Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Episode 43 was released on Friday, as promised. One more video to go (Episode 44) and that will be released on Friday, May 16th.

I was able to go to Seabrook on Saturday to do fish market shopping. While I was down there, I was able to capture video of SH-146 from Baytown to Kemah. I was also able to capture FM 1764 (Emmitt Lowry Freeway) from Texas City to Dickinson. So, I have a video ready for delivery on Friday, May 30th and one on Friday, June 13th...maybe (it's Friday the 13th, and I am a little superstitious, so I may hold that one off for June 20th.

I didn't know how short FM 1764 was, as it is only about six miles long on the freeway section, just slightly longer than Spur 408 in Dallas. It'll take about a day to knock it out, but still...

Anyways, I'm not sure where to go from here. So many choices to redo. Also, I still have the I-35 project in Dallas/Fort Worth. That will be my biggest undertaking so far, and I have that bane in my side road named Loop 1604 in San Antonio.

I'll figure it out.

Enjoy Episode 43, everyone.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

As promised, Episode 42 was released on Friday. I have to apologized for a bit of bad editing on it. This project has been rather frustrating to do and I let the quality slip a bit. Completely on me for that.

Anyways, Episode 42 is a short video due to my lack of keeping track of the time on it. I thought when I split up the videos they were close to equal, but Episode 41 ran 13 minutes (it should have been under 10), so some of Episode 41 should have went to Episode 42.

Episode 43 is already in YouTube's scheduling queue and will be released on May 2nd. The last installment, Episode 44, is being worked on (infoboxes are being created and I have a misalignment in the signage, likely due to adding space for sign alignment in Episode 43...remember, this is really one large video split into four separate videos. Episode 44, once completed, will be released on May 16th.

The next video that I'm thinking will make up Episode 45 is SH-146 freeway portion. I have a planned trip to get some fresh seafood with my wife in Seabrook. That will be the perfect time for me to video SH-146 as I'll be in the area anyways. I may also do FM-1764 while I'm at it, as that's a freeway that has never been shown here and it's not too far from Seabrook. If I do that as well, that will be Episode 46.

As some of you may know, Segment A of the Grand Parkway (SH-99) from I-45 to SH-146 is deemed unfeasible due to the shear number of houses and businesses it will have to destroy. I have been thinking about this for a while and I have a thought on what could be an alternative to Segment A that wouldn't cost the state of Texas as much money (as it would utilize existing infrastructure). If you are interested in that video, let me know.

Anyways, that's all for now. Chat with you again around May 2nd.

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Okay...after so many delays and issues, I finally released Episode 41: I-45 from Dallas to Richland Texas. Episode 42-44 are mostly built (needs sign validation and information card creation). Hopefully I will have the rest done by this weekend, and if I can get it done this weekend, this will be the release schedule:

Episode 42: Friday, April 18th
Episode 43: Friday, May 2nd
Episode 44: Friday, May 16th

I'm not happy with the quality of the videos, and I think that happened when I was trying to do pre-processing on the source videos by speeding them up to 4x speed outside kdenlive. This was done to help kdenlive during editing (it was choking badly with all the tracks in the editor, usually there are 3 audio and 12 video tracks, but this project has 10 audio tracks and over 45 video tracks). I'm too far into the project to do anything about it, so I'll leave it as is.

BTW, I'm sure you may notice in the video that the information box is on the left side and a real-time GPS street level map is missing. As I stated in one of the other updates, I had serious problems getting the street level GPS view to work in Telemetry Overlay. I think the problem is the sheer size of the video (at standard playback speed, over 2 hours long). I haven't tried Telemetry Overlay with that large of a file (I think the largest so far before this project is the President George Bush Turnpike or SH-121 from US-75 to I-35W, not sure). It seemed fine on those projects, as we're talking projects up to an hour in length. This one, if I remember correctly, was actually over 2 hours and 30 minutes. Anyways, the street level GPS view is not present on this one (I'll try to get it back for the next project, Episode 45) and the information box is moved to where one of the GPS screens would be, as I thought it would obstruct too much of the view if it was at the bottom, and I couldn't put it on the right as there were signs on the right side of the freeway and I needed to use that space to represent those signs. Sorry about this.

This weekend, if the weather cooperates, I will likely go out to gather more video source materials for episodes 45 and beyond. I want to check on the Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge and see if they have gotten the first span of the cable-stayed bridge opened.

Also, I need to visit the southern loop of I-610 to see if they have completed the area around Texas State Highway 288.

Both of those roads (Sam Houston Tollway and I-610) are scheduled for revisits.

