Sunday, October 13, 2024
9:23 a.m. Paklang Kopitiam
Port Dickson, Malaysia
(1,047 words)
I’m back at my favorite kopitiam to upload three videos using their Wi-Fi. I will probably post one video to Planet Doug directly. That’s the video where I met the Belgian cyclist and had rojak and went to Mient’s Burger. That was supposed to be just a camera-testing video, and I was going to make it a Patreon BTS video. But since I met Lukas and I went to Mient’s and had rojak, it seemed like there was enough of local interest to make it a real video. The other two videos are both just camera-testing videos. And I will make them Patreon videos. I still don’t know how that works exactly, but I will upload them to Planet Doug for now and figure that out later. I want to have some content on the Planet Doug Patreon in advance and ready to go when I launch.
Luckily, I shot these videos in 25 FPS, and I exported them using the H.265 codec, so they are much smaller than my older videos. The largest one is only 18 gigabytes. And I’m able to upload them using Wi-Fi, even though Wi-Fi is slower. I would rather use mobile data, but Digi stopped offering the special deal of 100 gigabytes for 3 ringgit. I went to Digi the other day to ask them if it were possible to buy just hotspot quota. And they said that it wasn’t. The only way to get more hotspot data is to buy a full package. I told them that I found their subscription packages very confusing and unsatisfactory. From the clerk’s reaction, I got the impression that they hear that all the time. Nobody likes the confusing and perhaps unethical way these telecom companies operate. But that is just how they are. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. I told the clerk how much better and simpler it was in Vietnam and other countries. Of course, it is pointless to give this feedback. It’s not like the clerk will rush to the next board of directors meeting and report on my feedback. But it’s better than just always taking it on the chin and not doing anything or saying anything.
My test of mounting the X3 camera on the bicycle may or may not have been successful. I’m not sure. All I really tested was putting the X3 at the end of the broomstick and sticking straight up, just like mounting a GoPro. My idea is that I can reframe the video to point in any direction, and it won’t matter that the broomstick is not invisible. I haven’t reframed any of this video yet, so I don’t know how it worked out. It was a relatively short test and a short ride. I rode up the main highway towards Lukut with the idea of tracking down a laundromat there. I found the laundromat, and I’ll likely go there if I need to do laundry with a machine before my trip. So far, I’ve been doing all my laundry by hand here in Port Dickson. But when it comes time to wash my bedsheets and all my shirts, I might do it at the laundromat.
I did run into one big problem with this test. For some reason, my Rode Wireless Go microphone would not work with the X3. It was very strange. I could see that the microphone was connected. And I could see the audio signal on the X3 screen. Yet, the video it recorded had no audio. I tried a bunch of times, but I never got it to work. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps I have to set the Rode to merge the audio rather than separate it. I would have tried that out, but you have to use the Rode app on a computer to make that change. You can’t change those settings directly on the Rode receiver. This audio problem made the test much more difficult and complicated than it needed to be. Instead of attaching the Rode to the X3, I put it onto my GoPro Hero 12, and I mounted that camera on the handlebars. The idea is to use the audio from the GoPro and sync it up to the X3 video. It’s a pain, but it was the only way to do it. On the positive side with this test, neither camera overheated. The day was painfully and brutally hot with direct sunshine on the cameras, but they worked fine without overheating at all.
I rode about 4 kilometers up the highway for the first test. And then I pulled over to the side of the highway somewhere to try something different. I wanted to raise the X3 high up into the air or have it mounted to the side of the bicycle. And I think I could have come up with a solid mounting rig, but I just didn’t have the time or the gear with me. Everything I tried was unstable and was clearly leading to me destroying the camera as the mount twists and the X3 gets dragged along the pavement. So I gave up on that and just put the X3 back on the end of the broomstick like the first test. I find that both the GoPro and the X3 obstruct my view of the road ahead just a little bit. I’d like to lower them somehow, so I’m still thinking about shortening the broomstick. But I want to take it slow. There is no need to cut it short right away and risk making a mistake. For now, I’m pretty happy with what I have set up.
One odd thing is that I was so happy to figure out a way to have one GoPro on the end of the broomstick and one GoPro on the handlebars. That was one of the advantages of this new short broomstick approach. But when I glanced at the video, the camera seemed to be jerking from side to side too much. I ended up thinking that maybe it would be better to have the second GoPro also mounted on the broomstick. The video from that vantage point seemed to be more stable.