Eric does a great job capturing the agility moment.  His videos are a fantastic training tool that incorporate both the handler and the dog into a piece of video art. Thanx for what you do!

As I wrote last week a new feature has been added to Agility Vision, you can upload your own agility videos (make sure you are logged in first). It was in beta until today, and now it is officially online and ready to go. The first video to use the new service is a run from NADAC Championships 2006, the dog was Harley.

It is becoming clear to me that the future of the internet and content publishing in general is online video. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are all offering their TV shows online for download. Google just bought YouTube, whose slogan is "Broadcast Yourself", for 1.6 billion dollars.

This brings us to agility. Agility Vision started with the idea of being television for agility, hence the name.

Now that the camcorder is connected to the computer, it is time to start capturing the video and saving it to the hard drive on your computer. The easiest and most reliable program that I have come across to accomplish this is WinDV.

Now that you have your Mini DV camcorder and have shot some video of yourself doing dog agility. We need to connect the camcorder to the computer, so we can transfer the video.

We will accomplish this by hooking up the camcorder and computer together using a Firewire cable. Sony calls it ILink. It's official name is IEEE 1394. There are two sizes of cables, 4 pin and 6 pin. The end that attaches to your camcorder will be a 4 pin connector. If you are using a laptop, then most likely it also has a 4 pin connector. Most desktops will have a 6 pin connector.

This is the begining of a series about how to get started using video in agility. Including processing the video on your Windows based computer, using open source software tools that you can download off the internet.

First you need to get a camcorder. The main differentiating factor is what format they record the video in and what they record it on.

• Digital 8 - Old outdated technology. No reason to get a camcorder that uses this.

I recently picked up a copy of Reliable Contacts Through Gate Training, a training DVD produced by Dog Sports Video (www.dogsportsvideo.com) featuring Amanda Nelson.

One of the most fantastic new resources for dog agility enthusiasts is a series of video/dvds published by Agility in Motion.  I purchased one of their videos a few months back, and was so impressed with the content that I went back and purchased the entire series.  

I got permission to offer video services at the upcoming Northwest USDAA Regional in Oregon. Which means that I will be videotaping teams that ask me to. So if you are interested in getting videos from me for that event, then go to Agility Video Service and sign your dog up.

To keep my sanity I will not be doing any Advanced or Starter dogs. Only Team, Master, Grand Prix, and Steeplechase.