[Dan Brockett]

Christopher:

If anything, I would be taking a serious look at AVID MC5, not Premier. Premier has always been a hobbyist application primarily. Not saying it is bad, it is not and the Mercury setup looks pretty cool, if you want to edit on a PC (shudder). If I was going to edit on a PC, it would be on an industry accepted standard tool like AVID. A lot of FCP editors are considering switching to AVID if Apple doesn’t improve FCP soon, although we are back to sketchy integration with external apps. Now that AVID MC5 works with QuickTime though, you could feasibly keep using Motion, Soundtrack Pro, etc. along with AVID. Now there is an idea.

Premier has never been and may never be accepted as an industry standard. I would still want to use what the rest of the industry uses if I am doing work at a pro level. If you are a hobbyist or an “island” and NEVER interact with other systems and editors, colorists, sound designers, Premier is a good choice.

Dan

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[Dan Brockett]

Hi:

It is not the that the slot on the MBPs is unstable. I have other ExpressCard 34 devices (multiple FW output card and a CF reader) and they both work fine. It is the lack of development of drivers from Apple and Duel why the Duel does not work consistently under Leopard and at all under Snow Leopard.

Tests have shown that the QIO is considerably slower than the Duel. The last batch of tests I saw posted were all obtaining about 1.5GBps while I easily obtained 2.3GBps with the Duel and with my PB G4.

You cannot buy a used MB or MBP. You would buy a used PB G4. They sell for between $300.00 and $500.00. Or buy a new PC laptop, there are plenty of cheap ones for around the same price that still have the PCMCIA slot.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

You are not alone Niklas, my MBP does the same thing, it occasionally reads a P2 card with the Duel. When I used to use Tiger, it worked perfectly. Switched to Leopard and the Duel went bye bye. I would not bother putting more time and effort into trying to make the Duel work, Duel has suspended writing drivers and Apple has stopped worrying about supporting devices like the Duel since the new MBPs don’t even have an ExpressCard 34 slot, other than the 17″.

I would suggest buying a used PB or a cheap PC laptop over the new USB reader as the reader will probably be really slow. I am glad that they are making it but it will probably be too slow for my needs (I think 1GB per minute is the estimate?). I get better than 2.2 GB per minute with my PB.

Enjoy,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

The Panasonic P2 Store does work as a card reader. Problem is, at least with Macs, it takes about an hour per 16GB card, it is glacially slow. Perhaps it is better with PCs?

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Great suggestion Michael. I agree, that would be a sweet feature. Pro Res is great and I find I am using it more and more these days. Been doing some projects that are heavy on motion graphics and stills and Pro Res definitely delivers. And a client gave some AVCHD from their Sony consumer camera. Basically behaved no differently than HPX300 footage as far as log & transfer is concerned.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

As a Producer/DP, I am a bit baffled why there is so much concern over low light ability anyway. I shoot the HPX170, the EX1 and the 5D MKII and even though the Canon has much higher ISO capability than the other two, you still NEED to light things to make them look good!

A lot of neophytes (not talking about anyone in this thread) think you need a camera that can shoot cleanly at ISO 2500 to shoot good looking footage. So not true! I rate the HPX170 at ISO 500 when shooting 720 24pN and the Sony EX1 a bit faster. Throw a little light on a subject and any of these cameras can make great images. Not saying that available light cannot look good, it can look great but you must usually compromise where you put the camera and subject to best utilize available light. When you light the subject, YOU are in control of the BG and where you must put the camera and talent. Isn’t that kind of what being an image maker is mostly about? The cool thing is that with all three of these cameras, you don’t need huge lights or a ton of them but you do need some lights.

Hi ISO capability should probably be of more concern if you are a documentarian and are following a subject around, in that case, the high ISO can be a real boon but if you are shooting scripted material, high ISO should mostly be a non-concern, assuming you ARE going to use lights, right?