I may also do another segment to the series I am releasing now, which will be from SH-99 in Spring to Galveston, as there may have been progress on the construction since the last video.

I-69 is scheduled for a revisit, though I'm not sure if it is warranted right now...it depends on how far has TxDOT's contractors have rebuilt US-59. Hopefully they have rebuilt it as far as El Campo.

I-10 was already done recently and there is no new construction on it yet, so that one is in the clear.

US-290 doesn't have any new construction on it as well, so it is also in the clear.

US-90 Crosby Freeway hasn't changed since the thing was built, so it is also in the clear.

SH-225 is scheduled for a refresh, and that is only due to bringing the video up to 4K specs.

SH-248 is scheduled for a refresh, to bring it up to 4K and to give it a more uniform look.

SH-146 is scheduled, as I haven't done the freeway segment yet and I know the new freeway through Kemah and Seabrook is done. I have only captured video on the Fred Hartman Bridge, so the rest is needed.

FM-1764 (the freeway that goes from I-45 to Texas City) is also scheduled, as I haven't done that one yet. If I do the one for I-45 from Spring to Galveston, I may do that one on my way back.

I'm not doing SH-288 anytime soon. If they build more segments on the Express Lanes, then I'll do that, but that was a pain to do and I don't want to go through it again anytime soon.

Alternate US-90 Mini Freeway is scheduled for a refresh just to bring the video to 4K and give it a more uniform look.

Man, I didn't know how much I needed to update.

I still need to get to San Antonio and do Loop 1604 (at the minimum). I have had two failed attempts to capture video on it.

I-37 from San Antonio to Corpus Christi is also planned. Will likely do the SH-35 freeway as well while I'm there.

Well, I think that's enough rambling for today. Enjoy the video and stay tuned for the next one.

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

I hope all of you really like these next set of videos, as this has been one pain point after another to make them, far more than usual.

I'm splitting up the video into three parts, but I'm doing them all at once. I finally got the signage clips done (that took every day of last week to do...all 300+ clips, which is almost three times more than a typical video). I am working now on the music, which is backwards from what I normally do (music is normally last to be assembled, but I need to place the music now in order to find out where I need to divide the video into the three parts I just mentioned.)

Kdenlive has been less than cooperative with me on this project. The performance is subpar, as it is having a hard time processing the newer hardware-accelerated videos from Telemetry Overlay. I read up on using proxy clips, only to find out that something happened during assembly of the actual project file that it prevented me from generating proxy clips. I had to sort of start over with a new project file. Fortunately, I saved the old one and was able to copy-paste all the clips in their correct positions onto the new project file (saving me another week's worth of work).

Once I get the music installed and mark where I need to divide the video at, I'll start working with zones, so I can produce three videos out of the single project file. Honestly, I never did that before, so it's definitely going to be a learning experience.

I need to finish this video quickly, as I start a new job next week and will likely not have any time to devote to the project or to this channel, at least not until the next weekend.

For those of you who have been leaving me comments, I apologize for not responding. I'll get to them as soon as I can get done with this project, which is targeted for this weekend.

Thank you for being patient.
Robert T. Kirton (Amateur Radio License: KI5AOK...just in case you ever wondered)

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

I am way behind schedule on things. Finally got the mess with the computer, although that took far longer than I wanted. The issue was with one video I was doing: I have this long video regarding I-45. I've wanted to do this video since I shot it the last time I was in Dallas. It is I-45 from Dallas to just north of Houston (The Woodlands, to be exact, as the video ends at SH-99 Toll). This is a 2-hour 40-minute video if you don't speed it up (and, if you're wondering why it isn't longer, I really wanted to get home. I'm sure you can put two and two together).

The rendering for the telemetry data took around eight hours, which far exceeded my patience. I worked with ChatGPT (as I'm really testing the devil out of that system) to help improve it.

That didn't work as expected.

The issue was that Telemetry Overlay wasn't allowing hardware acceleration to be used during rendering, which would have reduced the time from eight hours to around one hour and fifteen minutes. Anything I threw at it as part of backend enhancements to force the issue wasn't working. On top of that, ChatGPT tends to lose focus, unfortunately, quite often.

Turns out, it was the way KDE Plasma was set up. The newer Linux distributions use a rendering program called Wayland. This program is relatively new on the scene (just a few years old), and it is a complete rewrite of the older rendering engine, X11. X11 is old, more than 30 years old, but it's reliable. Unfortunately, it is also a mess of code due to the patches it has had over the decades. Wayland was supposed to fix this, but it created many compatibility issues. These have been worked out over time but not in Telemetry Overlay. While the program can run under Wayland (that's how the other videos were created), it doesn't recognize any hardware acceleration.

