Top Billing Show On Sabc3 Would Love To Do A Story

October 11, 2005

Dear fellow cachers,

As some of you know I have been somewhat inactive. A year from now I'll be getting very active again when I go into semi-retirement!

In the mean time I've received this email and I'm to busy to help out. Can a fellow Cape Town cachers help here:

Hi Peter

Top Billing the magazine show on SABC3 would love to do a story on Geo caching. Two of our presenters will be in Cape Town on Wednesday and would like them to go in search of your cach - would you be happy for them to do this and also would you be willing to get involved in the piece if so could you please contact Gerry 072 355 5597 or Sunay 082 336 2122 to discuss

Many thanks

Sunay and Gerry

Directors

Top Billing

User's Profile:

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=65...d6-12691e4055e9

1k · October 11, 2005

Hey peter

I received an email from them as well. I have called them now, and am heading off to do a cache with them today

COOL!!!!!!

October 11, 2005

Hey peter

I received an email from them as well. I have called them now, and am heading off to do a cache with them today

COOL!!!!!!

Great!

Don't strain them to much on their first cache :unsure:

I emailed the top 30 cachers. Sorry to bombard everyone. But rather safe than sorry. We need the exposure. This will help a lot to get many more cachers!

October 11, 2005

Keep up posted on when the dates for the show will be. Will be interesting to see....

October 11, 2005

Nice one Bob! The weather's good for Frodo's...

Let us know how it went.

1k · October 11, 2005

Hey all.

We didn't film today. i just went to chat and advise them on some good caches etc.

They are wanting it to be a bit like an amazing race kind of feel, with the 2 presenters racing each other to get the clues.

As there was not much time, and they had a lot of organizing still to do, I couldn't make them suffer on Frodo's Journey, so they are having a race starting with "A Walk in the Gardens" , and this will then give them a clue to a new cache which we kind of placed in conjunction, and I will add it to the site and call it "Top Billing Cache", or something like that.

They will leave some Top billing goodies and such in the cache for the next finders.

I'm not sure when it will be on, but I'll find out tomorrow.

October 13, 2005

So how did it go Discombob?

Did they indicate when they will be screening the Geocaching/Amazing Race insert?

1k · October 13, 2005

i guess it went well

i was trying to juggle work and the show, so they interviewed me, and then Michael and Thomiso raced each other for the caches while I went back to work, and then I came back for the final say.

Not sure if i got in everything i wanted to say though - cameras can make one forget things

They reckon it will be on next thursday, but they can't be sure.

We went for drinks afterwards, which is great, because we got treated like royalty and got all the drinks on the house - its nice to be famous

October 13, 2005

This is great! Can only be a good thing.

Back in 2001 I tried to get the game going by hiding 20+ caches, getting radio interviews, pamphlets, booklets, the works. But it's been slow going. This is what we needed! Some coolness factor. That's if you consider yuppies cool

There was so little activity back then that I especially drove to Bloemfontein from Cape Town for the weekend to go find three new caches there!

October 13, 2005

Now you going to see first hand how things are changed when it comes out of the editing room. Who knows you may end up being a tall blonde swiss girl named Helga

1k · October 14, 2005

How do you know I'm not actually a tall blond swiss girl named Helga?

October 14, 2005

Discombob,

You might have some blond in you, but the accent throws off the Swiss part pretty well. And the body might need some surgery done to it. Safari time? hehe. See you tomorrow in Greyton.

First post since arriving, and I get to diss Discombob, that's for the post on Push and Shove! Well atleast we found some caches together.

Vespaxvespa

1k · October 14, 2005

Just for that Vespa, I'm going to "Push and Shove" you up Frodo's journey!!

October 18, 2005

Saw "advert" on SABC this morning for this weeks Top Billing on Thursday and they do show the "GPS run around" as part of the line-up.

October 18, 2005

Anyone got equipment to capture an AVI?

October 18, 2005

Anyone got equipment to capture an AVI?

Yes. I have the necessary equipment but have never tried capturing off-air! Now's my chance! I'll practise a bit over the next few evenings and let you know how I do.

Not sure how to compress a movie file, but again ... I'll play around.

Looking forward to seeing the insert ......

