Trance Switzerland Express
May 4, 2020 5:19 PM Subscribe
DJ techno/trance mixes - good. Swiss train driver pov videos - good. Swiss train driver pov videos set to techno mixes - double plus good! From Thomas H.
You couldn't make the same video in Minneapolis, but here's the closest thing, probably.
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 5:41 PM on May 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 5:41 PM on May 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Just as I was getting in the groove, an ad popped up, stopped the music, stopped the train, and I then stopped YouTube. It sucks.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:45 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:45 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
(sorry about that - I have adblock installed so I forget about the bad youtube ...)
posted by carter at 5:50 PM on May 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by carter at 5:50 PM on May 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
Oh wow. This is boyfriend catnip. Thank you!
posted by ChuraChura at 6:12 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:12 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
See also: Railway Relay from Trevor Nygaard. Parts 1, 3, 11, and 12 are my favorites.
posted by migurski at 6:16 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by migurski at 6:16 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
why can't I stop imagining TechnoViking as the train conductor
posted by gwint at 7:04 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by gwint at 7:04 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
this is like, a bespoke post for exactly my brain, thank you so much. also i really miss switzerland.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:07 PM on May 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by lazaruslong at 7:07 PM on May 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's 4:20 somewhere...
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:22 PM on May 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:22 PM on May 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
goddamn. the internet has finally reached its pinnacle. thanks so much for this. <3
posted by blackfly at 8:55 PM on May 4, 2020
posted by blackfly at 8:55 PM on May 4, 2020
Somewhat irritatingly, these videos appear to have been shot at 25fps and then converted to 30, probably by YouTube. This has been done via ham-fisted duplication of every fifth frame, resulting in a 5Hz visual judder that almost but not quite syncs with the beat.
There must and shall be a way to use ffmpeg to drop only the duplicated frames and render the visuals silky smooth again, which I will post as soon as I have it reliably worked out.
posted by flabdablet at 11:50 PM on May 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
There must and shall be a way to use ffmpeg to drop only the duplicated frames and render the visuals silky smooth again, which I will post as soon as I have it reliably worked out.
posted by flabdablet at 11:50 PM on May 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
37:51 and on is particularly good
posted by zippy at 12:15 AM on May 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by zippy at 12:15 AM on May 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm assuming no-one has posted Michel Gondry's video for Star Guitar because it was too obvious - but then it's not safe to assume anything these days, so just in case anyone hasn't seen it: this video takes the train window POV + techno concept and elevates it to a weirdly prosaic magic-realist experience, very cleverly and perfectly replicating one of those moments where the music coming out of your headphones was just totally in sync with the things rushing past the window...
posted by Shatner's Bassoon at 1:36 AM on May 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Shatner's Bassoon at 1:36 AM on May 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Deleted a long code snippet with <pre> formatting (and scroll bar, on my screen). It would be better to post something like that in a Metatalk post if it's a thing that would be helpful for people, maybe with a bit of explanation, and then you could make a normal link here to that post. The trouble with this sort of thing plopped in the middle of a regular thread is that it tends to mess up the view on mobile devices. In a dedicated post for sharing code, people will at least expect it.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:45 AM on May 5, 2020
posted by taz (staff) at 3:45 AM on May 5, 2020
Seems it's only Mix #1 that's badly affected by 25 to 30fps conversion, so rather than trying to fix that by re-coding the existing mix with ffmpeg it's both better and easier just to grab the original train video linked from the mix video's description, along with the audio from the mix, and re-merge them.
Since we now live in an age where the malign influence of a horde of obsequiously ingratiating little touchscreen fondleslabs has thoroughly undermined the rightful primacy of properly capable web browsers everywhere, here are wretched pastebin links to the scripts I'm using to manipulate these things on my Debian box. If you find them useful, do whatever you want with them except hold me accountable for any grief they cause you. If you need a hand adapting them for your own preferred platform, memail me.
./.fetch goes in the same folder where I want my ad-free, smooth-playing, playable-on-anything, network-independent, non-google-yoinkable copies of these lovely trance mixes to end up. Every time I run it, it will grab whichever of Thomas H's videos I don't already have. It works by invoking /usr/local/bin/grab-youtube-channel, which in turn invokes /usr/local/bin/grab-youtube-list, which is a wrapper for the wonderful youtube-dl.
./.fetch-mix-1 downloads and merges a rebuilt version of Mix 1 based on its original 25fps train video. Running that before ./.fetch will stop it from attempting to download the juddery version, though if you've already done that it will pull the audio from there rather than re-downloading it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:39 AM on May 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Since we now live in an age where the malign influence of a horde of obsequiously ingratiating little touchscreen fondleslabs has thoroughly undermined the rightful primacy of properly capable web browsers everywhere, here are wretched pastebin links to the scripts I'm using to manipulate these things on my Debian box. If you find them useful, do whatever you want with them except hold me accountable for any grief they cause you. If you need a hand adapting them for your own preferred platform, memail me.
./.fetch goes in the same folder where I want my ad-free, smooth-playing, playable-on-anything, network-independent, non-google-yoinkable copies of these lovely trance mixes to end up. Every time I run it, it will grab whichever of Thomas H's videos I don't already have. It works by invoking /usr/local/bin/grab-youtube-channel, which in turn invokes /usr/local/bin/grab-youtube-list, which is a wrapper for the wonderful youtube-dl.
./.fetch-mix-1 downloads and merges a rebuilt version of Mix 1 based on its original 25fps train video. Running that before ./.fetch will stop it from attempting to download the juddery version, though if you've already done that it will pull the audio from there rather than re-downloading it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:39 AM on May 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Mix #5 has also been upconverted to 30fps. ./.fetch-mix-5 rebuilds it with 24fps video from GoTrain - Lötschberg im Schnee and makes it look really smooth. Less disk space too.
posted by flabdablet at 11:53 AM on May 5, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 11:53 AM on May 5, 2020
I am here for this.
posted by the painkiller at 1:23 PM on May 5, 2020
posted by the painkiller at 1:23 PM on May 5, 2020
I lived in Switzerland for 8 years. This makes me "homesick".
posted by Goofyy at 4:05 PM on May 5, 2020
posted by Goofyy at 4:05 PM on May 5, 2020
The video for Mix #6 starts 85 seconds into Driver's View... ODONTOTOS rack railway Diakofto - Kalavryta - Οδοντωτός [1] if you want a version with one less round trip through various re-encoders, though the upconversion in this case is from 29.97fps to 30fps so the improvement will be fairly subtle.
posted by flabdablet at 12:32 AM on May 6, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 12:32 AM on May 6, 2020
So just want to say thanks again for this post. I've basically been listening to nothing else, and keeping the video on a second monitor. It's really helping my mental health a lot. Watching ThomasH videos has also caused the YT algorithm to serve me tons of longform POV train vids, like, 10 hour trips to the Arctic Circle and whatnot. Very here for it.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:08 AM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by lazaruslong at 9:08 AM on May 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
I miss Fashion Trance (2002-2005). Late night show on cable television with runway models and trance music. The hip swaying runway walk syncopated to the drum beat was a groovy nightcap.
posted by xtian at 12:32 PM on May 8, 2020
posted by xtian at 12:32 PM on May 8, 2020
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posted by BrotherCaine at 5:24 PM on May 4, 2020 [3 favorites]