[Craig Seeman]

Telestream’s Pipeline will convert uncompressed SD from an SDI port it DV or IMX 30,40,50. It doesn’t downconvert HD to SD though. I may be using Pipeline with the EX1 periodically so I’ll let you know how it works.

[Craig Seeman]

Cow Episode Forum.

https://forums.creativecow.net/viewforum/232

Install 4.4. There’s many changes in H.264 encoding for example so do try with that ASAP and post back.

If you still see the issue I’d like to get a hold of your source files somehow.

[Craig Seeman]

Which version of Episode are you using? 4.4?
What are your settings?
How are you viewing the encoded file?

If you can give me your email address I can get you FTP info if you’d be willing to upload a bit of source file, settings, a sample encode.

BTW Cow has a forum specific to Episode.

[Craig Seeman]

But doesn’t compare to the EX1. 1/2″ vs 1/3″ chip and I doubt it will come close to the low light performance of the EX1 which can be critical in many doc situation. It’s also an HDV camera and that’s another can of worms I won’t go into.

35mbps XDCAM has already been approved by some broadcasters/cable for acquisition which is not the case for HDV.

If one MUST have hand held tape you’re going to have to live with a lot of limitations that aren’t there in the EX1.

There certainly can be situations where card based recording can be a problem but I’d find HDV 1/3″ and poor low light performance much more of a limitation.

[Glaremedia] “Might be worth taking a look at the new Sony HVR 7 camera which records to both solid state and tape
“

[Craig Seeman]

This seems to be the “last great mystery” about the camera. Apparently something is still in the works by somebody for that connection. Sony wouldn’t give me any details on that.

[Craig Seeman]

Sony has an XDCAM xfer plugin for FCP 6.0.2. It converts the .mp4 to .mov.

You can certainly backup the .mp4 to hard drive or optical disc. Sony also says you can change the .mp4 to .ts and the resultant file can be played on Blu-ray player or PS3 (which is a Blu-ray player).

[Craig Seeman]

Juan Martinez of Sony has said that a firmware upgrade will happen to allow the EX to take cheaper cards. During his Power Point display he showed a potentially compatible 8GB card at about $190.

One rental house where I’m located has already quoted me a price of about $50 a day for an 8GB card.

I have no problem downloading during a shoot with an assistant. I like the idea of burning discs as security. One can easily have hard drive and two disc back ups done in the time it takes to copy a tape. The xfer time to laptop is VERY FAST. It will take about 5 minutes to copy 50 minutes of video. You can burn DVDs at 16x or Blu-ray at about 2-4x. I also feel more secure sending a set of discs to a client knowing a have a set of my own. There’s NO easy way to dub tapes during a shoot unless you happen to bring a deck or want to go back and forth from camera to hard drive to camera. With laptop, the client can even view the video on the monitor and decide whether we stay at a location or move on. That’s a lot easier and less risky than screening tapes in the camera.

Keep in mind that burning on to disc along with the clip browser also means the client will not need a compatible deck to play the shots.

Sony also says if you change the .mp4 to .ts the files can be copied to Blu-ray disc (without any further compression) and the client can play the video on a Blu-ray player or PS3. The 35mbps falls within the 40mbps playback of mpeg2.ts files.

All this makes it much easier to deliver masters securely (you can easily have backup for yourself) to client for easy viewing from location.

[Craig Seeman]

How about a MacBookPro (or Vaio) and then burn to disc of your choice (DVD-R, DL-DVD, Blu-ray, US>XDCAM recorder).

Given the likely initial price of 32GB cards, you can probably buy a laptop with 34 port for around the same price.

The good thing about the laptop workflow is that you can send back discs to “home base” and have a backup stay with you.

Actually even two 8GB cards and a laptop can certainly rival having to bringing a box of tapes.

Now I’d really like to see a “sub-laptop” for this.

The advantage of cards vs tape for doc work is:
1) the ease and speed of which you can make backups compared to tape
2) the ability to keep shooting with one card while offloading the other card compared to having to stop and change tapes.

[Craig Seeman]

Cheers to Proper.

Avid is chasing after the shrinking “big facility” market IMHO whereas Apple pursues smaller market which can be quite high end and, in some cases, grow into much bigger facilities. I think Adobe has learned from Apple and are repositioning in that direction too.

Avid’s strategy will keep them afloat as they make the BIG sales to their targeted market but I’m not sure that’s a great long term strategy. Of Course, maybe they feel being a high end niche product is way to long term survival. I’d consider that a risky business model.

BTW, Apple has had its issues with big trade shows too. Not all trade shows are worth saving/attending. But rather than abandon one looks for a new way to reach a broadly targeted product. Local Apple VARs are always in attendance at the several small industry trade shows in NYC.

[Craig Seeman]

Rather than add comment snippets I’ll post this comment.

I’m one of those small prod/post folks who can’t shut my business to go to NAB
YET I think trade shows are critical (and wish there were more in NYC).

Road Shows
Road shows are great IF you know about them. Some of them are NOT well publicized.
Often they happen on the ONE DAY you’re booked. Trades are across several days.
Often one is shut out of the LIMITED SEATING at a Road Show.

Internet
Marketing info on the internet is often TOO VAGUE.
Often there’s a lot of misinformation, not coming from the manufacturer.

Trade Shows
One often sees products one DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT.
It’s one stop shopping. One does not have to see EVERYTHING. One can target the vendors one needs to talk to.
NOTHING replaces the chance to say, “Can you SHOW me what you mean when you say your product does this?”

NYC just had a GREAT SMALL TRADE SHOW. NY ProTech Expo.
https://www.protechexpo.com/
It was production focused. People got to see presentation on the Sony F23, RED, Sony EX1 amongst others. Panasonic P2 gear was also well represented. Sony people did their presentations. The Rental and Sales VARs had the gear to test. BTW rather than using the overpriced Javitz Center or some hotel, they had it at Steiner Studio just outside of Manhattan (Brooklyn Navy Yard).
https://www.steinerstudios.com/projectsummary.html

I think the above is the IDEAL “New” model for a trade show. It’s focused on a specific aspect of the business with “like/competitive” products so one can hear presentations from the manufacturers and then talk to the companies/VARs that actually make the sales.

I understand that big companies like Avid find that my small purchases mean so little to invest marketing to me. BUT small targeted local trade shows, away from the overpriced “traditional” (expensive) trade show venues SHOULD BE a new and viable way to market to businesses like mine.

Obviously Sony found it worthwhile to market the F23 (and SR1 and HDCAM SR) as well as XDCAM HD to me and the VARs who can make the sales or rentals where there and ready to cash in . . . in a location that probably didn’t break their banks. That’s a sensible Trade Show.

BTW the COW didn’t have it listed in their Events Section sadly (NY Pro Tech Expo marketed the show through the many local user groups and the VARs marketed it as well). Maybe this is the kind of show COW SHOULD be digging to find out about (Or maybe such trade show sponsors need to know about the COW).