If a picture is worth a thousand words...

[Guest DG795]

IF a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth a million...any thoughts on digital video recorders?

Also....We have all gone to classes that include usually grainy amateur video of FD's in action. An excellent training and debriefing tool for dept's, especially if they can watch their own fire. Any thoughts on digital video photography for fire scenes?

[x635 4,066]

I beleive it was Remember585 brought up in a chat on this board that videotapes were a good training tool for those members that could not attend a drill,whic is an excellent idea.

I think, especially a new Sony DVD HandyCam :wink: (Nice camera, recrds straight to a DVD that you can pop right in your player) would be a great investment for any department. It would serve as a great visual aid for incident and drill critque, provding you have sufficient personel to operate one.

It also, like a digital camera, serves a great documentation and archiving tool.

I've heard of departments that carry a videocamera on their first due and point it at the incident (mounted on a tripod that can be quickly deploted anywhere and then left) to record the incident for documentation and future critique. I will try and find more information on this subject.

[Guest DG795]

I guess kinda what i am getting at is instead of just taking digital stills, video is another useful media. I know a lot of us, myself included buff fires if possible just to practice taking pictures. Perhaps we could also take video. most digital video recorders include a still feature as well as motion. I am researching digital video cameras for myself...when i finally get around to buying one, I would like to expand fire photography to motion picture as well...

[Guest Greg198]

Sony makes a few that take Digital 8 tapes that are not too expencive. The nice thing is you can get it with USB hookup so you can download the video into your computer. The nice part about this is if you use Powerpoint for training you can add video to your presentation. Have not bought one yet but used a friends and seems to work well. The other thing with them is the low light abillity.

[Guest DG795]

any opinions on digital 8 or miniDV? and what is the third format?

[x635 4,066]

Anybody videotape their drills and critique operations by watching the video at a point afterwards???

[Guest DFFD227]

Yes, -- The Dobbs Ferry JR's did a search and rescue drill, we set up an obstacle course, and we made scenarios (people trapped etc) and we used a camera (Night Vision Mode) and we watched it after the drill. I can tell you that each junior improved in S+R ever since, just by watching your own/partners moves. We will do it more when the weather starts cooling down.

[tbendick 27]

FDNY Bn8 has being using a VHS camera to tape some drills.. They would send each company in to do a search drill and then at the end gave the tape to the officer to take back and go over..

Worked out good..