1.3k · October 18, 2005

I'm sure the Nutter may be able to as well.

I would also offer but my DV Cam is on the blink.

Will be happy to dump the AVI/MPEG on my site for distribution if needs be.

Now to free up Thursday night for the big show.... Discombob.... this day is either going to turn you into a hero or.........

October 18, 2005

I've got a TV card installed on my PC which is supposed to be able to record direct off-air onto hard disc AND do the compression on the fly.

Which MPEG compression should I use? I see there are a number of different MPEG "numbers" to choose from.

The resultant file will be quite large. Do you have ADSL to ease the pain of downloading to you?

October 18, 2005

Is one of your options divx encoding? This will give you the smallest file size and best quality output. There is however quite alot of tweaking to do.

1.3k · October 18, 2005

4, if you have the option. What software you using? We'll need to chat once you have a file to determine best transfer route, depends on the size.

I have DivX encoders, but as GS&Dogs alude, there can be plenty of trial and error here, and it may mean that those wanting to play the file would need have the correct codec to play the DivX. It will be the preferred format and I will be happy to play around with it to end up with something that is suitably compressed for download and which provides some decent quality.

much of this will be dependent on how long the insert is going to be.... if they turn Discombob into a busty blonde swede we definitely wouldn't want to interfere with the quality either

I'm also going to request a friend to record it onto DVD.... but requests are never guaranteed.

October 19, 2005

The software came with the TV card. There are a large number of coding options for video capture.

I'll check them this evening for Div-x and MPEG4.

I imagine that if these are not available, the file could be converted as a post-process by other software.

I have some other software that came bundled with the DVD writer. I'll check into that stuff as well.

If they do manage to turn Discombob into a busty swede blonde bombshell, I will be charging for distribution of the resultant file!!!!

Edited October 19, 2005 by Azaruk

October 19, 2005

I have the necassary software but i will need to get the snippet in a digital format. I dont have the hardware to record off tv. I will c if i can manage something though.

If I cant, we can talk about getting the snippet to me some how.

October 20, 2005

I have also requested a friend to "tape" the show to his hard drive and with luck i will be able to put it up on Friday morning. Now just to buy those six 6packs as payment.

Will let you know it goes.

Part 2

October 20, 2005

hey, so it looks like bear&fox beat everyone to the official top billing cache! despite koolbeanz, liddleli and our best intentions to be up at the crack of dawn to crack it

very cool and well done FTF!

October 20, 2005

Thanks Baa! Lots of nice goodies left to make it worth your while rushing out there. Let the record state that espresso is good geocaching fuel. Enjoy! B&F

October 20, 2005

Well done on FTF B&F!!

We tried but your espresso seems to be a powerful tool

October 20, 2005

Saw the insert just now. Wow, it was long, maybe 10+ minutes. Was pretty good all in all.

Only complaint is I wish there was less focus on clue solving and more on the technology, i.e. GPS. Different strokes for different fokes I suppose.

This is bound to get more people into it.

Thanks Discombob and Top Billing!

Edited October 20, 2005 by Peter Scholtz

1.3k · October 20, 2005

Very nice snippet. Glad to see they didn't skew the picture of Geocaching too much, and the snippet was much longer than I expected it would be.

Soooo... Discombob is not a tall blonde swede named Helga... or perhaps the chap on TV was a stand-in for Helga For a price... I can do some creative editing

Nice one Discombob and Top Billing.

Was nice to see that they showed the Geocaching website, mentioned the rankings, and mentioned a certain barcode cache and a certain fictional crime cache .... Discombob... the pressure is now on for your GP trip and your detective skills!!

I think all in all it was a great ad for the sport!

Discombob may have to replace/move Walk in the Gardens as every Geomuggle in Cape Town now has a pretty good idea where it is.... but I reckon the snippet will get quite a few new folks involved.

Schweeeeeeeeeet!!

October 20, 2005

Thanks Discombob and Top Billing! I managed to watch most of it in-between the super-active-hour-just-before-bedtime-madness of the twins. Great stuff!

1k · October 20, 2005

mmmmm, it seems they edited out a lot of my footage - didn;t like me so much after all

But i enjoyed it anyway - quite funny.

