Don Coffey cab ride video discussion

[Railwaysceptic]

Just a quick “heads up”, there’s a premier tonight at 9pm (late so the guys in oz and NZ can catch it in the morning). It’s footage from a brand new Class 397 from Edinburgh to Carlisle through some really dramatic countryside. It was filmed by Ben Elias whom some of you will have followed on his channel and both Ben and I will be online to answer any comments or questions you may have. You’ll need to be a YouTube subscriber (free to subscribe) to comment so you can be ready with your question.

Thanks for the "heads-up." I'll watch that but I'm sure there is already a video from Edinburgh to Carlisle from Ben Elias.

 

[Don Coffey]

Thanks for the "heads-up." I'll watch that but I'm sure there is already a video from Edinburgh to Carlisle from Ben Elias.

There is but this is previously unseen footage and of course we edit them in different ways.

 

[Highlandspring]

With your arrangement with Freightliner, have any intermodal services been filmed?

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Don Coffey has a new video premiering later today: Bidston to Wrexham. I look forward to this. There is already a video of this route, and a return too, but the picture quality is at best only adequate. I'm sure the images in Don Coffey's will be far better.

 

[Ianno87]

I'm enjoying Dom's videos covering somewhat "odder" routes, rather than the likes of Video 125 that seem generally focused on Main Lines or Scenic routes.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Don Coffey has a new video premiering later today: Bidston to Wrexham. I look forward to this. There is already a video of this route, and a return too, but the picture quality is at best only adequate. I'm sure the images in Don Coffey's will be far better.

I'm glad to say I was right: the picture quality in Don Coffey's video is vastly superior to that in the other video. We can now see that the Bidston to Wrexham route is well laid out and, if circumstances were different, higher line speeds could be made possible. As only the passenger service uses the northern half of the route at present, why has this section not been reduced to single track? Is it because they would have to increase the currently very minimal signalling?

 

[Don Coffey]

With your arrangement with Freightliner, have any intermodal services been filmed?

Sorry for the delay, it’s my fortnight driving trains so I don’t get much time. At the moment the only intermodal I have is archive footage which was filmed with an old Sony camcorder. You can see the quality in the Crewe to Bootle Docks video. I’ve got tons of Heavy Haul footage which I will show in due course and that is all cracking DVD quality. I’m told I’ll be out with DB Cargo later in the year but we just need Covid to ease a bit more and you never know what else will pop up

 

[Don Coffey]

I'm glad to say I was right: the picture quality in Don Coffey's video is vastly superior to that in the other video. We can now see that the Bidston to Wrexham route is well laid out and, if circumstances were different, higher line speeds could be made possible. As only the passenger service uses the northern half of the route at present, why has this section not been reduced to single track? Is it because they would have to increase the currently very minimal signalling?

I’ve got more TfW footage that I’ll bring you but I can’t remember what without looking. Fairly sure I’ve got Piccadilly to Chester via Earlestown, Birmingham back to Chester and a couple more.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I’ve got more TfW footage that I’ll bring you but I can’t remember what without looking. Fairly sure I’ve got Piccadilly to Chester via Earlestown, Birmingham back to Chester and a couple more.

Thank you. I look forward to those.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

No!!! - I only recently subbed to Rambler66's channel... Just looked and all have been taken down... What a shame

Good to see Don's videos are back and new one being added.

Freight Rambler has returned! His videos are back on YouTube! I advise you to record them, just in case . . . . .

 

[malc-c]

Freight Rambler has returned! His videos are back on YouTube! I advise you to record them, just in case . . . . .

Yaaayyyy - I'm due for a binge session of youtube tonight - will add his channel back to the subscription list !

 

[Don Coffey]

New video tomorrow night. Peterborough to Birmingham on a 66.

The next one after that will be Bedford to Earles. Some of the best footage I’ve seen.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

New video tomorrow night. Peterborough to Birmingham on a 66.

Thank you very much. I'm particularly pleased because, to the best of my knowledge, there is no driver's POV from the Leicester area to Birmingham. You are, once again, plugging a very important gap.

 

[High Dyke]

New video tomorrow night. Peterborough to Birmingham on a 66.

Brilliant news Don. I won't be able to participate on the night, but look forward to catching it a.s.a.p.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Brilliant news Don. I won't be able to participate on the night, but look forward to catching it a.s.a.p.

One curious characteristic of Don Coffey's videos and one I can't explain is that the picture quality is poor when it first appears but is vastly better within a few days. You're probably better off not watching it on the first night!

 

[malc-c]

One curious characteristic of Don Coffey's videos and one I can't explain is that the picture quality is poor when it first appears but is vastly better within a few days. You're probably better off not watching it on the first night!

That's due to YouTubes compression processing - Rather than wait until the processing of what will be a huge file size is completed in HD YouTube releases the video in SD format whilst it processes the file to HD format in the background. Depending on the file size this can take minutes to hours, possibly days if its 4K footage before HD processing is complete.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Great video as per usual, but the biggest point of note to me (I've watched as far as Melton Mobray so far), is the complete lack of any passenger traffic on the route!

 

[jfowkes]

Great video as per usual, but the biggest point of note to me (I've watched as far as Melton Mobray so far), is the complete lack of any passenger traffic on the route!

Gets busier after Leicester but yeah it's pretty quiet until then.

 

[Grumpy Git]

No sign of any line side vegetation management south west of Hinkley either, (and the trees aren't yet in anything like full leaf on this vid)!

No wonder they need RHT trains.

 

[Pigeon]

Super stuff, thank you for that. The coverage of the Leicester to Nuneaton section indeed fulfils an extended desire of amorphous compressed fibre.

