New Air on-ride DVD

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Sam
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[quote=""Alton Towers Facebook""]Experiencing the exhilaration of being weightless now comes to DVD! Be the first to get your hands on our NEW Air ride DVD, at Air Shop, arriving 27th October 2011 for just £12!

For more information follow the link below!
http://www.altontowers.com/events/ride-photography/[/quote]
Seems that they've decided to chop the old YourGay system up into little bits and make it individual per-ride! Good deal or not?

You can get a combo deal of a DVD and a photo for £15 too.
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siralgenon
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I don't think YourDay is back, and it is only availible on Air, not any of the other attractions + it's meant to be an on ride video isn't it - not cameras next to the track
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From TT News:
For the past few months, some eagle-eyed TowersTimes members have been spotting developments around Air's ride area, including the addition of cameras in the tunnel and around the ride's circuit, as well as various types of lighting being tested in the tunnel.

Today, in a surprise end-of-season revelation, Alton Towers announced the reason behind these additions: Air On-Ride DVDs. As of tomorrow (Thursday 27th October), guests will be able to purchase a DVD of themself on Air, from the Air Shop, for £12 (or £15 for both their DVD and photo).

Alton Towers have previously experimented with on-ride video opportunities, with the YourDay system running for several years, before later being rebranded as Alton Towers Resort DVD (and soon after closed down), and more recently the trials with on-ride video on Oblivion. Whether or not the new Air DVD incorporates some of the hardware previously used by YourDay remains to be seen, although there will definitely be some new cameras in use.

It also remains to be seen whether or not this system will be introduced on Alton Towers' other major attractions, something which will presumably depend on how successful Air DVDs are.

For more information, visit the Alton Towers website, or discuss the DVDs, and all things Alton Towers, on our popular discussion forums!
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Nightfall
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[quote=""siralgenon""]it's meant to be an on ride video isn't it - not cameras next to the track[/quote] Normally I'd be inclined to agree but you might want to read that through again. It's Air: how can it be an on ride camera? Unless they're installing them on the shoe of the rider ahead :P

I suspect Sam is correct and they're reusing the old YourDay stuff. I can't understand why they’d bother this close to the end of the season. The system is going to be running for about a week. If it’s a trial then why not wait till half term or even next season?

I bet it’ll be like with Oblivion. They’ll spend a load of money buying the cameras, only use them for a couple of days in the season, lose interest and scrap it.
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The Crab of Nemesis
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Interesting decision to add at the end of the season.

If this is proper on boards then it'll be a nice idea - I personally love my onside DVD of Furius Baco I brought earlier this year. I reckon this could be possible on Air, but would be very hard if not impossible to implement on front row

If it's just YourDay plus, then I'm less interested. But yes, very strange almost last minute addition to the park.
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Only problem with the on ride videos in my opinion is that its a waste of money :-P (for both AT and the public)

At the end of the day, if you purchased one, how many times are you likely to watch that dvd?! Yeah, show it to your family and friends etc but in this situation it is just a dvd of air. So once youre off the ride, thats it, end of the dvd. On ride photos are more practical, keyrings etc and can be more easily displayed. Whereas theres the hassle of putting a dvd in the player just to see a ridiculously short film. I may be wrong, and please correct me if i am and the dvds are actually very good value and are more than just footage of you on the ride!!

But from AT point of view - how many times has this been tried and removed?! Seems a bit pointless going through all the effort installing cameras near the end of season when in the past similar things have failed.
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Sam
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[quote=""siralgenon""]it's meant to be an on ride video isn't it - not cameras next to the track[/quote]
How's that going to work on Air, cameras on strings hanging from the train? :P
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Tom G
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Thanks Sam!

They did tell me a while ago they are looking to add it to another ride when they removed it from Oblivion. I think they've missed a chance with Thirteen really. A night vision camera capturing the moment of the drop would be great!

So has anyone noticed cameras being fitted to the trains in advance of this?
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Interesting, Air is probably one of the most busiest rides for this, so I think it's a good move, but I don't think this means YourDay is back.
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Doing it by on each ride in my opinion make much more sense. You only buy the ride you want, it cuts on the generic park footage and you end up with a short video of you on the ride. I hope they have added a few extra bits to it though. Footage of air, a few ride stats etc.