So, I switched the desktop's rendering engine to X11. Suddenly, Telemetry Overlay can now see new hardware accelerators that tie to my Nvidia RTX 2080. So, I used them, but then I ran into another issue.

Some of you will notice it, but on the left side, there are usually two windows with different map views: one shows the route, and the other shows the route from a 3D point of view to show the path as you are traversing it. That 3D POV malfunctioned in every telemetry render, where it would just stop and never start back up. I ended up taking that window out.

Right now, I'm working on the overhead sign graphics. This will take a while, as I will need to work on it all weekend and through the week. I'm unsure if a video will be by next weekend, but I'll try to get one out, as I am long overdue.

I would mention things in my personal life, but it's a bit chaotic right now, and I need to get some things stabilized first. I may have some fantastic news regarding it, but for now, just know it's chaotic, but okay.

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Hello, everyone. Haven't talked to you in a while.

I'm working on the next video, but am having some issues with my computer...specifically Telemetry Overlay.

In case you aren't familiar, Telemetry Overlay is a program I use to insert the GPS maps, coordinates, and distance indicators on the left. It's a nice program and very functional, but when it is rendering, it uses software encoding rather than hardware encoding...meaning it is using all 16 threads of my CPU to build the file you see as the base of the video. It's not taking advantage of the Nvidia RTX 2080 that I have.

So i tried modifying the ffmpeg calls (ffmpeg is a program that creates and converts video files) to use hardware encoding rather than software encoding, but it's not working. If the call is altered after it leaves the program, it simply won't process anything.

I'm looking at other software that may do the job as well, but haven't gotten any to work yet.

With that in mind, I hope to get the next video ready by the end of next week with, hopefully, a follow up video within 2 weeks of that, just so I can get caught back up.

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Okay...got the flagged music replaced, the video rendered again, and I have posted it. The 2024 Year in Review is now available.

Rendering takes well over an hour to do because of all the graphical elements and effects (not to mention the music).

So, sometime this year (likely in the next month or two), I'm going to build a new intro video. This video appears if you are not a subscriber to the channel and you view the channel rather than a video from the channel. If you want to see the current video from 2023, here it is: https://youtu.be/07tS14juk_I

And, if you're curious as to what the intro video looked like in 2022: https://youtu.be/OxbHHWPMXiY

The intro video was released on November 9, 2023 (which just happens to be one of my niece's birthday...didn't think about that when posting), the same day Episode 27 was released (I-10 San Antonio, one of five split-level videos:

https://youtu.be/_fUGhExcbGQ - Episode 8 (SH-99 Grand Parkway Houston [Revisited])
https://youtu.be/VpHRszY7aEo - Episode 18 (I-69/US-59 Houston)
https://youtu.be/2kybz4KXFZ0 - Episode 27 (I-10 San Antonio)
https://youtu.be/Xy4aWekcbn8 - Episode 29 (I-635 Dallas)
https://youtu.be/iVmhS8KYD60 - Episode 40 (Hardy Toll Road Houston [Revisited])

Didn't even know I did five of them...I thought the ones I did were the last three.
Episode 18, I thought, was a picture-in-picture from Spur 527, but I did do a split-screen showing the signage change due to SH-99 Grand Parkway's opening of Segments H and I-1.
Episode 8 was split for the same reason Episode 18 was: to show the difference in signage when Segments H and I-1 were opened.

The next set of videos are going to be revisit videos. There have been changes to some of the roads here and they likely will need an update:

Fort Bend Toll Road / Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road - Episode 11 (New extension opened)
Beltway 8 / Sam Houston Tollway - Episode 5 (Road changed to all electronic and update on Ship Channel Bridge)
SH-99 Grand Parkway - Episode 8 (Will be done counter-clockwise and will show at least three new interchanges).
I-610 - Episode 7 (New interchange with SH-288...this does not affect SH-288, so no revisit video for that road).
I-69/US-59 - Episode 18 (the freeway for I-69 has been extended on both sides of Houston and a new interchange with I-610 West Loop).
I-45 (Conroe to Galveston) - Rebuilt roadway in Galveston County.

New videos:
SH-149 (this has been filmed in parts, but not in its entirety. This will go from its freeway segment on the north side of Baytown to the new freeway segments south of Kemah).
FM-1764 in Texas City (it's never really mentioned, but it is a full freeway, albeit short).

