I love ambient videos. I watch Sunrise International and other programs that just let you sit back and enjoy the beauty of the surroundings that have been filmed.
But now I have an ultimate experience to share.
The "new media" division of Norway's national broadcasting system, NRKBeta, has produced a video celebrating Bergensbanen's 100th birthday. The video shows every minute (7.5 hours!) of the scenic train journey between Bergen, a major city on the Norwegian west coast, and crossing the mountains to the capital city of Oslo. The trip has been named as one of the top 10 scenic train journeys in the world.
On Friday, 27 November, more than 1.2 million Norwegians watched parts of “Bergensbanen” on the Norwegian television channel, NRK2. This is an astonishing fact because this means that more than 25% of the country watched this one television show on that one day. When it first aired in Norway, there were more than 1,000 tweets with the hashtag #bergensbanen. A second broadcast brought even more tweets.
Here is a 10 minute clip from the full presentation. It is the section of the journey starting at the Finse station — the highest point on the entire Norwegian railway system. This is the area of Norway that was used to film the scene on the planet "Hoth" for the Star Wars films.
NRK will broadcast the journey again on December 26 beginning at 10:27 a.m. — the same time that the train leaves Bergen. Best of all, NRK has chosen to release it as a free and legally downloadable single video file on NRKBeta's web site. Now anyone can download the file and enjoy it anytime!!
The original showing of the video included music and interviews as well as clips and pictures from the history of the railroad. However, due to copyright issues, NRK could not include those on the downloadable file.
Frankly, I think the video is better for it because it is simply the journey itself, with some ambient passenger sounds, onboard announcements and indications of the names and lengths of the many tunnels along the route that help to make the route an engineering achievement in its own right. After downloading the file on Saturday night, I uploaded it to the hard drive that is attached to my TV and I spent a large part of my day yesterday watching the journey in all its high definition glory. (I managed to get some work done by taking advantage of the tunnel notifications and noting how many meters of tunnel I would have to get the task done!)
For people who love travel, railroad journeys, scenery, etc. this is an experience of a lifetime — not to be missed. You may not find anything better for a long time. Tusen takk til NRK Beta for sharing such a wonderful journey with the world!
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Thanks to the CC-license provided with the video from NRK, I’ve made a time-laps video of it that is only 7 minutes and 14 seconds long. You can watch it on my blog:
http://blog.technofranki.net/2009/12/24/bergensbanen-in-only-7-minutes-and-14-seconds/
.-= Frank Eivind´s last blog ..Black Friday on Amazon.com =-.
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