[Bruce Greene]

[gary adcock] “I am never comfortable capturing to a single dish drive”

Thanks Gary for the information. I’ll test the system later in the week with a g-tech 2drive raid.

I have been looking in the kitchen for a 2 dish drive by can’t figure out how to plug it into the computer, but I think I have some Corning Fireware dishes around somewhere.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

George,

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I have one question for you: Where do you get your insurance? I got my policy renewal recently and the new policy seems to not really cover me if I rent out the equipment. Certainly not if someone renting it steals it. Not so good.

About power supplies: I use an anton bauer titan charger/power supply that replaces the battery on the back of the camera. I must be careful with it as it will not power the camera, on board monitor and down converter at the same time without blowing and needing repair.

And a little story:

A few years ago I was operating on a tv movie with two Sony/Panavision f-900 cameras. On the first day my assistant insisted on using AC power to avoid changing batteries.

Sitting on the dolly I noticed the feel of ac current coming through the camera body. No one believed me–until there was smoke coming out of both of the cameras. Luckily, only the SDI adapters were fried.

The cause: Improper wiring from the electric department or faulty wired cable placed 220v into the edison ac outlets and no ground.

The lesson: Never plug sensitive electronic equipment into the company/generator power system without 1st checking the power. I once lost a Sony CRT monitor to faulty movie power and have learned my lesson albeit at less cost than a camera. I had to run the monitor on battery power for the rest of the movie, so I was lucky.

Good luck with your claim, and please let me know about the insurance company.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[gary adcock] “Bruce- How long have you known me?? “

[gary adcock] “OK are you trying to be funny or did you not show up that day at Varicamp???”

Something like that. I shot the last movie on film and I’ve regressed. (we did use the i/o boxes to capture the video tap though!)

I downloaded the application from AJA and reviewed the manual (I don’t have the AJA i/o with me). Am I correct in observing that this application takes the place of log and capture in FCP? I just run this app to capture all the footage live to ProResHQ Quicktime files? And it will contain the original timecode from the rp188 timecode that’s in the HDSDI output?

Or do I need to play the tapes from a deck with a special time code cable (rs232?) to the i/o?

Thanks Gary!

PS, is it ok to capture to a single external eSATA drive for ProResHQ 720P? Or do I need a RAID? It’s a small project and we’d like to avoid the expense of a RAID. We’ll just dub to firewire drives and keep them in a safe and secure location for backup. And we’ll have the tapes as well.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[gary adcock] “[bruce alan greene] “I could not find a way to maintain the original camera timecode on the captured clips though. Does anyone know if this is possible?”

Hey Bruce

use the VTR Exchange app that is available on their website- FCP does not understand TC over HDSDI.

there is a VFR setting in the “source” settings.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows “

Thanks Gary. Grammar question though: Who is “their”? Apple or AJA or someone else?

I read the manual for the I/O and don’t understand the timecode settings in the control panel. At the default setting, the capture went fine. I tried one of the other settings to see if I could get time code over HDSDI and put into the pro res data by the I/O box. It didn’t work and the resulting capture duplicated a lot of frames and only recorded the 1st half of the clip. It also played in a stuttering slow motion.

I guess there’s some timecode lingo I’m not familiar with here.

What does “RP188 timecode track” mean? LTC timecode? SLTC?

VFR=Visual Flight Rules?…Oh, Variable Frame Rate, Duh. I’ll have to try this out.

Thanks again Gary.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

I’ve captured from my Varicam and the I/O removes the duplicate frames and fcp captures at 24fps from the 60p HDSDI output from the Varicam.

There are presets to add pulldown to capture 30p as well if you’d prefer that I believe.

I could not find a way to maintain the original camera timecode on the captured clips though. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[Mark D’Agostino] “I like your approach. Are you painting this by eye?

Mark D’Agostino “

Yes Mark,

I paint by eye when I want to deviate from the preset camera white balance. Though today I was shooting in fluorescent lights and used white balance for a quick neutral setting. I may change it a little during color grading later. The day ext I just set the white balance to preset daylight in the camera under the “lighting” menu item.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[Mark D’Agostino] “Ernie,
No disrespect taken. My question didn’t exactly demonstrate my experience, (2″quad to 16, 35 and HD over 30 years).
I have a set of blue cards and I use them quite often. Your explanation in this post was the one that finally clicked. Incredibly basic but my brain freeze got in the way. Thanks a bunch!

Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com
“

Mark, I don’t know the 900 camera menus, but I usually set my camera to daylight or tungsten preset and adjust the rgb gain controls to set the color balance. This makes it easy to return to the same settings if I need to duplicate the exact look in the future. By using the auto white balance the camera sets the rgb gain so that red=green=blue based upon the “white” card one sets it on and I find it difficult to set this as consistently and I don’t always want r=g=b and I don’t always carry a bunch of colored cards…Just thought you might want to try this approach if the 900 camera menu allows it.

-bruce

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[Charles Boileau] “Re: White Balance on HDX-900
by Charles Boileau on Oct 22, 2008 at 11:13:30 am

Thanks for all the info. It seems I didn’t understand your first explanation.

What I meant is that some cameras tend to be very noisy in darker areas. Which might of been an issue in your test.

Thanks again!
“

I did observe that the Varicam is less noisy in the darker areas when electronically set for daylight than when set for tungsten. I guess that should be true for the 900 as well since I think it uses the same chip assembly.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[Charles Boileau] “by Charles Boileau on Oct 22, 2008 at 7:37:34 am

Did you do those tests in the same lighting condition? Meaning: Did you have the same amount of light?”

Charles, I’m sorry, but I don’t really understand your question. Properly exposed is properly exposed, but yes, the light levels were similar, with adjustment made by using the camera iris.

What I don’t understand is how the light level is relevant to the issue if the exposure is the same.

Are you concerned that my test is flawed? I wasn’t trying to prove a point with the test, only to see what the best settings on the camera are.

Let me add one more thing: Noise is not the crucial issue here. By understanding the native white balance of the camera one can avoid color shifts in the highlights when using FilmRec mode in the Varicam, or when using aggressive knee settings in the HDX900 (or even a Sony f-900).

When shooting with a large knee adjustment, it’s possible for one of the color channels to clip before another. When this happens, there will be a color shift in the highlights. The Sony camera tries to fix this by having a color control in the menu for parts of the image effected by the knee control. There is no such adjustment in the Panasonic cameras. Using a setting that requires the least electronic adjustment for white balance minimizes this risk. I have determined that the Varicam is more closely balanced to daylight than tungsten light.

We will always have to use some electronic adjustment to the native white balance unless you want to make a custom set of filters to change daylight and tungsten light to something like 4700k and to enter custom RGB gain adjustments in the camera to set everything straight. Not a very practical solution in my opinion.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com

[Bruce Greene]

[Ernie Santella] “Tom,
But, using ‘B’ and having the camera do the color temp adjustment up to 5600, adds noise vs. using D with very little electronic color temp. “

I think this is a popular legend, but not true. While I have a Varicam, I’ve tested it with using filter/white balance vs. 5600k preset(electronic balance) and discovered that in fact there is less noise shooting in daylight than tungsten light with the Varicam. My test revealed that the native color balance of the camera is between daylight and tungsten, but closer to daylight.

So, I now always shoot with the camera daylight balanced electronically when shooting in daylight situations and the results have been very nice. The original poster is correct when he notes that filter “c” is not amber enough and filter “d” is adds too much color to correct the tungsten balanced camera to daylight.

Varicam/Steadicam Owner
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.brucealangreene.com