Yes, they asked me for some nice snippets to add , so i made sure of mentioning the rankings, and some of GR's fiendish puzzles (I have printed out some of the clue sheets, but not sure where to start yet. Still must decode the decoded sheet though.)

Lets hope some new geocachers can find the Top Billing cache before the rest of the caffeine addicts loot it

October 21, 2005

I missed the very beginning of the insert (about three words!) but got the rest safely stored on my hard disc.

I only have MPEG2 available in the capture software.

The resultant file is around 630MB!!!

I'll put it onto a CD.

If anybody wants it, give me a shout and I'll post the CD to you.

Maybe someone can convert it to a smaller file size.

Good insert.

Well done Discombob!

October 21, 2005

Nothing more I can add to the above comments, but to say that the Top Billing cache is now a must when we are in Cape Town in December!

October 21, 2005

Well done to all involved !!!

The exposure was great !!!

Now to plan another trip to Cape Town.

October 21, 2005

I tried to warn you Discombob/Helga. They really do chop the footage up quite a bit. Thats why what u c is not always what u get in the media. In this case I think it definately did help create an awareness for the sport.

Now all the local magazines will start latching on and doing articles. Its a chain of events. Well done Discombob -although not the prettiest tall blond swiss - you did a good job.

October 21, 2005

A suggestion maybe, is that those cachers with some connection to magazines, can now re-approach the magazines for publishing such an article, by referring back to the Top Billing TV program. Maybe the TV program will give it a bit more of a boost.

October 21, 2005

Due to Helga/D-Bob'a great presentation on the Top Billing article and all his work, he is now the proud recipient of (a much to be debated) QFC bonus points.

Discombob welcome to the world of the top of the ranking site. You were at number 4 which is impressive enough. But for the next few days we have retired the long held top of the list and given you a few hundred extra points to help you on your way.

Congrats and thanx for you contribution to SA caching.

October 21, 2005

Can't believe I got up as early as I did to go and find this cache. I thought the TopB insert was great, and was glad to see that others made the same mistakes as I did while 'walking the gardens'. :lol:

It motivated me to get up before the sun actually rose this morning to go and do some hunting. Thanks to all involved in raising the awareness levels, esp Discombob! You deserve the bonus points!

October 21, 2005

For those who are able to download bigish files, and would like to download the Top Billing feature, you can use the link bellow, if you would like a better quality version please e-mail us.

Top Billing Clip

1k · October 21, 2005

Wow! Thanks for everyones kind words :lol:

Although a certain G&S are going to have to pay for permanently renaming me Helga/Discombob

On the magazine front, my mother is a bit of a pseudo-journalist, and she already had a geocaching article accepted to Earthlife magazine (i think its earthlife), so that should be coming out soon.

We are trying to see if Top Billing magazine will accept an article from her on geocaching, so if anyone wants anything specific added, let me know.

Hey, and thanks for the bonus points, QFC. Its good to be the King!

And well done to all those nutters for getting up so early to rush to the Top Billing cache! - nice to see cownchicken suffer like that

October 21, 2005

So, Helga, did they at least give you a placid drive up the mountain in the Maserati?

After Frodo's and now a world-famous celebrity cache we are starting to expect all kinds of amazing feats from you!

:lol:

B&F

1k · October 21, 2005

No maserait for me. I had to intersperse my seconds of filming with meetings at work, rushing to and fro, so i missed out on the maserati.

I don;t think Top billing cache is quite yet world famous, but I have 2 fantastic caches mulling in my head, so keep an eye out for them, coming to a Western Cape near you! - and you've still got the Mines of Moria to do!

October 22, 2005

Well, I have to say that I think Discombob has this game waxed: Mines of Moria is awesome. It's such a pity that the camera crews won't venture to these two fantastic caches. And for you up-country folks - make a note of these two Cape caches next time you head for Slaapstad.

1k · October 23, 2005

Thanks B&F - Well Found

I went to check on Top billing cache today.

it seems that 2 new potential cachers (Shaun and James) have found it on saturday after seeing the show, so lets see if there are many more to follow!

Top Billing Show On Sabc3 Would Love To Do A Story

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