[Andrew Watts]

Hi
I think your scratch disk is getting full and not being able to cope with what is expected of it, Try making more space on your scratch disk hopefully you are not using the same disk as partitioned for Operating system and scratch disk. Use a small fast H/D for O/S and a large for scratch disk, the golden rule for any drive is never get it over 50% it is tempting but if you do it will screw up the allocation table quicker then needed and it will shorten the Hard Drives life, I would empty the cache regular.

Regards

Andy

[Andrew Watts]

That sounds great Sony makes a camera for everyones pocket and need. Regards Andy at Woodland Studios

[Andrew Watts]

Dear Sir You are thinking of buying a sony PMW350 AND A NANO FLASH as well. What are you using it for? We as a studio have used this gear for two years now and this is what we have found. Firstly if you get the 350 with the Fujon lens it is a good deal saving on the canon lens. But more importunely the 35bps is fine crisp and sharp. The nano flash sounds good pumping up to 140bps But to be frank our customers can’t tell the difference its still 4:2:2. We always use a nano flash but only use as a back up incase the Sony SXS Cards fail the bad thing about the Nano flash is it has input wires that can get caught and not record and it zapps camera batteries and the sting in the tail is it takes to long to record when sinked into the on of button on the camera. I would save your moony and go for the PMW400 it records at 50BPS stick to internal recordings with no wires Sony SXS cards are fine and forget the nano flash unless you go for the gemini 4:4:4: but it will cost you about £4000 extra

The question about recording. WE found you have to have a SXS card inside the PMW 350 before you can record to an external nano flash. The sony pmw 350 is a nice light weight recorder the pmw 400 is better because of the higher 50 bps. Regards Andy

[Andrew Watts]

Hi

With the mac book pro You cannot edit with a slow speed HD 540 is way to slow you need 720 above or above inside the mac also 8mb ram. install cs6 on that internal drive. Get yourself a G-speed Raided drive 8 or 12 Tb copy or similar with 720rpm then all the raw captured files go onto the raided drive. edit within P Pro but save to the Raided drive in a different folder like 1.raw captured file, 2.export files, 3 edited projects. burn into encore simple export into tost onto an external burner for Blu-ray it will take its time but you can edit and burn discs with Macbook pro .

Regards

Andy

[Andrew Watts]

Hi Bryant
Thank you for your email. I might have been in the trade for thirty years but I am still learning. The business modal has to be right from the start you said you and your sister you will have to have a good turnover to pay both of you.

The first thing is to enjoy your line of work and let your flare behind the camera come alive through your editing skills and final product to the customer.
Get to know what comes next and a typical wedding then add in extras like staying till the end or pre-wedding shoots of the bride getting ready.

The second thing is keep it simple us a tripod when videoing and when editing dont over do special effects, it might show off your ability or skill in editing but it becomes gimmicky and unprofessional swirling titles and to much slow motion.its not until you have cut your teeth on doing all this will you get to grips with what I mean.

Third don’t spend yet?? on any cameras use what you have and let the Business grow naturally Dont walk before you can run!.

Fouth You wont make a living out purely out of shooting Wedding Videos unless you live in Wedding City.

A full all wedding shoot will take about ten hours on the day and about 30-32 hours to edit In other words a weeks work and your costings will have to reflect this plus the depreciation of the equipment like Camera and batteries etc.

In the UK the Sony ex1 or ex3 are hot favourites but with HD it also mean a 64bit editing machine and Blue Ray. But 99% of customers want standard def so HD might be good outside but its not good for disco scenes inside or low light shoots. The sony ex1 or ex3 will have a sharper picture when shot in standard def over a old standard def video camera.

Have a very simple web site. Your Business have to start somewhere don’t borrow money use what you have and save hard and over two or three years you should have the money to purchase outright a SONY EX3 with a extra plate to support the camera on your shoulder get a Nano drive this will allow you to record in 100bps instead of 35bps as standard on the EX3 this setup will allow your company to grow into small ads for business and internet video transfer etc, give the whole project three years to get off the ground and only then it might pay for itself expanding into other areas is a must to keep the money coming in. purchasing expensive cameras dont always mean better videos its you who can make the video better.
Regards
Andy Woodland Studios from the UK

[Andrew Watts]

Hi Chaz
You said “I’m a new college video student looking to shoot weddings to help pay bills.”
Forgive me I don’t know you but have you videoed any weddings before? I would be horrified to meet a video person covering my daughters wedding only to find that you were practicing and charging on such a momentous day with the attitude “I want to pay some bills?”.
We all have to start somewhere once you have a few years under your belt you will answer your own question, its not the video camera its the person behind it, In other words you can shoot a wedding on a small hand held video camera using a tripod it will be fine on close ups with normal lights in the church etc but shooting the disco will be poor picture quality very grainy and if on automatic it will find it hard to focus on shoots over 15 feet indoors But any outside shoots are fine these small handheld video cameras need to be on a tripod and don’t zoom in. If I was you I would use whatever video camera you have with a solid tripod find its limits once that is done then offer your services for free for the first ten or so so you know what is expected of you remember that a you will be videoing for about ten hours on the day then it will probably take about thirty two hours to edit the footage with menus and burn to DVD I started back in 1981 and I am self taught, be creative and enjoy videography you wont get rich quick?

Have fun Andy

[Andrew Watts]

Hi Guys

What a choice we have to make for future investment? sony 170 has a bigger brother the dvcam DSR 250P. The P meaning pal format 1/3 chip.
Its still great for low end work low light etc and set to wide screen modern TVs like the LED from samsung make a great picture look better then the old analogue TVs.
We also use Ikegami HC500 with the DSR1P dockable recorder still DVCAM with a CANON High end lens. again it works perfect.

The problem with the modern HD camera is because a lot of the shoots are close up the picture has to knocked down to sd because the quality is so good it shows the brides imperfections under the make up! We are all set up for HD 1920 1080i full raster editing but will not get the Cameras till next year 2012 and thats only as our existing cameras are getting long in the tooth we will still use dvcam for low end use Weddings school plays etc the cameras that will replace existing will be Sony 500 and Ikegami gfcam Happy shooting Andy from Woodland Studios in Lowestoft