Another great night out was the NWVRT annual dinner and there really are some amazing people in the Trust based at Kirkby who labour through all weathers to keep the fleets running even when spares are hard to fine or finance or even have to be engineered as there are no spares around. Membership is now around 150 and you don't have to live locally to be a member and support our activities. Here are shots from the dinner at the Junction pub in Rainhill.
We were out at the RNCM in Manchester last night, it was Strauss Der Fledermus and was spot on and as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations each performance has a super star of the opera world in a cameo role. Last night it was a give away as we spoke to John Tomlinson in the cafe early on, he did The Flea, not something you hear very often in performance these days, on of Paul Robeson's regulars. So the weather stays really cold heading down to -8 this morning and no excuses that I have attempted any filming this week. I've been working hard to get clips on Youtube at 60fps HD and had to remake a DVD where the master has failed and back up disc gone in the great clean out of old stock in the garden shed. This will give me a lot more space and the boxes emptied will enable our photo stock to appear at events again. Another great night out was the NWVRT annual dinner and there really are some amazing people in the Trust based at Kirkby who labour through all weathers to keep the fleets running even when spares are hard to fine or finance or even have to be engineered as there are no spares around. Membership is now around 150 and you don't have to live locally to be a member and support our activities. Here are shots from the dinner at the Junction pub in Rainhill. I was going to film near Buxton for lorries in the snow but it was freezing fog this morning and really I don't think I could take the temperature at present even with the electric gloves and socks. The time has been put to good use though and we are glad to bring you two new releases which are on the shop as DVDs and will be HD downloads in a while.
As usual editing an archive film takes a whole lot longer than you expect although for once I have three external drives plugged in and all working nicely together. I'm over half way through, some scenes whittled down down to out of focus shots haven't lasted as long as I expected but I've more than enough to get to an hour. I'm also into the routine required to get the cine derived material cleaned up and in HD 60fps. The NEAT cleaner is the weak point, it needs to be rendered once applied as it then needs saving to give it stability for the final editing. Without doing that it will just freeze the whole project, it turns out really great results though so well worth the effort. There was a craft fair at the pub tonight but covered in snow as we are Mandy cannot risk going outside as the chances of slipping are mega. We had a great night at the RNCM yesterday, a superb concert which joined Manchester Camerata musicians with students at the college. Many of the Camerata are former students at the RNCM. Next week we have two visits, first their Christmas opera on Tuesday then John Tomlinson doing a masterclass on Thursday. If it is still snowy by Monday I'll probably do some filming up in the hills, usually Dove Holes which has plenty of lorries. There are no DVD orders now, the weather and strike action has really done for the Christmas order rush, thankfully as we make no profit selling nothing probably saves us money, sort of! Back to the grind stone then, I'm determined to get the Welsh film done tonight, I've been doing it for several days and this is the push to completion. Lets have something Welsh then for our slide show and of course a shot of the garden first thing this morning covered in white stuff. A quckie as we are off to the RNCM for a concert this evening, herewith our latest updated list with new announcements and early films deleted. I also threw some of the old sales stock in recycling today. There is still plenty for Lucky Dip boxes bus they will all be gone by spring whether sold or skip!
