Miniatur Wunderland Weekly Report
Miniatur Wunderland Weekly Report
02.02.04 at 08:39 hrs
Weekly Report No 170, CW 5
From Monday, 26.01.2004 to Sunday, 01.02.2004
The Panasonic SV-AV100 D-Snap! Worldwide the only camera that fits under any HO-catenary! And what's even better: it doesn't need tapes anymore but records on SD-Memory sticks!
Panasonic borrowed us a camera before it was officially sold in Germany although they very well knew that the cam would not look the same after we "worked" with it ;-)
First thing we had to do, was to completely dismantle the camera in order to extract the optical unit and rotate it into the needed direction! Not an easy task, as these small cameras are built that small that they just fit together (to save space = size).
On the other hand, the camera was intended to keep the built-in features like automatic exposure, zoom, autofocus, microphone... All in all, Sven and Carsten needed two days until the camera looked like this (and still is functional!)...
To turn the camera head, we had to either relocate or extend a lot of wires, switches, and contacts which were all vital for the cameras proper functioning. Sven: 'If you imagine, that such a thing is normally machined and we were worked at it with our 'clumsy' tools, one gets the creeps... Especially, if you know that doing something wrong means destruction of the whole camera... But it worked!'
Now we needed a car. No problem for our chief of loco repairs, René, who in no time presented a scratchbuilt flatcar with recessed bed standing just 8 mm above the track! Proper lighting is provided by a couple of LEDs.
After building a mounting bracket from the left-overs of the camera,
the car was ready for it's initial tour on the american layout.
The initial tour was a full success and could be seen in a broadcast by PRO7 Galileo Spezial! Since then the layout is toured at regular intervals in order to sample enough material for our new DVD - featuring completely new impressions of the track!
How would you like, for instance, a ride through the Euro-tunnel? Currently we work on a suitable top for our baby so it can be run in regular trains later on.
