John Lenihan
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Can you explain what you mean by turning the shutter off?
You can’t mean literally what you are saying, because if the shutter were off, that would mean zero light enters the camera.
John Lenihan
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Juan,
Oh the tradeoffs.
It reminds me of when I was a product manager for Rockwell International.
You don’t have to patch the CMU as long as:
1. You can get the Vegas part of Sony to read it soon.
2. And, you are sure that it is the CMU that is wrong and not the camera.My experience is that Vegas and the CMU won’t read either the AVCHD time codes, nor the mpg timecodes. If the issue is the avchd embedded timecodes, then why doesn’t it work for the mpg files, which have been defined for a while. That is what makes me wonder if the camera is storing them properly.
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
972-378-0446John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Thanks Juan,
I appreciate your insight.
I understand that the NLE companies have to catch up to you.
What I don’t understand, is why the utility software that came with the camera doesn’t read the timecode. It was packaged in the very same box as the camera, but doesn’t read the timecode from the very camera it came with.
Do you know when that will be fixed?
John Lenihan
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Hi Juan,
Thanks for joining the group and for making such a nice camera.
Will the firmware fix the timecode issue?
If not, do you have an expected fix date?
If you have been reading my timecode posts, in summary:
1. The software utility that shipped with my camera drops the timecodes when it imports it.
2. The SONY Vegas 9.0 also drops the timecodes when it imports it.
3. These have been confirmed by Sony support.John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productionshttps://www.lenicam.com
972-378-0446John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Scott,
I know that you were so nervous you called me directly. I want to record here my comments so others can hear them also.
I have been using two NXCam units with the optional sony flash 128 gig for 6 weeks now. I have used them for a wedding, soccer, fashion show, dance recital.
They are replacing the PD170s I had been using. I had almost bought a pair of ex 3s but did not. I am glad I did not. For blow and go shooting these are far better than ex1 or 3.
I absolutely would recommend purchasing them! They have some growing pains, but the improvement is well worth it.
1. Weight is 1 pound more than pd170. 6.5 versus 5.5 pounds. Balance is same as 170. Good front to back and side to side. Not lopsided like the ex3.
2. 20x zoom. In reality it is a little wider than the pd170 and a little more telephoto than the pd170. I was hoping for more on the telephoto side but this will do.
3. Low Light. With PD 170 and NXcam on tripods in a dark room at night with only light being from the thermostat 20 feet away. The pd170 had a nice image. The nxcam dark places had a little more noise in them. But the numbers on the thermostat were easier to read due to the more pixels. (both were zoomed so they framed the same amount of the thermostat.) I consider it a wash.
4. Uses all my equipment from PD170 days. L series batteries, Lanc controllers, ntsc external monitors.
5. A feature I really like is called peaking (strange name) that shows me which objects are in focus and which are out. Very helpful with complex fast changing scenes.
6. Best feature. 10 hours of HD on the 128 gig. Buy the 128 gig device. IT IS WORTH THE $1000. ! The SD cards are cute, but the 128 gig device is professional. I shoot an event Friday, two Saturday, one sunday, then copy them to my computer on Sunday night to edit on Monday.
The downside:
1. Focus. Sometimes with my PD170 I found that if a window or mirror was behind the subject, even if the subject was in center of display, it would focus on the mirror.
With the NX5u I find that the window and mirror do not seem to cause this problem. However, if there is a very sharp detailed object behind the subject, it prefers to focus on it. I had a bride and groom and minister in the center of the viewfinder and roses blowing 20 feet behind them at the top. It focused on the roses.
The good news is a. The peaking tells you it is happening. and b. you can manually focus while it is in autofocus. Once I grabbed the ring and focused on the minister, it seemed to stay there and behave.
2. Timecode sync.
The timecode can be connected briefly from one camera to another, then they free run with the same timecodes. You can look on the camera and see timecodes which correspond to each other.
However, the software they give with the camera can’t read the timecodes so it is wasted. The sony camera tech team says they are aware of it and may somehow fix it.
Since Vegas 9 is smart enough to take the video file directly from the camera, you would think it would read the timecode. NOPE. The sony camera tech said that none of the editors except Edius can read the timecode in the file. Nor the date and time for that matter.
3. AVCHD
Editing AVCHD is 5 times slower than editing AVI files. Multicam editing in AVCHD is unusable.However, due to others on the forum, I now have a wonderful work around.
a. I purchased cineform Neoscene with AVCHD to Cineform version of AVI convertor engine.
b. Upon copying the files from camera to computer, I load them into Vegas and tell them to render as HD using the cineform encoder. Do this overnight. It is 5 times real time.
c. Then I load the cineform AVI files into Vegas and do my editing in real time, even two camera. After I am finished, I can render to DVD and also render to BluRay for my clients. They go nuts.
Enough for now.
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
972-378-0446
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
John,
Thank You very much.
I see it.
I thought that was some cheap cineform lite kind of encoder that sony had thrown in.
What I understand is that somehow after I installed neoscene, vegas just new that that was there and it appeared in this menu.
You are awesome. Thank you.
John
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
John,
Yes, the fat file limitation is what I am trying to compensate for.
I don’t see the cineform option
I am in vegas. I say render as file type video for windows (avi).
Then there are templates, but none say cineform.
Then there is a custom button, but nothing under it says cineform.What am I missing?
John
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
OK John,
I have been working with a great tech support at Cineform.
I sent him a sample clip, they replicated the problem, and sent me several step procedure to fix it.
Now, I am trying to start with a 3 hour continuous shoot composed of a dozen small files that I would like to both concatenate and convert with Neoscene.
The tech said Neoscene can not concatenate, but I could use Sony Vegas to point to the Neoscene encoder, and both convert and concatenate. He did not know how to do that however, do you?
Thanks
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video ProductionsJohn Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Dear FCP users,
I just received a new dot release of Sony Vegas Pro.
It did not fix the timecode issue.
Don’t let the sony tech support blame Apple.
John Lenihan
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Collin,
Please recheck your test. What I have found is the editors will show a timecode but it always begins with zero. In other words, it assumes a timecode since it can’t read it.
Here is the test. Put the camera in free run timecode. That is how you have to use it to sync between two cameras.
Now, record a clip. On the camera you will see the timecode beginning at some number other than zero and counting up.
Now get it onto the pc into your program. See if the timecode starts at that same non zero number on the clip.
Thanks
John Lenihan
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com