spirit garage s30Z racecar

[trs]

I posted this on Hybrid Z a while back (not sure why, as this car aint no hybrid! )

Anyhow, it is Spirit Garage s30Z race car.

with what seems to be an L24 bored out to 2.8 litres ? with triple 50mm solex carbies.

I JUST got a copy of the video yesterday. It is of Keichi Tsuchiya punting it around a racetrack from a recent Hot Version VCD and it looks and sounds absolutely insane.

1:03 laptime was very similar to that of 550hp r34 gtr's and 500 hp FD rx7's, silvias etc.

I would love to somehow convert it into divx etc so that you can all view it, however first i have no space nor the no how to host it, and the file would also be very large... (segment goes for about 10 minutes).

[trs]

http://s-garage.hp.infoseek.co.jp/s30z.htm

[Mike]

Send me the movie and I'll see if we can put it up here.

[trs]

I have it only on cd at the moment,

is there some way i can put it into a different format??

I dont have access to a burner either!!

P.s If you check out the actual website for spirit garage, and wade through it with babelfish.. they have an amazing selection of parts ranging from carbonfibre bonnets, panels ... racing suspension, Ap racing kits, bore up kits, seats etc...for s30, kpgc10 , 510 etc

all juicy juicy stuff!

very expensive though understandably.

[Mike]

On CD? Then it's just a file. What format is it in now? MPG, AVI ?? How do you normally start the movie?

[zachb55]

Wow, they do have some awesome stuff, when it says "12 and 000 YEN does that mean 12,000 or what? about how much money is say that aluminum radiator? i bet it would be a fortune to get all the way over here after getting it even... looks like some awesome stuff though, sure wish i lived there just for a while atleast.

-Zach

[trs]

I open up the file on cd using WMP..but it has no recognised format..

at the moment it says .dat file.

It is the same format that all vcd movies are captured in.

At the same time, I just remembered that another volume of this series has the same driver blatting around the racetrack in one of the 240z nissan works cars during the nismo festival.

* I understood his joyous yelps of delight when he opened up the throttle to mean : this car feels great.

EAch of the vcd files is roughly 479mb...but the individual sections should be a lot smaller.

just have to work out how to capture it.

[trs]

as for the prices, i believe it means 12000 yen.

i.e the fairlady grille that is advertised for 35000 yen is about 350 US dollars hahaha..crap!

The carbon fibre bonnet is about 900 US dollars.

[HS30-H]

Mike,

Can I point something out here?

I don't want to be a killjoy, but this talk of putting some of the video up on this site rather shocked me. Please stop and have a think about it for moment.

I remember some months back you were concerned that somebody seemed to be copying and selling the microfiche CD that you had made and marketed. There was a big debate about piracy and how to stop it from happening. So what's changed? If you put this file up on the web and allow everyone to have access to it, then I see no real difference apart from the fact that no money is changing hands.

I have to declare an interest that makes this particular case all the more important to me; I have worked with "2 & 4 Motoring Co. Ltd." ( the makers of the Best Motoring / Hot Version videos, who are owned by the Kodansha publishing group ) in Japan and here in the UK, and I am quite friendly with Tohru Yamamoto - essentially the boss of the company. Being this close to them makes me feel potentially all the more guilty at the thought of you putting anything that they have created up on the site for all to see.

At the end of each of the Video / DVD realeases from this company, there is a piracy warning ( just like anywhere else ). For the Japanese-market releases its written in Japanese, but in the Export market versions ( only a select few titles at this time ) it is of course written in English. Just because its Japanese does not make it fair game to copy / pirate / distribute.

2 & 4 make these videos as a business. It costs them a lot of money to make them ( if anyone sees one of them they might realise how much goes into it ) and only the fact that they can sell and distribute them carefully allows them to make more. We are not talking about a huge company here, like Sony or EMI - where Napster and similar ideas were seen as Robin Hoods robbing the rich and giving to the poor. 2 & 4 has a core staff of less than 20 people, and they market their product mainly through their website. The new releases usually make it into Japanese bookshops ( in the motoring section ) but the core of their business is through mail order. What I am trying to say is that they are not a multi-million dollar outfit that can afford to take a hit from a little bit of piracy. Sorry to sound so dramatic, but this strikes very close to home for me. I have earned money from working with 2 & 4 on three of the Best Motoring titles, and it feels to me as though I have to defend them.

