Time Lapse video made with a 1992 MK3

Supraman

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Mar 30, 2005
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Sunnyvale
Hello everyone. This is remotely off topic, but I think a bunch of people will enjoy it regardless. I've made a time-lapse video with my Supra, along four California highways, and surface streets. It's entertaining to watch, because given the fact that I'm driving a Supra, I can easily manage high speeds and manuever around other vehicles. Because the video only shows you the hood of my beloved Supra, here are a few photos:

Teal 1992 MKIII Picture 1
Teal 1992 MKIII Picture 2
Teal 1992 MKIII Picture 3

EDIT: I've recompressed the video so it no longer requires 3ivx. Now, all you need is QuickTime 6 or higher, something you probably already have. Now back to my original post:

It's limited trouble to install QuickTime if you need to, and I think it's really worth it. For maximum convinience, here's a link to the QT download:

Download QuickTime

And, finally, I present my time lapse, which takes you on the 78, 5, 56, and 15 freeways, totalling about 75 miles, in a grand circle (with an instantaneous stop at a Differential Equations course). As further information, the video has been sped up 14.4 times, meaning that the world appears to pass a bit faster than mach two for some segments. It was created with my PowerBook riding shotgun, encoding the video as it came in, at a full 30FPS. The source video is 640x480, whereas this is 480x360; if anyone is interested in a higher quality version, I'm very willing to send it directly.

Supra Time Lapse

I hope you like it! Let me know what you think, and thanks!

-- Scott Goodson
 
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Supraman

New Member
Mar 30, 2005
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Sunnyvale
Hey, you know what, I never noticed that they mirrors were supposed to be the body color! Looking at another Teal 1992, you guys are absolutely correct...but I have no idea why they are that way. I bought the car about a month or so ago, at 90K miles. The mirrors seem to be totally perfect in every other respect, with the power function working fine, but I don't know why they were apparently replaced...

Thanks for pointing that out though, very interesting!!

-- Scott Goodson
 

Jeff Lange

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Staff member
Mar 29, 2005
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Yeah, it's odd.

Maybe someone just liked the pre-89 mirrors better. I know some people like them because they have more glass, so you have more vision, even though they don't look as nice on the car. (The 89+ ones are more rounded).
 

Idealsupra

Supramania Contributor
Mar 31, 2005
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car looks gorgeous in the pics...

that video was pretty damn sweet...damn i want a powerbook so bad... i think i was having problems with the vid compressor thingy though cause the whole vid was green and purple... heh... felt like a video game flying through all those cars :D
 

Supraman

New Member
Mar 30, 2005
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Sunnyvale
Yeah, I'll go ahead and recompress it such that 3ivx is no longer required for the best playback. The video should be pretty darn clean, although not perfect due to the fact it was taken from a webcam (albiet a high-end one) and compressed to its current size. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to compress a time lapse: First, you want to maintain at least 30 frames per second, and second, the codecs today generally try to find the differences between frames...which are very, very many with a video of the entire scene moving at apparent speeds past mach two.

I'm glad people like it! Oh, and that unsighly sticker on my bumper is a stupid college parking pass, which MUST go there because the rear window is tinted too darkly for it to be seen. There are only two allowed locations, and that's the only place they'll allow it...not even the LEFT bumper :D

-- Scott Goodson
 

Supraman

New Member
Mar 30, 2005
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Sunnyvale
I've changed the original URL, which now points to a page with a link to the video, which is a QuickTime movie that will play on standard QT 6.0 and up. The quality is still not exccelent due to the nature of any time lapse video, but it's quite decent. Once again, I've got a very crisp original if anyone happens to want me to send it directly. Depending on the quality you want, it goes up to about 950MB, rather than the ~61MB of this file. Here it is again: Supra Time Lapse

I'll consider making more of these videos, but I'm going to need new ideas to make something much better (this is about as good as it gets without ugrading the camera by putting one of my DV cams in the face of triple digit wind velocities). I've convinced a friend of mine to buy a Supra, and we found another teal 1992 over in New Jersey. We're considering flying out there, and driving the ~3000 miles back--just throw that up to 100X or more speed, and you could get a quick tour of our entire country! :p

Many other possibilities exist in camera placement, as well as editing. There could be a rear-view camera, or one of the common views mounted right alongside a front tire. With editing, I could easily manage variable speed to focus on interesting parts of the action, such as a high-speed corner with the tire cam. Alternative mounting will be reasonably difficult, especially to be stable at high speeds or cornering forces, so they probably won't happen any time soon.

Once again, thanks for watching/commenting! :)

-- Scott Goodson