I can safely put HD copies for the digital downloads on the PMP going forward and also for the OTA copy which is also on the shop but invisible so we can release it to anybody world wide who needs access solving the need to send stuff all over the place on the actual extension drives. So actually that is two parts solved. We've been getting all the Brazil trip accounts sorted out to pay off the credit cards, it was more or less as expected. We are going to concentrate on the British Isles for the next year and try and get spending down so we are able to soak up the huge increases in energy costs. Notwithstanding that I'm still putting the last few bits together for AI film processing, I'm now running a bw film through the colourisation processor, if any colours are way off the is a 'paint brush' somewhere to treat the areas which need changing usually for bus, train etc with finite colours not translated correctly. When all that is done it goes into another press to 'clean' and increase the quality to HD or higher, this very much uses the AI programmes in another application which can also address other issues. Then back to the usual editing suite to trim up or tweak add sound etc. Simple eh!

Today I interrupted the catch up sessions to film at Burton on Trent, what a friendly lot of drivers, waves and smiles all the way and an enthusiast driver stopped for a chat and handed me send Midland Classic brochures and pass wallet. The weather was warm sunny to colour, all worked out well and home to bash through more material on the scanner which will flat out catching up and recopying material which vanished in the hiatus after the new computer arrived. Anyway it all seems well now and items are going on Youtube, we need to catch up as views have plummeted after a month caring for other business. Going on in the background is the health of a very dear friend and we are on alert to drop everything if need arises. So a final look at the Pantanal Brazil wildlife and some pictures from Burton this morning. Certainly a good impression from the trip as a whole, I've got enough wonderful sunsets to see me out.

First of all let me give you some photos to peruse tonight. I'll start with the buses and trolleybuses of Sao Paulo and some shots around the city. We had an official visit to the suburban operator with an escort from terminal to terminal in the trolley/bus lane - as near as I've ever got to be a trolleybus driver. Then we worked through the safer southern suburbs. On our last day on the Saturday before we flew out just before mid night we had a look at the central area and was glad that we had heeded Jorge's caution on filming there but I did sneak a few photos. It is probably as bad as it gets compared to many countries and indeed other Brazilian cities which are nothing like this. Anyway we all survived. I've got all the still shots tidied up and filed and Mandy who prefers prints has got them all done at Boots although their machine broke down so she had to go again and it has been grid lock with Chester Road shut and Middlewich where she also had to go to was a big car and truck park, its bad enough without taking the A556 traffic as well. So starting with buses and trolleys and 'scenics' in Sao Paulo Brazil.

So that's the transport now on to the wild life, well Sao Paulo, I'll leave the wild animals until tomorrow. I'm starting to watch for film day opportunities later this week and we have Burscough MTT open day on Sunday.

There was only one small area of restored buildings and around the cathedral there were scores of police cars and incidents kicking off all the time!

We have been in the Patanal in  Brazil and of course have lots of photos to share. For this first batch it is iconic wildlife there but don't worry we soon be on to trucks and trolleybuses and lots of news on our latest PMP developments! All the DVD orders received in our absence went off in the post today.

This was the lorry at the first hotel, couldn't help sneaking i something about transport lots more tomorrow

After three years of planning, cancellations and postponements the  Brazil trip is finally happening. We leave at tea time and get into Sao Paulo early in the morning then transfer to a lunch time flight which will take us west to the airport serving the region which has the Pantanal where we are heading. We stay in the airport hotel one night then pick up the car in the morning and head off down the tarmac highway until we get to Pocone which is the end of the made up road after that hundred miles of dust track and rickety wooden bridges will bring us to the first of three lodges Hotel Joffre, which is really Port Joffre itself on the river Joffre. Across the other side the untouched region leading to the deep Amazon which has no access roads at all. At the end of the trip we go back to Sao Paulo and I have two days trolleybus filming courtesy of a really helpful friend there. I will have two people with me for security when out on the streets, locations are mainly near the depots for more security.

For the enthusiasts out there I thought we could have some South American lorries this morning

The great game of snakes and ladders in the aftermath of the great computer and extension disc hiatus has recovered a little as the last batch of films I backed up actually included quite a lot I thought were lost so it only leaves me short of some of the Phil Pratt films from OTA which I can catch up with over a couple of visits to Shrewsbury in coming months. We are now ready to head off to Brazil, I'm not even looking at emails etc we need a complete break. The new method of keeping the cine film files seems to be working well enough and the albums to pop the DVDs in have arrived, I will need to give them some identity as to which copy they are - when full I can hand over to OTA and at anytime the digital files can be accessed by emailed link to our shop 'hidden' files section. I've lost a lot of still photos but that isn't the end of the world, too many SHDC cards laying around. Tonights slide show is from Blackburn this week..

We are almost ready to head off on our trip to Brazil. The last DVD orders are being sent out today. Regular postal customers have been informed. The Ebay shop is open but shows an away message, there is no way that anything can be sent out before our return.

Some good news, a by product of the IT issues with extension drives  is that in future all items on the PMP shop will also have the digital download option leaded, these are £8 not to be confused with DVD items at £13. There are several jobs I need to do today so time will be limited. The weather was on the damp side yesterday for Keighley and Blackburn but we shall have programmes on both.

Here are some shots from Keighley yesterday morning. I don't suppose we'll be able to blog in the Amazon-Pantanal region of Brazil but will try when we are at hotels at start and end of the trip. The Sao Paulo trolleybus systems ( yes there are two) will be covered at the end of the trip.

The enormous loss of scanned film from past few months will mean a big catch up operation at some stage. Hopefully archive releases will come back on stream ready for the long winter nights.