[Grant Peacock]

Thanks Noah! Does SAN refer in some way to an internal path that the system defaults to (file management, etc)?

Grant Peacock
Washington DC
GPI TV LLC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Bingo! Thanks much David, I am not sure why I have not run into this in previous multi-cam shoots. As soon as I grouped up clips by applying a Camera Name in the inspector, all worked perfectly.

Have a great start to the week ahead.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC
GPI TV LLC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Bret, Noah, Joe,

Thanks all for the input. I have been hesitant to add more to this post, until I could get a clearer sense of what was going on.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the bottom of this (system) behaviour. On the choking and machine slowdowns – with further digging, I realized that all the project materials, being sent over to me (from Keynote), were in aprox 2K. I had allowed the timeline to conform to that originally.

I’ve gone back and moved each project into a 1080p timeline, and also opened a new library for each individual edit. The machine is no longer choking, but it’s unclear to me which of my simplifying actions would have had a significant impact. (The 2K resolution was completely over the top, as I am editing projects for web delivery).

Another strange issue – on these new 1080p timelines, I’m getting 2 odd things happening. Random audio drop outs in voice track, either with waveform representations still painted in, or not (both scenarios are happening). I’m also getting functioning audio playback at points on the timeline where the waveform depiction has vanished.

What is that all about? To make this even stranger, I can scrub back through a section of timeline where the audio just failed to playback, and on the next go, it may actually play. The dropouts are brief – just 1 – 2 seconds. I am starting to wonder if my 2011 MBP is just getting too old!

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC
GPI TV LLC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Thanks Noah,

I appreciate the input on this.

I had not thought of doing that. I’m assuming that at this point (not ever having used proxy file versions before) I would need to go back to the ingest process, re-ingest source materials as proxy clips, delete the originally imported (large) files from my library, then relink existing edits to the newly created proxy files?

I’ve completed about 3 out of 20 projects here (each runs aprox 3 mins) so it might in fact be worth doing this proxy procedure, at this early stage. I have also been wondering if the other approach here is to first downconvert the large Keynote-originated files into 1080p versions, and THEN bring those into a fresh library, thereby bypassing anything that has a large file spec associated with it.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC
GPI TV LLC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Thanks Al. The feedback you’ve given confirms that the camera should not have a problem recording 2 channels of audio, but so far I have not learned anything to figure out why these 2 units would not respond in the same as yours does.

You’ve affirmed that when you properly feed 2 channels, by what I also assume is a 3.5 mm stereo mini-plug, you are able to see and record L and R audio channels. We continue to see only one audio channel going to each camera.

In any case, the project is delivered, and if we hear nothing further, this might be one of those issues that just can’t be solved without shipping the cameras across the country. We don’t see ourselves relying on the 5D’s for ‘principal photography’ again any time soon.

I don’t normally move unbalanced signals around between pieces of gear, and so I have this nagging feeling I’m missing something here (XLR cabling is the defacto for us).

Thanks again Al.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC
GPI TV LLC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Thank you Bruce, very helpful.

By the way, I stumbled upon a pretty interesting side-by-side test today of low cost mics :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPFwmizF3YA (thank you Blake for posting this).

I was impressed with the performance of a $30 lav mic (made by JK MIC), and am going to order some in, for testing in the field, with Sonotrims as backups. Yet to be seen is whether these can be had in the configuration that I need.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Sam,

I did a LOT of research over an extended period recently, mostly Q&A with a person who built batteries for a living but is now out of the business. I was ready to change out from a legacy LiON system, and the batteries he had made were finally wearing out.

I’m going to tell you that the company you mentioned is capable of producing a batch of very poor batteries (it has to do with the way they manage inventory, bulk-buying the component cells and then leaving them to age in storage) – thus it can happen that your ‘new’ battery is significantly deteriorated before you ever put it on the camera for the first time. DC area network crews have had this happen to them.

Re-celling LiON? Don’t ever attempt this, and don’t send your batteries to anyone who claims that they do this. It’s too dangerous. LiON battery packs that have expired need to be sent off to a competent recycling facility.

Final comment – finding ‘best of breed’ in battery manufacture now is an extraordinarily tricky process. Nearly ALL the cheap battery packs out there are Chinese-originated junk (I may as well call them what they are), and you’ll get exactly the results you should expect with these (a service life of say 10%-20% of what would be available from quality battery systems).

I trust PAG, probably the best available in terms of quality and engineering, but they’re crushingly expensive (I had to do a total changeover of chargers and battery packs, for multiple camera packages). I went with IDX DUO 150WH LiON battery packs and am very happy. These are configured with a USB port on each battery body. With a press of a button, I can swap power from the V-Mount terminals, delivering 14 Volts, to activating the USB port and thereby charging phones, etc, in the field. We’re also dual-purposing these to run LitePanel 1 x 1 LED lights, and the power draw is significant.

One last comment on the manufacturer you referenced – they’ve adopted some nasty restrictive practices in the past, closing out parts of their system to the possibility of interoperability, where it would otherwise have been logical and possible. I’m not a fan, as you can see.

Good luck.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Washington DC

http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Ryan and Al,

Thank you both. It’s clear to me now that CF cards are simply not there for repeated, professional use. In the adaptive process from past digital formats (P2 coming to mind in the first instance), I have had to arrive at this conclusion organically, as it were.

I will investigate an on-board recorder asap. In this scenario, the CF card can be left undisturbed in the camera as an emergency backup. Perhaps, as soon as the outboard recordings have been laid off, we simply reformat the CF cards in their 2 slots.

I’ve also learned that if the outboard recorder is chosen and set up properly, it will allow for a less compressed version of the material to be captured.

All the best,

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Grant Peacock Images
Washington DC
http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

Hello Brian,

You’ve probably learned quite a lot by now (but elsewhere?). I am just trying to circle in on the same issue (or set of issues) myself – in this case for C300’s. I am wondering where you have got your research to by this point?

One thing that could be quite helpful, if you have not heard – Zacuto has revised tripod mounting options, and the great news for older guys like me, with (Sony) VCT-14 tripod plates in play, is that we’ll be able to dock directly. It also looks like they’ve re-worked center of gravity.

I hope you’ve made some good progress. Off now to put my ‘parts list’ together.

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Grant Peacock Images
Washington DC
http://www.gpi.tv

[Grant Peacock]

I see this old issue was never resolved. For some undetermined reason, my HPX500 is behaving in exactly the same manner as described by Michael.

I suspect that a change in another menu/sub menu has impacted the interaction with this submenu choice, but I cannot isolate the issue.

The problem – I also need Channels 3 and 4 active, but in camera menu, AUDIO SETUP > 25M REC CH SEL, the option to swap from the blue ‘2CH’ to 4 channel doesn’t currently exist. I swap between 25 and 30 fps multiple times per week, so I feel that something has inadvertently been caught up in this ongoing ‘personality reset’ for the camera. Darned if I can figure out what this would be.

Time for a factory reset on the camera?

Grant.

Grant Peacock
Grant Peacock Images
Washington DC
http://www.gpi.tv