HURL Data Products
All video and data obtained through use of the
deep-diving submersibles is catalogued and archived by
the HURL Data Department so that it can be made
available to scientists, educators and film producers.
Over the years the HURL Data Dept has continued to
upgrade as technologies advance. HURL’s tapes and slides
have been converted to digital formats and backed up on
DVD. Video equipment has been upgraded to keep up with
modern technology. The DVD library has made video much
more readily available to researchers and now HD video
is allowing for higher precision video analyses (e.g.,
species identification).
Technology Improvements
From 2005 through most of 2009 video from two cameras
mounted on the Pisces submersibles was routed
through a switcher and recorded onto 2-hr DVCAM tapes,
of which DVD copies were provided to PIs. In 2005 a
universal time clock that inputs to a video overlay
injected into the video stream and recorded to tape no
matter which camera is switched to record was installed
in the subs. The overlay, which can be disabled
temporarily for an uninterrupted video scene, includes
time, depth, heading, and altitude above bottom and
these same values are recorded in a data file on the
onboard computer for later download and inclusion in the
data package.
In 2009, we upgraded to full High Definition video
with the purchase of two Insite Pacific MINI-ZEUS HDTV
cameras. On each sub the HD camera is mounted adjacent
to the ROS color CCD camera on a starboard pan and tilt,
which provides a good view of the sampling basket and
starboard side when traversing along walls. The ROS
video has the data overlay inserted onto it and is
recorded to hard drive with DataVideo’s DN-10 recorder.
The HD video is recorded to high-capacity compact flash
cards with Convergent Design’s Flash XDR. Both sets of
video are copied to external hard drives after the dive
and provided to the PI along with all their other data.
This marks a monumental improvement in video quality
provided to the scientists and archived for future use.
Furthermore, the video files are in a format that is
ready to be imported into an editing system without any
further conversion. In order to support these files, we
have purchased a sea-going Mac laptop as well as a
high-end Mac editing computer, both loaded with Final
Cut Pro, which is the industry standard non-linear
editing software. Now, instead of storing tapes and
backing them up to DVD, we will be storing hard drives
and backing up to Blu-ray discs and high-capacity RAID
storage systems.
Data
We are working to get these available
online… check back soon!
- Video -- contact HURL's
Data Dept Manager with any specific inquiries.
- Pilot Photos -- sub pilots take photos
through the viewport on every dive since 2003; some
highlight photos can be viewed in the multimedia
gallery. We hope to eventually have the complete
set online.
- QLR's -- Quick Look Reports offer a brief
overview of each dive
- CTD -- conductivity, temperature, depth data
where available
- NaDS -- data from the video overlay that
includes time, depth, heading, and altitude above
bottom
- Tracking -- location of the sub throughout
the dive
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