DOF is a whole different matter but personally, I am burned out on super shallow DOF. Very few DSLR shooters shoot with tasteful DOF, most overdue it, which is actually kind of a handicap on the 5D MKII, the sensor is so huge that I usually stopped down for at least 4 or a 5.6 to make it so more than one subject at a time can be in focus. Which kinds of eats up most of the super low light ability too. Keep telling yourself, as an image maker, if you don’t know lighting, you don’t really know how to maximize your potential as an image maker, you will always relegated to being a video pointer (as in you point your camera at things that appear as they are), rather than a well-rounded image crafter. High ISO capability is overrated.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Galen:

Don’t hold your breathe, I doubt you will ever see a 1/2″ chip pro video camera from Panasonic.

As far as Panasonic’s strategy, they tend to be like Apple and they play their cards pretty close to the vest. There was a leak a few days ago about the new HPX370 that will intro supposedly in a pre NAB announcement on April 5th. Whether or not that is accurate, who knows, but there are some specs released that it will feature a new optical block, but from the copy I saw, it looked like they just upgraded the 1/3″ sensor in the 300.

You are behind the curve as far as what is going on with Panasonic, the big news is AVCINTRA 100 on their HPX300 and larger cameras. DVCPROHD is old news. AVCINTRA is the most advanced camera codec on the market and looks amazing. If I had to make bets, I think you will see AVCINTRA 100 migrate to their lower end HVX200/HPX170 type cameras soon.

Then again, we are still in the midst of a horrible global recession, I am sure that sales must be way down worldwide so introducing a lot of new models this year may not be in the cards.

When I bought my HPX170, I had a chance to shoot quite a bit with the EX1 and I still chose the 170. While the EX1 camera is a good one, I like the look of the image from the 170 more. Resolution is so overrated, 80% of the stuff people shoot with $5,000.00 cameras these days ends up on the web and never makes it any further. I have had footage from my 170 on the web, SD DVD, Blu Ray and projected theatrically in an IMAX theater. It held up and looked great everywhere. Yes, the images are pixel shifted. So what? Pixel shifting obviously works because the images continue to proliferate all over cable and in film festivals. Full raster acquisition is incredibly overrated and not really that important to storytelling. The look of the images, the color, contrast and latitude are much more important but most people on these boards think that cameras suck if they are not full raster. They don’t know what they are missing out on.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Chon Loi:

You are lucky that you didn’t ask this question over at DVX User. Their hazing ritual is much more vicious over there 😉 Noah and Michael were nice.

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Thanks for verifying that Mario. You, I and Jeff agree that the EX1 and EX3 are true HD cameras but more importantly, as I have been pointing out throughout this thread, both Sony and SMPTE agree that the EX1/EX3 are HD. SMPTE is the engineering organization that defines what HD is and under their definition of HD, the EX1/EX3, as well as EVERY other camera that shoots 720p/1080i/p is HD. End of story.

Why Joe and Michael think that they know better than Sony and SMPTE this is mystery to me. I mean, if Joe and Michael want to, they can pronounce the Sony EX3 is a Pimento Loaf. And that’s fine. But the rest of the world will still pronounce it an HD camera. Alternate realities I guess?

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Jeff, are we existing in some kind of alternate reality?

So the EX3 doesn’t use 4:2:0 color space in recording to SxS or SD cards? If it doesn’t use 4:2:0 color space, what color space do you think it uses Joe? Please provide links to the Sony literature or white papers that substantiate this assertion. Here is the link to the Sony USA specs that clearly show that the camera does record a 4:2:0 color space signal https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-PMWEX3/ Right there in the specs page, black and white, clear as day.

And the EX3 isn’t HD? Wow, someone should tell Sony and SMPTE about this terrible oversight as well as the Federal Trade Commission because they are obviously breaking the law by falsely advertising the EX3 as an HD camera. https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-PMWEX3/

I already provided the link above that outlines specs for SMPTE 709, which clearly state that not only is the EX3 a true HD camera, so is my wife’s $150.00 Flip Video Mino HD. If you can provide substantiation to the contrary, I would love to see it. Unless this is just trolling?

Best,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs