[David Smith]

I know that Z has determined his black burst generator is working, but I wanted to add my experience with the Sigma folks to the thread as it might be helpful to someone in the future.

I purchased the product that Bob mentioned in his post, the Sigma BSG-26N, on an Ebay auction for a pretty nice price. Worked fine for a few months then one day I noticed the Kona control panel wasn’t listing a ref. In signal. Sure enough the power light on the Sigma was off. I played around with it a bit, checked the fuse, etc. No go, so I called Sigma to see if it would be cost effective to get it fixed.

The receptionist put me through directly to the head of their tech support group. I had seen his name listed on their web site. He asked for the serial number to check if the unit was still under warranty. I said I was sure it wasn’t, it looks like it’s been in use for a couple of years and that I had bought it used. “Let me check” he says, and comes back on in a few seconds to tell me “yes, that unit is covered until August, and it doesn’t matter where you bought it.”

I shipped it off and it was repaired and back to me in a few days, no charge. Good product and wonderful service.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

Thanks Arnie. I’m in New Jersey where I know there’s a program for children in low income families, but I haven’t heard of any subsidised program for the self employed. I will certainly look into that. New York has always been an extremely progressive state in the insurance field.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

That’s great Ron, I’ll add my name when you start your sign up list for interesting members. In the meantime, I’ll have to find something soon, so any information is appreciated.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

How about using “make multiclip sequence” instead of “make multiclip”?

Take a look in the manual, Part II page 250.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

[Phil Balsdon] ” Every cameraman should spend time watching some of his footage being edited to learn how he can improve things and every editor should spend some time in the field to appreciate shooting is often far from a controlled environment with coffee machine down the hallway when you need to take a break.”

I couldn’t agree more Phil. I know I became much more aware of pre-roll time, among other things, after I started to do some editing myself. As a shooter however, those seconds feel like an eternity. More than once over the years I’ve had a producer come back with a comment about some little detail, and I’m thinking man, if this guy only knew how lucky we were to get that shot on tape at all!

As to the original point of this thread…. I am sorry you’re having so much trouble with this project Dan. The dub with new timecode suggestion is a good one if it’s not too late, as is the suggestion to bring the shooter in to learn about the problem. I’ve been mentoring some young shooters over the past few years and always recommend they do some editing. Praise or damnation from an editor can really effect our reputations.

[David Smith]

[CharlieX2] “This is going onto an XSERVE that already has dual FW800 ports. “

Charlie,

I believe it’s not the number of ports, but the number of busses that’s the issue. If both ports are on the same buss you won’t get the speed Walter was talking about. If the XSERVE has ports on seperate busses you’re good to go.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

Thanks David. That shouldn’t be necessary unless they’ve gone back and replayed the previous take or ejected the tape for some reason. If they did go back and replay every time, then indeed the camera should have been set to regenerate TC, and the review button would have to be pressed every time. If all they did was stop recording and then start again, there shouldn’t be any break in record run timecode, even if the pause was so long that the tape unwound from the heads. If the camera was set to free run timecode it’s a moot point, there would be a break every time they paused no matter what they did.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

[dan811] ” They keep forgetting to hit the TC return button on new takes”

Danny,

As a camera operator I’m certainly finding this an interesting thread, but I’m having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean. By wanting them to “hit the TC return button on new takes” are you saying you expect timecode to be reset for every take? I’ve never heard of such a workflow. That would indeed result in tapes with lots and lots of duplicate timecode.

As Walter mentioned, continuous timecode (record run mode) is the norm for single camera shooting. Jam synced free run timecode the norm for mult-camera shooting, with care to give enough pre-roll. For multi tape single camera jobs we try and reset each tape with a new hour start (01:xx for tape 1, 02:xx for tape 2 etc.) but in the heat of shooting that doesn’t always happen.

So I guess I must be missing something regarding your problem. I’d be interested to know what that is.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

[Franco Bogino] “does anyone know of any other players on the market other than the crappy SONY M10”

So much for the power of advertising. While I read your post there were TWO banners on the page touting Sony’s two new HDV decks, the HVR-M15u and 25u.

Regards,
David

[David Smith]

I’m using four Hitachi SATA II (capable) drives in an array. No problems so far (about ten months of use) and I find them nice and quiet, but keep in mind that the Hitachi drives come set to 1.5GB/s transfer speed. If you want to turn on the 3GB/s capability, the only way seems to be via a DOS program found on their support site.

While I went with a Sonnett card, I chose a Firmtek box for my external array. Check out the reviews at barefeats.com

Regards,
David