You must have seen one of these before, if not where have you been hiding? Its an 8" Plasma Globe, this model is sound activated so it will pulse in time to your music. Its a great unsual gift for someone that has everything. I got this model from Maplin Electronics in Derby. The Derby branch of Maplins can be seen in my 360 view of East Street, its next to TK Maxx.
You can also get Plasma Balls from other shops such as Amazon. Rather bizarrely you can even get a 4 port USB hub based around a Plasma Ball !
I have made a HD video of this plasma ball in action so you can see what it does. As you can see if you leave it alone then about 50 strands of blue mini lightening reach out from the centre ball to the outer ball. They move around randomly often splitting part way and turning pink when they reach the glass. If you put your finger near the glass then an extra bright lightening arc connects from the centre ball to your finger tip and follows it around as you move. It does not hurt when you do this, just a slight tingle sometimes.
If you put a fluorescent tube near it then it lights it up! I found that if you place a cap of tinfoil on the top then it concentrates the voltage of multiple lightening strands, if you put your finger near the tinfoil then you get quite a spark and YES is does hurt. In fact it leaves a black burn mark on your finger tip !
I also took some photographs of the Plasma Ball:
If you want to see some real big lightening then see these photos
This post may be of use to those people that use Sony Vegas 9 Pro for making videos in HD 720p mode for YouTube. I have done some screen grabs of the settings I use in this program. This is using Sony Vegas Pro version 9.0E running on Windows 7
Here are the settings I use : From scratch, assuming you have some HD footage loaded and ready.... Goto File dropdown menu and select "Render as". Change "Save as type:" to Windows Media Video V11 (*.wmv) Change the templace to 5Mbps HD 720-25p video.
Project Settings panel. The template must match the source media that you are using, if its video clips then you click on the yellow folder icon to the far right of the "Template:" field and select one of the video files. Select Best for Full-resolution rendering quality.
Custom Settings panel - Audio These settings give great consistant results.
Custom Settings panel - VideoThese are the settings for a standard 25FPS video.
Custom Settings panel -Bit Rate Personally I find that 9Mbps gives good results.
These settings are for producing YouTube videos that are 1280 x 720 pixels at 25 Frames Per Second. If I am using .mp4 video footage from my Toshiba Cameo Pro video camera then I use a frame rate of 29.
Here is my latest local video, a simple one of the Ducks and a Pheasant at Peak Village Outlet, Rowsley.
If you have ever parked in the car park at Peak Village Shopping Outlet in Rowsley Derbyshire then you can't have failed to miss these Ducks. They can always be seen at the end of the car park near the river.
The River Wye flows past the end of the car park and into the Mill next door. The food you can see at 0:23 is Duck food I bought from Squeaks and Beaks at Alvaston, Derby. Is that Pheasant at 0:57 a Common Pheasant or some other breed? Anyone out there know which it is? Never seen a Pheasant here before. You can see the female Pheasant at 1:34 and at 1:47 in the silly bit ! This footage was taken on Friday 23rd April 2010 at 4:18pm. Hope you enjoyed this little video of the famous Rowsley Ducks. Andy
I created this video so you can see how to get to Heage Windmill from the town of Belper, Derbyshire. Why not go and see this windmill in action this weekend!
Use my Heage Route Planning Map if you want to plan YOUR journey to this windmill, Just click on the blue car in the midle of the map then click "Get directions".
Heage Windmill in Derbyshire, U.K. is the only working 6 sailed stone tower mill in Britain, The windmill became operational in 1797. Heage Windmill was originally called Nether Heage Old Tower Mill, the gritstone tower was built by Edmund Lee in 1745 and originally had 4 sails, During a severe gale in 1894 , its cap was blown off and the sails destroyed. The four sails were replaced with six sails. A preservation order was placed on the mill in 1966 and the mill was restored by Derbyshire County Council In 1997 after years of neglect the Heage windmill society was formed, with an aim to bring the mill back to working order. Heage windmill was opened to the public on the 1st June 2002.
For more information on this mill such as opening times please visit their website: Heage Windmill website: www.heagewindmill.org.uk
If you want to see more details then please click on the "HD" button so it turns red, then click the fullscreen icon. (you will need a fast pc and fast broadband connection to cope with it!).
The name Heage comes from the Old English and means "high edge or ridge". Heage village is 2 miles west of Ripley, 2 1/2 miles North East of Belper set on rising ground above the river Derwent east of Ambergate.
I would like to thank Brian Naylor and Alan Gifford for arranging for the windmill to be open for my driving video.
*** This video is not real-time, it is time-lapse *** The real driving time covered 9 minutes
Points of Interest on route: 0:00 View of Heage Windmill from Church Street. 0:31 Start of drive at Derby Road (A6) Belper. 0:33 Belper Orangery (Mc Donalds) ahead, Left is Morrisons and Focus. 0:39 Right at island and up New Road (A609) 1:00 Over traffic lights and up Cheapside. 1:08 Belper Market Place on the right, Top of King Street on the left. 1:11 Left into Chesterfield Road (B6013), carry on going on this road. 2:58 Left into Church Street. 2:59 The White Hart public house. 3:14 Left into the entrance road for Heage Windmill 3:38 Visitor parking is here on the right side. 3:57 Four shots of the Windmill in action, two from my VR tour. --------------
If you visit Heage Windmill then you will be able to have a go on my Virtual Reality Tour at the visitor centre.
Please rate and comment if you enjoyed this driving video through beautiful Derbyshire. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up to date with my latest local videos.