It was Polio Fellowship meeting at Ellesmere Port plus hair cut, shopping, salt for icy paths etc, on the PMP front I'm battling my way through the most tricky patch which is Cardiff trams, all in colour and HD although I keep playing the balloon game and chucking out the worst material until there is little left. The remainder of the editing won't take quite so long but generally speaking they take about 4 days of work so can never be prolific. We'll still be going out as weather permits. The post situation means everything is going out but when it gets delivered is another thing. I'm brassed off that people are still ordering via EBay, I'm happy to take the knock on business getting rid of Amazon, EBay will be next to go. Everything is on the PMP shop, Ebay just has a few and when we delete 10-1500 in the New Year I've no idea what is on Ebay so people will have to chance it that I've an old copy around. I'll start putting more of the old rally stock in the bin again as the Lucky Dip box orders are very sparse now. Thanks to everyone who is sending kind words about the service and friendship through the past year, any positive feed back is welcome believe me. We will attend few rallies with the stand next year, the season will starts with Detling then Brooklands then it depends on our film trips although I'd like to attend Alton and Wythall at Gaydon. We will also be filming a lot of running days which are very popular now. Here are some shots from the Isle of Man perhaps we'll get there in 2023, anyone ever look at these pictures? Yes we are pleased to introduce the next Down Your Way which features South Wales, some wonderful old footage which has been cleaned and tidied to sparkle in HD, rock steady and 60 fps! Today we were in Leamington Spa, saw the new Nat Express Electrics on the 11 but had already put my camera etc away in the car when the Stagecoach demonstrator turned up. Anyway I got what I could and even in the winter sun at nearly freezing point the shots looked well particularly down near the Pump Room. I'm editing away and putting clips on Youtube, lots more downloaded and ready to process just doing the four things at the same time is ok for me but the internet feels the strain after one task, looking forward to getting full fibre, we have been promised it for 2023. Lets just wait and see on that one. I'm scanning cine at the same time but feel like a break and a brew. We had bacon sandwiches for dinner. Not that busy on the DVD front so orders are being turned around within 24 hours. Please don't let your loved ones buy your DVD present on EBay they take most of the profit and we don't actually make anything as it all gets eaten up in the costs. Here are some Leamington scenes taken this morning. I'm putting a series of London bus clips on Youtube this evening which show the development of the processes that get is to be of much higher quality than it starts off. This means de-interlacing, raising to 60 fps and then treating it with NEAT software. The result is pretty good although I'm using Mini Dv from 1999 which was good quality at that time. I'm also going to put on a film at Immingham of trucks from the same week with just the resultant images. The whole process does add a lot of time but I'm doing it on Youtube uploads and archive DVD / Download features. The new download from analogue sources is going very well, the clips certainly look good at hundreds of gigabytes, they are still good HD when reduced to around 8gb for storage. I haven't put the new DVDs on the shop as I forgot! I've put some recent DVDs on as downloads on the plus side. Tomorrow we are at Leamington Spa filming and hopefully visiting the Portuguese cafe, To whet our appetite past visits from this location. I've at last set up the technology to resume downloads of analogue film although they seem to be very high quality and gobbling up bytes. Still it is nice to be back on track although the disc burner seems to have gone on strike but it might be to do with downloading the scanned files to create space on the drive, fingers crossed on that. We have a little flurry of DVD orders catching up, they will go out tomorrow morning. The IQ has its 100,000 service tomorrow then in Feb 2023 it will have its make over. Mandy had a tumble on the way to the post office, her legs cut out as often happens, thankfully no harm done although it was her new jumper which was giving most concern. I'm also carrying on with the cine scanning. I've now got two DVD covers done and one DVD complete, see above. I'll get them on the shop when the computer has had a rest. Not sure what to bring you tonight, lets have a rummage in the files - yes that looks exotic on a grey winters day in Cheshire, some shots from one of our Banladesh trips. I think we may have to park events mid winter as the cold in museum sheds is usually close to freezing and when the gas bottles were exhausted today it was very uncomfortable. We had some more pleasant conversations with those on stalls around us but it was deadly quiet as regards visitors and even the visiting buses was nothing like as plentiful as on previous occasions. I am now catching up with DVD orders received over the weekend which will go in the post Monday morning. I'm also playing with the new Black Magic format converter we received today although I cannot find muck about it as yet and as ever these day instructions are buried on the internet.
The great Boyle St atmosphere prevails from the lads giving us a hand in with the stock through to those running the feeder buses, the entrance, the stalls etc and the large number of friends many of whom we haven't seen for quite some time. getting there is a bit of a struggle for some folk but we hope they have found the journey's end rewarding. Many of our archive films have gone along with regular stock, I've filled in all the gaps so all material released in the last couple of years will be there. Lots of work going on at the museum and interesting selection of buses in service today. Sunday is usually a bigger showing of visiting buses so why not come along. Here are shots of the buses outside, the stalls and restoration underway on the old 1946 Mancunian. |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
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