Hayley on Detroit Public TV (from Dec 2004)

[alien]

Hi all,

Hayley was at the Detroit Public TV (PBS) studio during the broadcast of the Live in NZ special last year. Near end of the program, she performed Pokarekare Ana and Amazing Grace (acappella) live.

I've uploaded the amazing grace video, it can be downloaded at:

Edit by Dave: now permanently at: www.hayley-westenra-international.net/hwi/clips/zo04/amazinggraceDPTV101204.wmv (by Gerrit)

(46.2M)

The Pokarekare Ana one will be uploaded later since rapidshare only allows up to 50M per file.

Allen

[Raymond]

Thank you.

[gareth]

Hi Allen,

I tried to download it, but got error messages. My idea was to put it up at HWI.net permanently - but I presume you have deleted it already?

If you can make it available again, I'll download it and after that upload it to HWI.net.

Cheers,

Gerrit

[Dave]

Hi Gerrit,

I've just downloaded the file successfully so if you still can't get the original, let me know and I'll get it to you - somehow!

Allen, welcome to the forum... and thanks for that file, it's a beautiful recording!

Cheers, Dave

[HWI]

Don't forget me.

Keith.

[gareth]

Hi Dave,

On trying it again, I managed to download it - but I get a weird message: "Windows Media Player cannot play the file because a required codec is not installed on your computer."

Despite that message, Windows Media Player plays the file perfectly ... who is doing the kidding here?

Even more strange, I tried to open the file in Windows Movie Maker, and got a message "The file cannot be played because it is empty."

I tried opening the file in VirtualDub and some other movie editing software - and I kept getting all sorts of weird error messages.

I find it very, very strange that Windows Media Player tells me it can't play the file because of a missing codec - and then happily continues to play the file. And I find it equally strange that Windows Movie Maker can't open the file because it thinks it is empty.

Any suggestions anywhere?

Cheers!

Gerrit

[Dave]

admin said:

Don't forget me.
Keith.

Have no fear, I think that would be impossible, Keith! But I think Gerrit and I may have one or two issues to sort out first

PS Gerrit, it comes out square on my PC, I think maybe it should be 4:3 aspect ratio and we should alter it to that? I think I'll try making a full size 1.2 mbps wmv file too, those play better than mpeg2, on my VERY OLD PC! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif I assume you have VirtualdubMod, so you can open and edit the mpeg2 file (then save it as an .avi)?

You could try opening the file in your software DVD player such as PowerDVD, that should play it OK without complaining.

Cheers, Dave

[gareth]

Will attempt to address these matters later on today - right now it is 5 a.m. - and i need some sleep

Cheers,

Gerrit

[alien]

dave said:

PS Gerrit, it comes out square on my PC, I think maybe it should be 4:3 aspect ratio and we should alter it to that? I think I'll try making a full size 1.2 mbps wmv file too, those play better than mpeg2, on my VERY OLD PC! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif I assume you have VirtualdubMod, so you can open and edit the mpeg2 file (then save it as an .avi)?

You could try opening the file in your software DVD player such as PowerDVD, that should play it OK without complaining.

Cheers, Dave

Hi Dave,

You're right, the svcd mpg file is supposed to resize to 4:3 on playback, most DVD players should do that without any problem.

The rapidshare service claims to host the file "forever" and only deletes it after 30 days of inactivity. The only problem for me seems to be the upload, the site keeps timing out for some reason.

Anyway, I managed to upload the pokarekare ana performance as 2 separate files. You'll need programs like WinRAR to extract it:

[Edit by Dave: Rapidshare links are now dead due to timeout]

Allen

[Richard]

Hello Allen!

All I get is a message telling me I've requested the files, but there are no further instructions. Nothing else is happening!

Best Wishes from London,

Richard

[alien]

You should see a countdown message like Download-Ticket reserved. Please wait 31 seconds. which turns into a link Download: Hayley_Westenra-Pokarekare_Ana__Live_DPTV_Dec10_2004_-svcd.part1.rar

[HWI]

Hi Allen,

I watched that countdown when I tried. But, typical of every experience of Rapidshare I have had in the past, precisely nothing happened after that - even though I clicked to commence download.

A far superior service is provided by Ripway. And, the format is far better done as a .wmv file. This is the most widely used player and is, therefore, compatible with most peoples machines.

Cheers,
Keith.

[alien]

Hi Keith,

It's the first time for me to upload through Rapidshare, didn't know it's that problematic Sorry about all the troubles... will try to put it on my own webspace next time. Alternatively, I can always send to someone through gmail

What's a good setting to use for wmv? I've been using mpeg2 all this time since it's the only file format my dvd player plays.

Allen

[Dave]

Hi Allen,

Well I've never had problems with rapidshare although I'm sure there are times when it gets busy, so the download delay is greater. I downloaded your 48 MB file in a little over 3 minutes at 240 KBytes a second, so it's one of the fastest sites I've ever used! However, now that Keith has mentioned Ripway, I must try that too.

If the format is ever a problem for anyone, I can convert it into Windows Media (I'm sure Gerrit can, too) - in fact I'm off to do that for Keith in a minute i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

If you do convert to wmv format, I think a good all-purpose bitrate for quarter frame video (320x240 in the US) is 250 kbps variable bitrate (preferably two-pass if you have that option) and 48 kbps constant bitrate audio.

For full size frames (and much bigger filesizes!!!) I tend to use 1200 kbps vbr two-pass video and 64 kbps audio (near DVD quality). However, Windows Media Encoder likes to have .avi files to convert from, so I often have to convert from mpeg to avi first, using VirtualdubMod and the lowest compression my hard drive space will let me use. Lossless HuffyUV is best but high bitrate DivX does most things well as an intermediate stage, and produces much smaller files than HuffyUV. Using DivX, I always set Virtualdub to "I frames only" to allow frame-accurate editing.

By the way, I'm stuck with messy conversions like this because I can only capture large files reliably using MPEG2 (DVD quality). Most things I do have to be converted as mentioned above.

Cheers, Dave

PS scap that, Gerrit's just posted to say he's already done the conversion, so I can go do some chart-checking instead!

[gareth]

Hi All,

Good news, I now have a wmv version of Amazing Grace available for download. Thanks, Allen, for supplying it. Thanks Dave for the tip about VirtualDubMod. I had it on my computer, but hadn't used it, as I was quite satsified with an older version of VirtualDub, which has always performed satisfactorily - and my philosophy is: if it works for you, don't change. This time, VirtualDub did not work, but VirtualDubMod did.

Here is the link to the a capella version of Amazing Grace - it is a perfect example of the theory that Hayley doesn't require heavy musical backing!

www.hayley-westenra-international.net/hwi/clips/zo04/amazinggraceDPTV101204.wmv

I'll now set to work to try and convert Pokarekare Ana - so please bear with me.

Allen, if this works out , please continue to contribute in whatever way is convenient to you. It is good to have contributions from Canada to the Hayley Westenra International website. Very much appreciated!

Gerrit

P.S. Thanks for your P.S. Dave - Seems though as if you are doing a lot of things I never do when creating a video. I use PowerDVD to capture 360 x 240 mpeg1 - then I use VirtualDub to extract the sound and edit this in Audacity - then I produce an avi, and finally I use Windows Moviemaker to produce a wmv of around 350 kbps.