Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Craig Seeman] “Keep in mind he asked about an iBook, not even a PowerBook G4. “
I’m not being very observant today. I would suspect that all the O.P. can do is give it a try. Either the iBook will handle everything or it won’t. If it doesn’t at least the software will be transferable to a newer Mac laptop if Scott is willing to spend a bit of cash.
– Don
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[Craig Seeman] “CalibratedQ only works on Intel Macs.”
Sorry, my mistake. I should have remembered that.
– Don
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There’s a rental house close to us that has a $350.00 CDN day rate for an EX3. Perhaps you can use this figure for a baseline idea of what you want to charge. I don’t know if I would charge “per minute of footage” if I were in your situation. I think it would depend more on how difficult it would be to get certain types of subject matter that you’ve been hired to acquire e.g. it’s probably less time and money to get footage of a crow than it is to get a snow leopard in the Himalayas.
– Don
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Hi Scott,
Welcome to Creative COW.
Sony’s Transfer Tool app. is a universal binary that works on both Intel and PowerPC Macs so it should be fine on your older G4 notebook. The important thing to remember as you collect the various pieces of hardware and software to do what you want is that:
- 1. The XDCAM EX codecs reside with Final Cut Pro and not Quicktime Player or The Sony Transfer Tool.
- 2. You still need the proper codecs to view EX footage transferred to your G4.
- 3. Thankfully there is 3rd party software for purchase that contains the codecs you need:
https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/QXD.asp
Check the system requirements for all the software you will be assembling to make sure your G4 notebook meets them.
– Don
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I guess the first question that needs to be asked is whether or not you had the picture gain on the camera cranked up. There is a direct relationship with pixel noise and the picture gain setting. Shoot with the lowest gain setting you can. Some cameras can be set with a minus gain setting (such as -3) for the least amount of pixel noise. Of course, you have to throw more light on the green screen and the talent to compensate. for the lower gain setting.
– Don
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David,
Just to expand on Clint’s point about storage: you’re going to need 2.7 – 3 Tbytes in the form of portable hard drives available “on-location” in order to transfer 180 hours of media from your SxS Pro cards so you can continue using them for shooting. Depending on how much time you’ll have to offload the cards you may want to consider hiring a card wrangler for this. If you’re not sure how to keep all these copied BPAV folders separate on your storage drives let it be known now before you start shooting so we can give you a “heads up.” With this much footage to be archived organization is absolutely essential to avoid big problems later on.
Back in the edit bay you’ll need the same amount of storage available to transfer all your clips from the BPAV folders into a format suitable for your particular NLE. Your estimate of 10 minutes per hour is a reasonable estimate. If you’re thinking that this will be tedious and time consuming you’re probably right to a certain extent. But consider the fact that if you were still using tape the same 180 hours would be taking 7 and a half days of non-stop transfer.
Hope this helps in making your shoot pre-planning somewhat easier.
– Don
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Heinrich,
Good to hear that you found a solution to your auto shutter problem and are now able to control the iris manually. Probably the most important control to have manual access to is the iris.
Steven,
I have no issues with the joystick on my EX1. It’s equally as good at moving upwards as it is for left, right and down. Sorry to hear about your trouble with the control. Murphy’s Law certainly seems to be alive and well concerning the EX cameras. I never seem to hear about switches and knobs being dodgy on more expensive cameras. If it wasn’t for the glorious picture from these EX cameras………
– Don
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Go to the “Others” menu and choose the “Reset All” option. A poster back in the beginning of December had this same Auto Shutter issue and resetting the camera solved it for him. It may even solve your Auto Iris problem. If it doesn’t there may be a problem with your most recent firmware upgrade. There have been reports of EX users having to get their upgrade redone because of poor results from the first firmware installation.
– Don
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[Mark Raudonis] “It’s pretty myopic to dismiss something as unnecessary without direct knowledge of the situation.”
It was never my intention to trivialize your obviously important need to employ an “offline-online” workflow. I was simply offering a possible reason why the topic wasn’t touched on in the Sony document. Since the subject the document does talk about is specifically about working with EX HD footage there isn’t a huge space savings when compared to DV25 which many consider to be an “offline” codec.
I therefore retract my suggestion and will offer no other suggestions to you in the future.
– Don
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Thank you for your explanation, Daniel.
– Don