Craig Alan
Forum Replies Created
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does you compute have usb 3?
how much storage do you need for your largest project or projects being worked on at one time?
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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It’s either thunderbolt or usb 3 (or networked stuff which I don’t know enough about). Yes firewire is becoming obsolete.
https://nofilmschool.com/2013/05/macworld-benchmark-battle-usb-3-vs-thunderbolt/
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Yes files have become pretty large and you do need a lot of storage. On the other hand, hard drives have become much cheaper per gig. I’m on a bunch of Macs. At home I have an aging Mac Pro with a 4 TB internal raid as well as external firewire drives. I’m setting up a lab at school with 8TB raids that are hot swappable. What I suggest you get is an external raid where you can swap out drives as needed. Look on OWC. Lots of options. For archiving you can even get a dock and use it with bare drives as they go on sale. Store them with labels and plastic protection.
https://eshop.macsales.com/search/hd+dock
https://eshop.macsales.com/search/Hitachi+SATA+3.5
For hard drives look on OWC, Amazon, Frys and for special sales. Frys is a pain to deal with but they have some killer sale prices on bare drives if you know the specs you are looking for and can wait for them.
In the old days you’d save your tapes as back ups but that is not an option with media cards. And I suppose you can erase stuff you don’t need when you are finished. But really if this is an important project you might want to keep the media and buy new drives as needed. The future will no doubt let us transfer our media to much bigger storage. I just saw a 4TB drive on sale for under $200. Also USB 3 is fast enough for editing and is way cheaper than the old firewire stuff. And also you do not need the fastest drives to archive media – only for the editing. So you can back up and archive to much cheaper drives.
So I would look for a drive fast enough to edit and big enough to hold your current projects. Then when you are done you can copy all of that to a storage system and wipe your media drive clean.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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That’s very true. I have had very good service from both. But SD will help you with the whole work flow. If it is then determined that the problem is with the mike, maybe it can be fixed. OK its out of warranty but maybe a wire is loose and its worth the price of a fix.
In fact, Ty, it seems like the whole industry in terms of manufacturers have become much more service oriented. I think they have become aware of the huge growing community of production end users that did not start off as interns to seasoned pros and the huge economy of selling to this community. AJA is another one I’d add to the good service list. On the other hand, the giants like Panasonic and Sony and Canon have been pretty spotty.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Have you looked at the footage in an editor? Unless you were way to wide you were focused sharply on his face so that might be perfectly good shots there. At the very least save the footage. You are going to need B roll shots for long interviews anyway. So you’ll have the dialog.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Something ain’t right.
[Stephen Lewis] “coarse gain set to about the “4 or 5 O’Clock” position”
I have this occur only with certain dynamic mikes and even then more like 2-3 o’clock course gain with fader about there as well. Powered mikes usually 0 and adjust fader from there.
have Limiter Switch set to Lim not Link. make sure all little switches are firmly on selection. make sure all three batteries are fresh. Make sure XLR is firmly clicked in place on both ends. try talking within inches of the mike just to see if you can get higher levels. 0 is too low. You want more like +8.
Try tech support at sound devices. Great service!
If the mike needed phantom and none was supplied it would not read at all.
What did you use the mike with before getting the 302? The mike has one year warranty.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Any of the pro NLE will let you crop your picture. Choose the framing you want and apply crop. If it looked good magnified it should look good cropped. You’ll loose a little resolution but you can choose the best frame in post.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Thanks Todd. We use pretty much the same practice for audio. We use c-stands and boom poles. I like the cordless kits as well but the hypers get better sound. We use Audio-Technica AT4053b Hypercardioid Condenser Microphones. The Senn has a slightly better reach but these work great and a steal at about $600. Sound is the key for most productions. You can fix a lot of the visuals in post but the audio has to be captured clean. We can’t afford the HMIs but we do have a pretty good size studio with a nice cyc wall. We use a lot of Kinos and Fresnels up to 1ks. Not the big boys like you have. The Kinos are pretty idiot proof but you need a lot of them for wide shots. Would love to play with an HMI through a silk. For outside shots we use the sun and wait for the magic hour or find shaded areas. We do have reflectors and silks and a bunch of grip stuff. But I don’t have a huge butterfly. We do have a couple smaller ones. Anyway the combo of seeing the set up and watching the shots is a great learning tool.
Thanks.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Thanks Todd,
best part of those links for me is being able to see your set. I notice you prefer to hang your Hypercardioids and booms rather than using a boom operator? Sounds fine though your talent knew how to project and was fairly still in terms of head movement. The cam had that blurred b.g. look of a large sensor. Did you key any of the background? Love the big silks and the attention to detail in setting everything up. Looks like you went with a soft look on your talent’s faces – was that a result of the white reflected/filters lighting or a post effect or both?
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Canon cams have a long history of this type of problem and it can be intermittent and very frustrating. Make sure the firewire cable you are using is good by seeing if another cam is recognized by the computer. You can open disc utility to see what devices are connected to the Mac. It is possible that the firewire port got blown on either the cam or Mac. Can the Mac recognize a firewire drive? The last time I went through this with the same check list as yourself, the only way I got it to work was by going out the canon to a firewire drive that had both 400 and 800 ports. I went mini to firewire 400 into the drive and then used an 800 firewire out the drive to the computer. After all else failed that worked. So either both mini-800-firewire cables I tried with the cam were bad or the Mac just did not like Canon’s 800-firewire signal. I’ll get around to testing it again with a new firewire cable but my test did prove that there is nothing wrong with the Mac or the cam. By the way I called Canon tech support twice and the first time the guy told me that Canon’s have trouble communicating with Mac’s 800 firewire. The second guy tested it with the same camera and Imac and it worked. Mine was a Canon HV40. One cool solution that you might consider is recording to a video recorder through the HDMI out. You can still record to tape as a backup but you’ll bypass the HDV compression to the recorder and you’ll be able to transfer the files digitally instead of capturing the tape which is always a pain. They are expensive though. Here’s a very good one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/735435-REG/AJA_KI_PRO_MINI_R0_Ki_Pro_Mini_Compact.html.
But there are cheaper ones.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.