Most of us at some time have copied a video / CD / Software / magazine article / picture for a friend or acquaintance - or been in receipt of something that has been copied ( I am no different ). I guess that this is in fact technically illegal, as almost all products / publications have to guard against it ( even this site? ). It will, however, always go on. The main thing is that we should all try to be conscious about what we are doing and try to be sensible about it. Copying for a friend to see is quite different from sticking something up on the web for the whole world to download.....................

One could argue that a clip on this site would be "free publicity" or some kind of promotion for the company that makes it - but I think we can agree that it would more likely lead to a wildfire duplication of the file and free distribution around the globe. I doubt that this would lead to more business for them, unless they try to make more English-language versions.

I have given the link to the Best Motoring website here before: www.bestmotoring.jp - and it is possible for people to make International orders with them. I believe that they even have a USA distributor. They have downloadable clips on their site, and I think all in all the videos and DVDs that they sell are very good value for money. The point is that I don't think that they are so enormously expensive / overpriced that they would "deserve" to be pirated.

Like I say, I don't want to be a killjoy ( hell - I would LOVE people to see what good cars / parts are around in Japan, and I have bought a fair bit of stuff from SPIRIT GARAGE myself ) but this case strikes rather close to home for me. I have very mixed sentiments, as like "trs" I would love to spread the word about the Japanese Z scene and cars like this.

I can't stop you trying to put the clip up on the site, but I'd prefer you to stop and think about what you are doing. Just because its a Japanese product does not make it fair game for us to do what we want with it.

Hope that you will understand my sentiments.

Faithfully,

Alan T.

[trs]

oops!

I totally didnt even think about that side of things..

I understand where you are coming from HS30, and it would be a shame if people were to abuse this system.

I was basically cheering in my armchair when i watched these pieces of footage (the elation and joy in the drivers voice during the drive are very apparent- as though they are piloting a sacred car through a once in a lifetime opportunity).

I would indeed still love to share this footage in some way with any members of this forum, as im sure you will all appreciate it for what it is.

cheers,

*my apologies to 2&4 motoring co. ltd..

p.s on which editions did you work with them Alan?

[26ounce]

Wow, that is a cool Z I tells ya. Could they lower it anymore:stupid:

[260z]

Totally agree with you Alan. I certainly would not want to see any product of mine to be freely shared via internet or any other way. I am pretty sure that everyone here can agree with points Alan has made.

Freeware is freeware it is not meant to be business by itself(maybe they have some additions or side line of products to make money)=). Same goes with some productions for example some documentaries that have been produced with some subsidies or public money....But normally even these productions have intentions to collect money for some public cause or just wellfare. Not sure about all words here but I hope you get my point...

Without any intentions to suspect you, I bet that almost 100% of us have supported piracy some how....By downloading some games or maybe by buying pirate cd's and stuff like that.

Marketing vice it is even reasonable to spread some material thorough different channels free...But only to some extend. People always want to know more and see more...It is like when you give devil the littlefinger he wants the whole hand... That is offcourse the whole idea of free samples...To make people aware of the product and give the free delicious sample so that people is going to want the rest of it...

So it could be usefull for this product to be seen in places like 240z.org and so on. It would contribute to growing sales of these videos....And eventually these vids could lead to some extra sales of z products and parts? So how about some short clips to raise the appetite? I know that there are some samples and I haven't seen them all yet. Maybe some samples about s30 cars on them? Indicating that which films have material about s30 cars...Thats offcourse for the 2&4 to decide.....

Just an idea Mike and Alan could be the right persons to make an initiative towards the company? Is it not so that 240z.org is open to co-op with suitable companies?

How many visitors there are in these sites during a month Mike?

Just my thougts....Hope you don't mind me posting them here?