[David Shulkin]

Thanks Bill. Appreciate the response. Totally get the approach, and we’ve ordered a couple of options to test, just hoping someone had any slick solutions they have done in the past with some photos. Thank you.

[David Shulkin]

Vicki
It would be more helpful for us to give some ideas if you let us know a few things.
1. What’s your budget? Can you carry over your budget so to plan for a 2-3 year period?
2. How many cameras to student to workstations, etc. are you thinking?
3. Do you need additional storage for the workstations (and do the workstations meet the needs of CS6)?

Answering some of these would be great for us to give a couple of ideas. Thanks 🙂

[David Shulkin]

[Vic Noseworthy] “is the codec in one camera better than the codec in the other?”
Looking on paper, I’m not sure – but my feeling is that they are close in bit rate and – and certainly the same MPEG-4/4:2:0. So codec wise they are probably similar.
In terms of compositing with these formats/codecs. For us we always transcode the files to another format (ProRes/DnxHD/Cineform) for compositing workflow. Even when we edit natively in Premiere, we still transcode to a different format for After Effects for compositing. That is our workflow and it has been solid for us.

[David Shulkin]

[Hector berrebi] “but in past years i did paid to enter and never regretted it.”

I went to the first year of DV workshops (I think that was what is was called 12 years ago) and then back to PPW this past year with staff. I won’t say I regretted it, but the bulk of sessions I participated in was just ok. Specifically the entire lineup of DP track sessions were feeble attempts of “shallow sales pitches” and info dumps. Absolutely disappointing (would not recommend).

However,if you are going I HIGHLY recommend Hector’s sessions – went to 2 of them last year – very useful and my staff LOVED them for their work. I also recommend some of the usual suspects – Trish/Chris Meyers (AE), Rod Harland, Harrington, Greenberg, etc.

[David Shulkin]

The real point is that you saw the difference in the low-light and depth-of-field capabilities compared to you other camera – that is truly the difference. And, this difference occurs with little effort. I’d argue the “quality” gets played out in the lens choice and post-production workflow. See how many stops of latitude you have in comparison – this may be critical in color grading. For me these are the things in which the DSLR can provide an improvement in quality.

We have a similar situation, as we use the Canon 7D with the Panasonic HPX-370 (1/3″ chip but with far greater spec’d video capabilities – 4:2:2, AVC-Intra 100, etc.) This camera does not compare to the “quality” when we see how the lens and latitude are compared. And, for me to get the shallow DOP, I’ve got to use ND filters to open up the iris – and it still doesn’t compare to the feeling that the Canon L lenses provide.

So for us, the DSLR provided a different “feel” that was so much easier than on the typical camera, and here, we equate this feel to quality. Just my two cents.

[David Shulkin]

[Tim Wilson] “Seriously, did you spend all this money and time to eat at Sbarro? Have a nice dinner instead.”

Couldn’t have been said better – this is what I’ve done for over a decade and it is an excellent method – including drinking plenty of water. 🙂

[David Shulkin]

[Lance Bachelder] “I didn’t even want to see but didn’t want to get out of the chair…”

LOL – so true, I cannot even count the presentations I had no interest or need to see, but watch sitting is comfy chairs. Looking forward to a great NAB!

[David Shulkin]

Hitting Redrock later and will ask. Was NOT impressed with the Zacuto viewfinder. For me, the value/cost ratio for a less than desirable EVF quality was very disappointing. I’m hoping the quality of the RR EVF will be much better.

[David Shulkin]

Getting some nice tips on live event prep with Rod Harlan. Arri Alexa session was a waste as it was basically a short sales pitch with little depth (a nice anecdote on the Alexa that burned in a fire) and a couple of announcements. Some they won’t talk about until official announcement on Monday. Most interesting to me was the software download/license option that allows for ala carte options. Licenses are stuck to a camera, so I’m wondering how this affects rental houses when you have a client that needs an option, etc.

[David Shulkin]

Ashley:
Here is my two cents.
1. Speed of card – will work fine. I run (home/work) with UDMA 60MB/s SanDisk cards. So you shouldn’t have any issue with HD capture on this card from my experience.
2. Size of card – we work with 8GB and 16GB cards as a rule to reduce overheating of the camera. While you can get more on the 32GB card, it matters little in real production as you are always capturing with a ~12min clip anyway. So it is easy to change out often. Moreover, having smaller multiple cards allows you to work faster as you can be shooting while a card is being downloaded.
3. Laptop: Your resolution is probably the least important tech spec to playing back HD video. The resolution on laptops are a limitation of GFX card and screen size/layout. If you are playing Blu-ray you probably can play back the 7D footage, but the specs of RAM, CPU speed, GFX memory, etc. are far more significant factors in playback.