Chuck Green
Forum Replies Created
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My EX3 is sticky/uneven on zooming, even using an external zoom controller (VariZoom Rock EX). My EX1 had no zoom problems, with or without the controller. It is hard to tolerate during jazz performance recordings, when I want slow, smooth zooms.
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I’m returning a Dat Optic 4 port eSATA board I got from OWC 3 weeks ago for a new MacPro – which had Snow Leopard installed. The board worked some of the time with 1 eSATA drive connected only. OWC got me a beta version of SI’s driver, which still does not work with multiple drives and caused major problems when the computer would start up at all. I upgraded SL to 10.6.2 today, and it’s still not working.
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I began using a variant of Phil Hodgett’s suggestion a couple of weeks ago, and it works very well for me. Phil recommends the .mp4 format with H.264 encoding for most uses.
At the end of an edit (using FCP 6) I do a QT export with a ProRes HQ setting matching the full res. of my source material, and label it as a master edit. I then drop that file into the program VisulHub, which has many conversion possibilities, with it set for .mp4 output with H.264 encoding. VH’s output plays in QT players and Flash players, and is done quicker than Compressor makes .mov files, even with the quality set to very high (“Go Nuts” it’s called in VH.)
This morning I converted a 1.53GB .mov master to .mp4 which ended up 87.1 MB, and played it on a Windows XP Home machine. The master file can be used to make many other conversions, through VH or Compressor without tying up FCP while doing so – a major benefit for those of us not using FCP 7.
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There are many great responses here, and I want to address a different part of your issue. The project started off simple (small?) you state; I have found that clients tend to lock in their minds the lowest rate first mentioned, even though the scope of work may grow significantly. It is important to keep them aware after things start to expand that the project is now larger, that they have enlarged the scope of work, and that new scope of work is what is now being billed for. Do this repeatedly over time as you communicate with them!
Similarly, if in your initial discussions you say the possible price range will be $ 4,000 to $ 7,000, they will likely be holding $ 4,000 in their minds from that moment on, while you might be thinking $ 7,000, whether the scope of work stays the same or expands.
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When downloading material from the Sony EX1, I first do a quick copy of the BPAV file from the card (5 minutes to copy a 16GB card when put into a 2-year-old MacBook Pro’s PCI Express slot), and separately do an “unzipping” using XDCAM Transfer. I’ve found it important to put each BPAV copies into it’s own folder with a useable label/ID so I can later tell which BPAV file is which. Don’t copy multiple BPAV files unlabeled into one folder.
If pressed for time as can happen during a live shoot, just copy the BPAV file – archiving it can be useful for several other reasons – then delete it from the SxS card and continue shooting with that card. Later, XDCAM Transfer can unzip it from your hard drive. This will also be quicker than doing a USB cable transfer from the card mounted in the camera.
Definitely use the most recent version, which is 2.7 currently (for the Mac). I found an earlier version to be fatally buggy. -
An interesting thing happened on an out of state shoot yesterday. A camera operator I’ve worked with many times before was using his relatively new EX1, when he had an attack of color bars and tone which he could not get turn off – he must have hit the tiny BARS/CAM button right next to my evil button. So you’ve helped him too, indirectly, and he’ll probably help another EX1 shooter someday…
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Thanks Steve. I found a very small button, which does not look so much like a button as a label perhaps, ‘DISPLAY” below which is ‘BATT INFO’. Pressing it returned the information. I am set for tomorrow’s shoot.