Frank Nolan
Forum Replies Created
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Another cheaper LED that does a fine job is the VIDLED. They come in different color temps and with a small rechargeable battery that mounts on the light so there is no cables and belt packs to be wired to. I have the 8000k CoolLED-40 model and when I first charged the battery I left it turned on to see how long it would last. 3 1/4 hours later it finally died. Check out their site and scroll down for the battery configuration.
https://vidled.com/products.html
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The card itself can not be connected. You need to put it in the camera or a P2 store or a panasonic AJ-PCD10P card reader, then connect the device to your G5. Another alternative is to find someone with a G4 laptop that has a PCMCIA slot and put the card in there and copy the material to an external drive. For that matter you could also do it on a PC with a PCMCIA slot. Just make sure you copy the contents folder and last clip.txt file as is, over to the drive.
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[Rob Gardner] “Frank, this is a PBS show, so there are no commercials. Whether or not the show changed length in actual time is an interesting concept, but not one I’m sure I would test by delivering the show long (or what appears to be long) when I am expecting a check based on its passing QC.Rob”
Sorry Rob, I noticed that after I had posted. Also I wasn’t suggesting you send a show that was too long. All I was saying was if you take your original 1 hour NDF timeline and play it against a stopwatch you would find your program is actually 1 hour an 3.6 seconds.
[Rob Gardner] We have now done a total of 14 hours of various shows originating on Varicam and delivering either on D-5 or HDcam, and this problem seems to re-occur. You would think we would have figured it out by now… As John suggested this process continues to supply surprises.
Anyway, we are figuring out a formula that will get us close enough on the next shows we do. I’ll pass it on, but I wish we could put our finger on just what is happening.
Rob”Let me try to explain exactly what is happening. NDF timecode does not reflect real time. If you have a NDF timeline that starts at hour 01:00:00:00 and ends at hour 02:00:00:00, the show will in fact be 108 frames (or approx 3.6 seconds) longer than 1 hour of real time, due to the fact that video is actually playing at 59.94 fields per second not 60.
This is the whole reason DF timecode was invented, to compensate for this discrepency. The simple solution and formula that has been in place for years is to have a timecode calculator/converter on hand when working with NDF material that has to be delivered in a DF format. -
[Rob Gardner] “But this problem of the small expansion of screen time has happened before and either we are doing something wrong or it is inherent in the process. I don’t remember seeing any other posts on the subject. Maybe there is a step we are misshandling or maybe there is a formlal for calculating the difference in final screen time so that it could be accounted for during editing (making the show shorter by a pre-determined amount of time, so that it will expand into the correct network spec for program length).”
There is not really any expansion in screen time occurring during the transfer process. It is already there in your original edit. To check this you could start a stop watch at the head of your show and by the time you get to the end you will find your stopwatch reads 1 hour and 3.6 seconds. Or your show will be 108 frames too long. NDF timecode DOES NOT accurately reflect “Real time” that is why they invented DF timcecode.
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Now that you have cut 7 seconds off your credits to make the show the correct length for wall clock time, all your breaks for commercials will probably be in the wrong place. (That’s of course if you were given specific times for breaks to occur). What your editors need to have on hand while working in NDF but delivering in DF, is a timecode calculator for converting between NDF and DF. That way if the network wants you to deliver a master with a commercial break occuring at 1:13:10:08. You can punch that number into the calculator as DF and it will convert it to NDF and let you know the corresponding NDF TC number. This is not a new problem with 24p material. Editors have been dealing with this when cutting material digitized at 29.97NDF for years.
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I have a 3/4 deck sitting in storage if you’re interested shoot me an email and I’ll pull it out. I am in LA but have had success shipping to other cow members. My last sale was a PVM20m2U broadcast monitor to the east coast. Arrived in perfect condition.
fjnolan@pacbell.net -
Not only check with your post department but you should also check with the camera department. AFAIK the varicam only shoots in 720 not 1080.
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Try adding a Time base corrector between the VCR and your input device
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Instead of adding the surcharge you could try just increasing your prices to cover this cost of doing business, then you can offer your clients a 3.5% discount for cash or check.