Ernie Santella
Forum Replies Created
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Well, yes and no. In my case, I just can’t afford a deck right now at $15-20K. (Not many used ones with low hours around anyway, I’ve checked) The only local rental house gets $700/day for a Panny 1400 deck. (yeah, that’s insane) As I’m not doing all that much HD yet, so, this is my best option.
Anyway, the way I figure it is this…
Use my camera as a transport for now (No shuttling, just rewind and play-out to FCP without stopping). I figure, sure, it puts some extra wear, but even if I have to service the transport/heads a year early, say in 3 years instead of 4. Then that would cost me approx $1.5K extra (Full replacement in parts/labor runs around $4K.) That’s still a huge savings over the investment to buy a $15-$20K deck. I could service the transport 4 or 5 times and still be way ahead in costs.
Sure, I don’t have a deck for layoff, but I library Master video files on DVD-Rom and BluRay-Rom discs. If I have to supply clients a tape, I can take the master file to a local edit house and have them lay it off for a very cheap hourly rate.
OK… Flame suit on!
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
There’s no ‘extra’ wear by playing a tape. You cannot control the Varicam’s transport by FCP, so all you can do is hit play and capture. There is no way to shuttle, just start and stop. That doesn’t cause any more wear than normal record start and stops.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Try Film/Video Equipment Service Co. F/VESCO in Denver, they are an authorized service center. They service my Panny gear and are very good.
Ask for Dean Schneider (Owner) (800) 776-8616
https://www.fvesco.com/Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Check out TVLogic Monitors. They have been reviewed extremely highly. The TV Logics are about the only LCD monitors that you can trust to do final color grading. That are that good!
Do a search here on the cow) I just picked up a B-Stock unit for about 1/2 off and it is amazing.
https://www.dandesmet.com/index/TVLogic
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
You could always buy yourself a calibration kit. (Probe and software) It’s not that expensive. I’ve been on the fence to buy a setup for myself. I just have a good friend who is an ISF calibrator and he does it for me.
Colorfacts:
https://spyder.datacolor.com/product-ht-cfp.phpHave you considered buying a setup and doing that as a side business? If there’s no one in your area, you could clean-up doing all the video companies. Not to mention all the Home Theater owners.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
It’s great to know how to do the ‘Basic’ adjustments for color, hue, brightness and contrast, but if you really need to perform a “Gray Scale’ calibration. Otherwise, you will not be seeing accurate color. This is critical for color-correcting.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Rafael Amador,
That link you provided isn’t correct. They show color bars incorrectly. You should “Barely” see the 11.5 bar. They show it way too bright.
The right black bar should be like this, barely displayed. (Depending on your computer monitor)
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Being a high-end Home Theater enthusiast, I would highly recommend hiring a professional ISF calibrator to come over with his gear (probe and laptop) to adjust the colors perfectly. Trust me, it really makes a huge difference and you will know its correct. Eyes alone can be very deceiving. I use them about once a year to come and calibrate all my pro monitors and my home theater projector.
You can look them up in your area here:
https://www.imagingscience.com/isf-trained.cfm
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Do you have a quality HD broadcast monitor to do final color-grading and not just any old HD LCD?
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
No SD from the Firewire port. You have to use the internal down-converter.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com