 

[Don Coffey]

The one I’m working on next is a gem. Another Freightliner video from Bedford to Earles right up through Toton and Chesterfield. I don’t know why its as good as it is but the definition is astonishing. Regarding the definition, it always bothers me on the first day because there are usually in the order of 500 watching live and it doesn’t look good at all unless the train is travelling slow or is stopped and then its fine so I’m assuming it is the motion it struggles with. I’m sure Malc is right above as I’m no expert. I did watch a youtube train video about it and it seems that it pulls the uploading video to bits and sends it to several giant servers around the world. It then begins to reassemble it on the chosen server bit by bit and that takes time as Malc has alluded to. It certainly looks better after a few days. The footage is collected at 2.7k 60 fps and then YouTube seems to render that at 1080p which should be plenty good enough. I’ve considered 4k and my cameras are capable but the file size is gigantic - most YouTubers are doing 20 minutes or so and some of mine are over 3 hours. I’m running out of space at 7TB!!! I’ll attach a few screenshots of this next video so you can see how good the raw footage is. Keep in mind that all but the Leicester and Bedford shot is on the hoof but you can pick out the individual pieces of ballast.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Brilliant Don, the videos are really appreciated.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The one I’m working on next is a gem. Another Freightliner video from Bedford to Earles right up through Toton and Chesterfield. I don’t know why its as good as it is but the definition is astonishing. Regarding the definition, it always bothers me on the first day because there are usually in the order of 500 watching live and it doesn’t look good at all unless the train is travelling slow or is stopped and then its fine so I’m assuming it is the motion it struggles with. I’m sure Malc is right above as I’m no expert. I did watch a youtube train video about it and it seems that it pulls the uploading video to bits and sends it to several giant servers around the world. It then begins to reassemble it on the chosen server bit by bit and that takes time as Malc has alluded to. It certainly looks better after a few days. The footage is collected at 2.7k 60 fps and then YouTube seems to render that at 1080p which should be plenty good enough. I’ve considered 4k and my cameras are capable but the file size is gigantic - most YouTubers are doing 20 minutes or so and some of mine are over 3 hours. I’m running out of space at 7TB!!! I’ll attach a few screenshots of this next video so you can see how good the raw footage is. Keep in mind that all but the Leicester and Bedford shot is on the hoof but you can pick out the individual pieces of ballast.View attachment 106666View attachment 106667View attachment 106662View attachment 106663View attachment 106664View attachment 106665

Yes, those screen grabs are unusually clear. I look forward to watching this. Toton to Chesterfield is another section where until now there has never been a high quality video, so once again, many thanks.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

That's due to YouTubes compression processing - Rather than wait until the processing of what will be a huge file size is completed in HD YouTube releases the video in SD format whilst it processes the file to HD format in the background. Depending on the file size this can take minutes to hours, possibly days if its 4K footage before HD processing is complete.

Many thanks for that. It explains why much shorter videos from other people don't suffer in the same way.

 

[75A]

Many thanks for that. It explains why much shorter videos from other people don't suffer in the same way.

First one of these I've seen............Wow.

 

[Crun]

The one I’m working on next is a gem. Another Freightliner video from Bedford to Earles right up through Toton and Chesterfield. I don’t know why its as good as it is but the definition is astonishing. Regarding the definition, it always bothers me on the first day because there are usually in the order of 500 watching live and it doesn’t look good at all unless the train is travelling slow or is stopped and then its fine so I’m assuming it is the motion it struggles with. I’m sure Malc is right above as I’m no expert. I did watch a youtube train video about it and it seems that it pulls the uploading video to bits and sends it to several giant servers around the world. It then begins to reassemble it on the chosen server bit by bit and that takes time as Malc has alluded to. It certainly looks better after a few days. The footage is collected at 2.7k 60 fps and then YouTube seems to render that at 1080p which should be plenty good enough. I’ve considered 4k and my cameras are capable but the file size is gigantic - most YouTubers are doing 20 minutes or so and some of mine are over 3 hours. I’m running out of space at 7TB!!! I’ll attach a few screenshots of this next video so you can see how good the raw footage is. Keep in mind that all but the Leicester and Bedford shot is on the hoof but you can pick out the individual pieces of ballast.View attachment 106666View attachment 106667View attachment 106662View attachment 106663View attachment 106664View attachment 106665

Will you be looking at filming a journey through the Werrington Junction dive-under on ECML at any time?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The one I’m working on next is a gem. Another Freightliner video from Bedford to Earles right up through Toton and Chesterfield. I don’t know why its as good as it is but the definition is astonishing.

I agree; those screenshots are unbelievably good quality. I am most definitely looking forwards to watching that one when it's up. Three hours? It'll be worth it...

 

[_toommm_]

I’ve considered 4k and my cameras are capable but the file size is gigantic - most YouTubers are doing 20 minutes or so and some of mine are over 3 hours. I’m running out of space at 7TB!!!

I film videos when I’m out on my phone at 4K 60FPS (iPhone 13 Pro Max). My last video was 25 seconds, and that cost me 200MB, so to take up 1GB of storage only gets you two minutes of video. It’s amazing just how much space it takes up.

 

[Neo9320]

I film videos when I’m out on my phone at 4K 60FPS (iPhone 13 Pro Max). My last video was 25 seconds, and that cost me 200MB, so to take up 1TB of storage only gets you two minutes of video. It’s amazing just how much space it takes up.

2 mins would be 1GB. 1000GB = 1TB

 

[_toommm_]

2 mins would be 1GB. 1000GB = 1TB

Oops, never trust me to do late night maths