Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Sverker Hahn] “The XDCAM disks is in a cartrige. Is that the only difference to Blu-ray disks? Or is the disk itself of a superior quality? “
These are questions I can’t answer because I haven’t had the time to do enough research. Sony will most likely tell you that the XDCAM discs themselves will be more robust than BD-R discs that probably use a dye process to retain the information. I would suspect that just like DVD-R media, 3rd party BD-R discs are made with varying degrees of quality and down the road there will be trouble with dealing with knock-offs as well. My thinking is that if you buy an XDCAM disc it’s going to come in its own protective cartridge and the actual disc will not be anything that Sony feels is inferior in quality. Their reputation is riding on it.
[Sverker Hahn] “Or is it the XDCAM burner much better than a Blu-ray burner? “
Can’t answer that one, either. Sorry. But if the recent XDCAM disc torture tests are any indication and if Sony is claiming a 50 plus year life span then I’m going with the XDCAM discs. If you go with BD-R archiving then buy the best ones you can find. If Taiyo Yuden makes BD-R discs then get those.
– Don
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[Quincy Boardman] “Would it be better to turn the shutter off? Set it slower? I am still pretty up in the air when it comes to shutter settings. I’ve been told so many different things by so many different people. “
Hi Quincy,
I don’t have a huge amount of experience shooting with florescent lighting, but I do know that the more you slow down the shutter speed the less noticeable the problem becomes. Turning off the shutter switch will cause the shutter speed to be the same as the frame rate, which is fine if you’re shooting something with little or no appreciable motion. If you’re shooting 24p you’ll have to be really careful with slower shutter speeds so that you don’t ruin a shot because of excessive motion blur.
The EX also has a Flicker Reduce mode to deal with power frequency fluctuations inherent with house lighting. You can set it to automatic, which only activates the mode when flicker is detected. Or you can set it to always being active or you can shut it off completely. There is also a power frequency setting of 50 Hz or 60 Hz depending on where you live. It might be worthwhile for you to do some testing and see what happens when you start adjusting that under florescent lights.
– Don
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Hi Sverker,
For some time now Sony has been pushing the idea that XDCAM discs are very reliable with a projected shelf life of at least 50 years. That fact alone would push me in the direction of archiving on XDCAM media instead of Blu-ray. XDCAM discs are substantially more expensive, so it all depends on the importance you attach to the material you want to archive. I would suspect that the PDW-U1 reader/writer would be quite easy to use and relatively fast, but until I have one that works with Apple computers this is just a guess.
– Don
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Hi Jorge,
The following list contains the minimum requirements needed to edit native EX footage with Final Cut Pro:
Mac OS v.10.4.11
Quicktime Pro v.7.3.1
Final Cut Pro v.6.0.2 (part of Final Cut Studio 2)
Sony Clip Browser v.1.0 – not required to import and edit in FCP but still important to have.
Sony Transfer Tool v.2.1 and/or Sony’s Log and Transfer plugin for FCP.
Sony FAM driver – this is what is needed for your Macbook Pro to recognize an SxS Pro memory card as an attached device and have it appear on your desktop.– Don
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Hi Andrei,
I’d like to say that your proposed workflow to combine SD and HD would look great but I can’t. I’ve never used Magic Bullet and have never gone through the process of exporting to Digibeta from an HD or SD timeline. However, I can tell you that I’ve always had great results when down converting EX 1080p footage to a DVCPRO HD 720p timeline using FCP 6. The SD stuff looked good in 720p as well. Then I simply chose to “Export Using Quicktime Conversion” out of FCP 6 and created a 720p H.264 movie for a client. They loved it. My final output codec is, of course, not the codec you would choose but I would expect similar results doing it your way.
– Don
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[Denis O’Keefe] “But the question remains, when can we archive to disc?”
When Sony announces the PDW-U1 firmware update, I guess. Right now, if you want to archive your EX or PDW-700 footage to XDCAM Disc with the PDW-U1 you’ll have to down convert the footage to 1440X1080 because that’s the highest resolution the writer will accept at the moment. If you’re a Windows PC user and a 350 or 355 owner then you’ve always been able to archive with the U1.
The future firmware we’re all waiting for will enable full raster archiving plus general files (pictures, text, etc.) to be written to XDCAM Disc with few, if any, limitations. There are lots of folks with PDW-U1 drives sitting idle and waiting for the update. Especially those editing on a Mac.
I’m with you, Denis. As soon as the updates are released I’ll be in the lineup for the U1.
– Don
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I’ve never run into a time limit when recording EX footage. The longest clip I’ve ever recorded spanned two 16Gbyte cards and one 8Gbyte card with a total clip time of 2 hours and 15 minutes. That’s one complete clip. It also imported into FCP just fine. So conceivably you should be able to record all day, keep swapping the cards in the camera and end up with one clip.
Joseph, to add to Shane’s response in the FCP forum, if you set the audio quality to “Lower” in FCP’s User Preferences then enable Dynamic RT you should be able to play back your DV Stream without rendering the audio ,depending on the speed of your system. Give it a shot.
– Don
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[Chris Cardno] “The issue is the write speed, not the actual CF card technology.”
Absolutely. The requirements for variable bit rate MPEG2 recording are quite different than the requirements for “millions of professional still photographers” using a third party CF card. Sony is testing these CF cards all the time and they’ve yet to put their seal of approval on any of them because they fail to meet the requirements for sustained transfer rates.
This is why JVC has adopted the SxS Pro Memory Card technology with a license from Sony and will be using it with future video cameras.
– Don
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I was about to add my 2 bits to this thread but then Steve posted his reply and said just about everything I was going to. Now I don’t have to type so much.
The very first thing you need to find out from your client is what they plan to edit the the XDCAM stuff with: Windows machine, Mac, which NLE they use, how recent is it, etc. etc. How they answer will determine how you hand them the XDCAM media.
To be compatible with the most number of post houses the hard drive should be formatted in FAT32, which is the formatting that can be read by both Mac and Windows platforms. Surprisingly enough, this is also the same formatting used by the SxS Pro memory cards. Then it’s just a simple matter of dragging the BPAV folder from the card over to the hard drive, which is now just a lot bigger version of a card but with moving parts.
[Ed Kukla] “Data wrangling in the field is messy & time comsuming.”
That’s subjective. With my Macbook Pro and a FW drive I can offload a full 16 Gbyte card in about 5 1/2 minutes. You’ve got what, an extra laptop bag with everything you need to transfer the cards in the bag. The big downer for tapeless as opposed to tape is that you can’t write on the hard drive you’re about to hand the client like you could with a tape cassette. Important stuff like recording format, tape number, etc. I guess you could email them a shot list later.
Like Stephen May has already said: “Nobody gets your cards.” But you can charge them for the hard drive. They get their money back if they return it and it’s still working.
– Don
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[Tony Wash] “I took the battery out of my camera to reset it, but the shutter still did not reset.”
You have to have both the main battery and the memory battery removed in order for it to work.
[Tony Wash] “I still cannot access my direct menu, but that issue is minute compared to the shutter problem. Thanks! “
You can only access the menu functions directly on the flip-out LCD if you have the Direct Menu set to “Part.” If you set the Direct menu to “All” you can access the on-screen settings but then some of the manual switches on the side and the front (below the lens) won’t work. You’ll get the “Cannot Proceed” message. So set the Direct Menu to “Part.”
Glad everything else worked out for you.
– Don