[Jim]

I’ve had the M25 for about 6 months. I always have the deck power off before connecting the FW to a computer. Fortunately for us, we’ve had no problems as of yet. But thanks for the heads-up.

Good luck,

[Jim]

I too love the images from the HVX200, but when in physically tough terrain (Bhutan, Nepal, Africa etc), I used the Sony A1U and was delighted with the small size and light weight.

Also, there are many places in Peru that I wouldn’t want to be walking around with a expensive looking camera. If I were to do it today, I would probably still go with the A1U or perhaps the V1U.

Good luck,

[Jim]

I am using one of the Elgato products to encode in realtime to their codec which is really an mpeg2 stream. I then use Slipstream to convert for DVD Pro, or use as is for Ulead DVD.
(sorry I don’t recall the model #, I’m on the road and don’t have it with me, but it has a built in hardware encoder and pigtails to S-video & unbalanced audio) Not high end, but seems to work fine for many situations.

It would be interesting to see if the Elgato’s H264 box has external inputs also to go right from a deck to the encoder.

Cheers,

[Jim]

I’ve done pitch shifting of announcers in soundtrack several time with positive results.

Bring track into Soundtack. Choose Process>Effects>Miscellaneous>Pitch Shifter II
There will be a window with controls on it. Select Mix 100% then adjust Semi tones and Cent to taste.

Good Luck,

[Jim]

I’ve been editing in the field for years. I originally had my Avid MC in light weight shipping cases w/ LCDs/a CRT/Betacam and SCSIs (four cases all around 60lbs, makes me tired just thinking about it), then Express on a Sony Vaio w/ FW400 (you could actually do insert edits back to a PD150 at one time). With FCP (FCP 1.2) it started with a 400Mhz laptop & FW400 (DV), then 1.5Ghz laptop with FW800 (PCMCIA card)& AJA IO LA (Beta/DV). Now the MBP w/ Express34 to raided SATA or FW800, but if I find that I will be flying alot, just the MBP & a G-Tech mini FW800 will allow preliminary cuts for DV/HDV/DVCProHD (while running LT, Motion and Soundtrack). I now monitor in the field with the Pana 900 and headphones. Of course, if I have the opportunity, I finish the project in my suite with real audio and video monitors, but I feel you can get pretty close to finished just using the laptop.

My 2 cents.

[Jim]

OOPs,

Just saw the rant about the tour avoiding the center of the country several lines down. I guess some one did notice.

[Jim]

I’ve done this deck to deck, but I believe you could do the same thing from camera to deck.

There is a function on the 25 called Duplication Plus (button under the audio dials). If you hook up a FW between you camera & the deck and press the stop button on both machines, then press the duplication plus button it should rewind the tapes and create a clone of your source tape.

As I mentioned, I’ve only done this deck to deck, but my guess is it should also work with a camera.

Let me know how it works out.

Good Luck

[Jim]

I just did this recently (however there have been several crazy projects since then so my memory is a bit fuzzy). Since I only have the U Binary disc (having sent in the previous version) I just intalled them and was prompted for my original version’s S#. I ran into no problems on the install.

Good Luck

[Jim]

I thought I read something about AJA making a box to do the same thing as the Matrox? Did I get that right?

Thanks,

[Jim]

maybe the deck was in preset Timecode instead of regen, I’ll try that next time, has anyone tried this?

I would be interested to hear your results. As I recall, when doing an assemble edit, if I left the TC set to preset it would start the assemble edit with the TC last left in the preset mode. I would have to go back, change the TC generator on the deck (Sony 2800) to regen, then things seem to work OK.

IMHO the edit to tape function, especially the insert edit is extremely primitive. Having to manually enter the exact same TC I/O on both the timeline & tape is just asking for trouble. (The repsonse, “just EtoT the whole program” to change 1 lower third is just silly.)

Cheers,