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Getting live SD out of a Panny 900?
Looking for suggestions on an inexpensive (ok, less expensive) way to get an SD signal out of the 900, we have a pair we’d like to use every once in a while in an SD live-switched situation.
Our infrastructure for that demands a BNC cable with composite NTSC Standard Def on it. What kind of converter or adapter should I look at? The 900’s also came with Firestores on them, is there any other LIVE sd option possible somehow using those?
The shooting situation is, the cams are 2 blocks away and feed back to our control room over dedicated fiber lines, currently those are set up to handle composite standard def NTSC. It would be too hard to change that setup for now, so I’m looking for ways to adapt to it as-is. My thinking is I’d rather have some simple, straight-forward adapter clip onto the cameras at the source end than try to feed SDI back thru the existing infrasturcture and convert at the control room end.
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7 Replies
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There are no converters needed. The HDX900 outputs NTSC Standard Def. You just have to select it in the menu. You can also choose if you want letterbox or crop.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
That’s great news, guess I must RTFM again because I went thru a LOT of menus and couldn’t find it, assumed I could only get an SDI out.
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It’s a little tricky. First, you have use the back ‘VIDEO OUT’ BNC tap, not the side MONITOR tap. Then you have to put the side door panel switch into the ‘VBS’ setting.
In the Main Menu (Hold down the front menu button for 4 seconds) under SYSTEM SETTINGS, select DOWNCON SETTING. There you get options for Letterbox, Crop or Squeeze, plus some control over detail and other settings for the down-conversion to NTSC.
I used the NTSC down-convert with a SteadiCam as well as my old NTSC field monitor. That was before I bought an HD-SDI monitor. It worked great. This was one of the main reasons I bought the 900 over a Varicam.
Hope that helps!
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Hi Ernie,
can you explain the last part of your post…. what part of that workflow is not possible on a varicam?
ethanhttp://www.EZSproductions.com
http://www.productionmeeting.com/profile/EthanSigman -
The Varicam doesn’t have a built-in down-converter. You have to hang one of those AJA SDI-to-NTSC units on the side of your camera to get that. Kind of a pain to mount it and power it. Not to mention the expense also.
The HDX900 has it built-in.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
I was referring to the F and H series tape-based Varicams. It’s great the new P2 versions have the built-in down conversion.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com
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