And, I need to arrange for a tripto Dallas to do the following routes:
SH-114, SH-183, I-20, US-75, I-35/I-35E/I-35W, I-820, US-287, US-67, US-80, I-30 (complete route), Loop 12 (freeway portion)

San Antonio: Loop 1604, I-35, I-37 (San Antonio to Corpus Christi), US-90, SH-151, US-281

Tyler: State Loop 49 (Toll Road)

At some point (likely not this year, but who knows), I'll travel to Louisiana and Oklahoma to capture some routes there, especially I-49 in Louisiana and Arkansas, I-369 in Texarkana, US-75/US-69 in Oklahoma, I-35 in Oklahoma, I-44,

Anyways, that's all I have for today. Talk with you later.

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Year in Review 2024 video is on its finishing touches. It is currently being rendered, hopefully for the final time.

It would've been posted earlier, but while I was posting it, one of the songs I was using was flagged and would be blocked for some audiences. I now know that, if you use a song that is also used in anime, then it will likely be blocked. I had to change the song out, which ended up eliminating two songs (the second song was deleted in order to work the time details). The replacement song should be good to go, but I'll find out only after it completes rendering and I begin to post it on YouTube.

Look for the video later today, likely in the next hour or two.

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

The last episode of the year, Episode 40, is out. The episode deals with the Hardy Toll Road, which was initially covered in Episode 13, except this video isn't at night and is going the other direction (north this time, rather than south as it was in Episode 13). A FreeDrive version has already been built and will be released sometime next year.

This one also has the Hardy Toll Road Airport Connector, a 4-mile toll road that connects Hardy Toll Road with Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The neat thing about the video is that it integrates other episodes into it, so you can see segments of the other episodes, including Episode 13.

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Drive Tour (Robert T Kirton [KI5AOK])

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope everyone had a great Christmas. New Year's is coming up, and I'm working on a new video—the last one for this year. I wanted to do a compilation video, but I think I have something better in mind. I can't tell you yet, but be on the lookout for it between now and this weekend. I will say it will have a split screen and picture-in-picture, which is never done simultaneously.

Can you believe we are closing in on this channel's third anniversary? I didn't think I had been producing these videos for that long, but I looked at Episode 1, which was released on January 21, 2022.

I will do that compilation video in my next video after this one. It'll be more fitting to do it after this one, as it will be timed with the channel's third anniversary.

I want to express my gratitude to each of you on YouTube who watch my videos. I can't thank you enough for your support, which I really appreciate.

Now, what for 2025? I have plans to go back to San Antonio and Dallas to gather more footage, especially Dallas. I have a huge project set up for Dallas and Fort Worth that would involve Interstate 35. It will take some prep work, and I'm hoping to see if I can get someone to help me film it, as the travel time would be over 12 hours (timing time over 5 hours, no other roads in Dallas other than I-35 would be filmed).

In case you're wondering why I-35 would take five hours to film (that's from Waco to the Texas/Oklahoma border), the reason is that I-35 splits into two routes: I-35E, which serves Dallas, and I-35W, which serves Fort Worth. Both routes must be recorded for this project.

Logistics are still being worked on.

There are other roads in Dallas and Fort Worth that still need to be recorded, and those can happen on another trip which I'm planning soon:

- SH-183 (Freeway sections only...some of it was already recorded with the SH-121 Episode 38 video)
- SH-114 (I-35E to I-35W)
- SH-170 (Alliance Freeway)
- I-30 through both Dallas and Fort Worth (part of this already recorded as part of the Dallas--Fort Worth Turnpike video)
- I-20 through Dallas and Fort Worth
- I-820 in Fort Worth (this will also include parts of I-20 as the southern section of I-820 was renamed I-20)
- US-75 from Dallas to the Texas/Oklahoma border (this has already been done, but the footage was from 2017 with a poor dashcam. I will redo it with the GoPro.)
- Addison Airport Toll Tunnel (this one is short...perhaps this one will be my first short)
- US-80 from I-30 to I-20, including Spur 557.
- Loop 12 (not sure just the short freeway segment or the entire thing)
- and anything else I missed.

San Antonio is also another place to record roads:
- SH-151
- Loop 1604 (The third time is a charm for this road...there were two failed attempts to record this road.)
- I-37 from San Antonio to Corpus Christi (this will include the section of I-69E that is already built near Corpus Christi)
- US-287 (Freeway segments only...much of it will be in the I-37 video)
- US-90 from the I-10 split to where the freeway ends.
- Anything else I may have missed.

So 2025 poses some big challenges for me, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't challenging.

This is a great place to end this post. Have a Happy New Year, and be safe out there.

5 months ago | [YT] | 1