I think selling each ride on its own should be easier to sell as long as guests are made aware that they can buy the video as well as/instead of a photo.

As for being OFFRIDE instead of ONRIDE/POV, I think they could add a ONRIDE/POV system onto the ride. The air crafts are pretty full of equipment, but a small camera, computer system and batteries could easily be added to the crafts, with the cameras being mounted to the legflap restraint area of the row infront. The only downside to that, is that the front row wouldn't get recorded and during inversion or tight turns, the camera might not always be pointing at you.
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Nightfall
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[quote=""Big Dave""]but a small camera, computer system and batteries could easily be added to the crafts, with the cameras being mounted to the legflap restraint area of the row infront. The only downside to that, is that the front row wouldn't get recorded and during inversion or tight turns, the camera might not always be pointing at you.[/quote] Doesn’t it also risk being kicked by whoever’s leg is in the legflap :?
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Not really if its mounted at the back. You cannot twist your feet all the way round to knock it off.
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Joe Passant
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Saw the cameras on monday when we went. Basicly like the your day thing but only for air but with new cameras :L
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deluded
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Any similarity to Yourday/ATVC is simply coincidence.

ATVC were evicted from the site and I find it highly unlikely that Alton Towers or Merlin would ever work with the company again.

Alton Towers may indeed be using the cameras left on site by ATVC although if they are, I would be sorely disappointed as they were poorly maintained (due to funding, not engineer expertise), and ancient in terms of the technology available today. Of course they could use them, but it would probably make more financial sense to buy new units as finding spares for the ATVC cameras would be hard these days and a number were beyond economical repair in the last days of ATVC. They could, however, use some of the in store tech that may have been left behind such as the DVD burners, however again, it would make more financial sense to buy new units rather than using the ageing Primera units ATVC used. Again, many were beyond repair and there were daily issues with the burners, all of which were discontinued with ancient technology not available today. Out of the bank of 24 burners, only around 16 actually limped along every day. The rest were turned off.

The YourDay/ATVC system is around 7 years old now, and what is left of it has pretty much remained the same since day 1. It limped along from opening and never improved due to lack of funding. It was poorly designed from the offset and whilst the company had big plans to improve it, it never happened again, due to funding.

I'm curious as to why Alton Towers have chosen Air. Seems an odd coaster to go with.
Last edited by deluded on Wed Oct 26, 2011 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
djtruefitt

Its not really a surprise that this is coming as the cameras have been around Air for a good few months now, im just surprised thats its launching a week before the park closes.

From what I can see it will be similar to the Yourday, but not using the yourday cameras, instead its using new cameras dotted around the track plus one in the tunnel. Personally I dont think I would buy one, as I dont think you will really see much of yourself and for £12 its pretty expensive for a ride thats barely a minute long. I would much rather see on ride videos like you get on Saw at Thorpe Park.
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deluded
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People happily (or maybe not so, but they do anyway) pay £10 for an On-ride photo though, so really £12 for a DVD is quite good value for what is available.
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Sam
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[quote=""djtruefitt""]Its not really a surprise that this is coming as the cameras have been around Air for a good few months now, im just surprised thats its launching a week before the park closes.[/quote]
Makes perfect sense! They have a two weeks of testing and trialling when the park is quiet. Then a couple of months to fine-tune the system before main season. :)
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Magrathea
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I think it's also worth noting that Saw: The Ride on-ride DVDs were £15 in 2009, so comparatively this is cheaper :).
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I'd be more inclined to buy it if say, it had a 10-15 min video of the history of air and construction photos, the. At the end, your ride..

You could then have that feature for every major ride on park... Would be awesome.
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Yourday is not back!
This is a brand new system/video created by picsolve.
The Oblivion on board dvd never really worked, however towers wanted a picsolve dvd, as thorpe has saw.

The Air DVD was born.
All new cameras have been added, no yourday cameras will be used, and new video footage created by picsolve.

The video will record the car as it goes passed the cameras, however... It slows down the footage so you can actually see yourself, and they are high quality cameras.

It was originally supposed to be realeased in summer, however loads of set backs including the camera quality, and getting the dvd camera timings correct has pushed the release back.

But this needs to be cleared up, Yourday will not return, it never was successful, this is picsolve owned, in place of the now defunct Oblivion DVD.
Last edited by roary01 on Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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