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 Behind the Scenes & Tech Specs....
 Green Frog Productions has been producing videos and audio recordings for railfans and modelers since 1983. We are a full production facility in our own suite of offices in Douglasville, Georgia. There are full time employees and part timers. We do our own field production, editing, duplication, and shipping. A good number of our videos have been made from 16mm & 8mm film that was shot by railfans & proffessionals beginning in the 1920's and continuing through the '70's. Modern action is shot on professional equipment and edited with computers using the latest technology.
Green Frog is releasing all of its video products over time onto DVD and Blu-Ray, look for new DVD's to come out on a regular basis. Green Frog DVD's and BLURAY's offer superior Video Quality and Audio Quality, our Discs are encoded with high Data Bit Rates for superior video quality.
Green Frog DVD audio is encoded into the (Dolby Digital .ac3) format and will be in 2.0 Stereo & 5.1 Digital surround sound. Green Frog DVD Audio also offers the ability to turn the narration on and off with the click of a button on a menu, and from your DVD remote control!
The Employees of Green Frog
John M. Koch (pronounced cook), Former President and founder of Green Frog. John would oversee new product development, marketing, and general leadership for the company. As a lifetime model railroader, he had a great interest and insight into railroad operations.
John G. Koch
President. Usually known around the office as "John, Jr." so we can tell them apart, John is responsible for video and audio editing and graphics, also maintaining our web site at Green Frog. His favorite duty though is graphics & animations used in our videos. When not working around the office, he will join in a trip out into the field for a shoot as the audio engineer.
James T. Koch, Vice President. James is also responsible for video and audio editing, orders, & bookkeeping as well as keeping almost everything organized around here!
Robert J. Koch, Vice President, is responsible for duplication, E-bay & packaging & shipping & technical issues.
James T. Koch, is also payables and receivables manager for Green Frog. In this position he is responsible for all inventory control, accounts payable and accounts recievable.
Frank Kyper. writes many of the scripts for Green Frog. He has been railfanning for many years and has even owned his own narrow gauge line... Frank is well recognized as an expert on American railroads having written numerous articles for magazines and books.
Peter Youngblood, Bob Carrera
Chris Wehman, Brian Sellers, Aaron Gonthier, John Osgood - Narrators for Green Frog videos.
John Osgood is also an Audio/Video Editor and does Voiceover and Editing professionally!
Creating a Railfan Video
Many of our customers have expressed an interest in the process of what goes into the production of a typical railfan video. Although situations do change from video to video, many of the steps remain the same and we would like to give you an inside look at what is involved.
We spend from days to weeks or more, traveling & filming at locations around the USA to photograph trains. Many locations are chosen because our customers have given us requests about what they would like to see. Others are chosen based on our own experience of what we feel would appeal to customers. Research into the area to be photographed provides historic and operational background information for providing as complete and accurate a video as possible.
 Videography is done with Professional video formats and tools, and sound recorded with the highest quality stereo microphones. This may sound obvious, but a tripod is a must for getting good steady shots, we also use Drones now for aerial shots.
Back in the studio, footage is put onto computer hard drives on a computer editing system. This computerized "non-linear" editing system has perfect copys of the original material with no loss in quality. What this means is that the computer's hard drives are acting in the same manner as tapes or a DVD player, actually playing the video and audio at regular speed, fast, slow, reverse, whatever. The operator tells the computer where a scene begins and ends and then goes on to the next scene.
Being done on the computer makes it just like word processing, scenes can be cut, moved, shortened, and added, basically forever without losing any perceivable quality. Multiple channels of audio go right along with the video to be edited together or independently. The final version of the video can be played back on the computer.
The script is usually prepared from this version of what the final product will look like. Graphics are also created for text, maps, drawings, etc. Animations are created on computers using 3D programs and various other programs, such as After Effects and Photoshop.
 Next audio will be sweetened, narration added, music added, and sound effects created for old films.
In the case of RR Sound FX, Green Frog has an extensive Digital library of sounds to work from. This really can be labor intensive, each scene of the video must be watched to see what sounds are called for. This might include the train, a crossing bell, a whistle, automobiles, wheel noise, and background sounds such a birds or machinery. We have a computerized library of sounds that is referred to. This selection of sounds must be listened to and the one that best matches the video selected and placed in the proper location. A typical video might have 200 to 300 scenes. That's a lot of audio work!
In the meantime, all of the more mundane tasks of marketing a video have been going on for quite a while before a video can be released. Any maps or other inserts have to be created. The Video covers and ad's have to be designed as well as write ups for our newsletter and website.
Green Frog does its own duplication of DVD-R's and BD-R's on Professional Tower machines that are specially made for this purpose.
A master DVD or BD is made from our editing system called a dubmaster, this is used to dub using our Tower duplicators which have multiple "Burners" built in and can make several copies at one time.
Green Frog also does our own DVD & Blu-Ray Authoring, (creating the navigation and flow of a DVD) and DVD printing using Ink Jet printing Robots which can print right on a DVD disc, this lets us control all aspects of the quality we release on our DVDs!
More on our DVD's
Green Frog Productions Supports its customers 100% and we want our customers to be completely satisfied with their purchases from us.
Our policy is normally to replace or trade out any defective videos within a 30 day period from date of purchase.
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Here is a link to a searching web site for DVD players and their compatibility with various DVD media on the market!
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers
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There are basically two mainstream types of DVD media in the marketplace -
1. Stamped DVD's which are actually stamped or pressed "i.e." (hollywood DVDs) - (usually most compatible with players) -
2. and Burned DVD's which are the DVD-R's (DVD Minus R) we will be talking about here, which are burned by a laser just like recordable CD-R's for your music CD's.
3. there are also different DVD Authoring Programs on the market which affect how DVD's will play in different players...
There is currently much less than a 1% rejection rate of (recordable burned discs) in the marketplace which is due to incompatibility of certain DVD players on the market, and also the different DVD Authoring Programs used on the market.
Most DVD's from Green Frog Productions, Ltd. are recorded on the DVD-R (DVD Minus R) Media - (Recordable format) which we burn ourselves in studio, these are exactly the same data and quality as a Stamped DVD -i.e.- your typical hollywood DVD, just on a different format of Disc. (stamped discs have pits & bumps--Burned discs have a DYE which changes color when heated).
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Green Frogs Stamped DVD's are;
CN vol's 1&2
Colorado Steam Mecca
Ghost Train
BNSF Tracks of the old Santa Fe
Chicago Odyssey Vol 1
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There is just not 100% compatibility, (Mostly beyond 1 to 2 year old players, and a number of Toshiba players, some sonys and Philips - also Combo VHS and DVD players do not always work as advertised and have problems with recordable discs).
Players can be inconsistent with how they will play, or they will not play certain Discs at all, - this is due to the laser and tracking ability, and even the version of the software that the player is using - (these are basically computers!).
You can purchase DVD players starting at about $30.00 U.S. Retail-- from stores like Best Buy.
Here is a link to a searching web site for DVD players and their compatibility with various DVD media on the market!
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers
Check out your local Retailer with a DVD-R or DVD+R and see which players work best for you!
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If you purchase DVD's from Green Frog or from Dealers and can't play them in your player, You can purchase more of a "Full DVD Spec" player as suggested above, or you can call your DVD player manufacturer and see if they can update or change the "Firmware" in your current player,
or we can give you a complete refund including shipping---(within 30 days of purchase with Proof of purchase)
If you would like to return any (Green Frog DVDs) that do not
play in your player or are bad-- send back Via "Priority Mail" to:
Green Frog Productions, Ltd.
189 Waterbury Way
Douglasville, GA. 30134
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