[John Sharaf]

Steve,

That’s great news, but how were going to find out about the new upgrades? Is there a website with service bulletins we can frequent? Did the notice get lost in the mail to me? Did I fail to see the posting at the factory reapir shop when I was there a few weeks ago?

And BTW, will it cist $260 to get the upgrade, so the feature that;s supposed to work will work?

Enquiring minds want to know.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Leakin’,

I generally tend to agree with your cynicism about Panasonic’s responsiveness, except when I deal with Mr. Steven Mahrer there, who always answers his phone, returns his messages, replies to his email, lurks on the Cow and actually knows sometrhing about the products and the user’s actual needs!

I agree however that we probably won’t get the fix we’re looking for, especially for free!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Mike,

Gels are not really a good solution, mainly because determining the exact flavor is difficult (trial and error), applying them is no fun and they cut the amount of output from the tubes which is already low. In video, you have a powerful tool in the white balance function which saves a lot of work!

If anything, when you white balance you are effectively adding minus green (which is magenta) and this doesn’t really hurt the daylight, it just makes it a little warmer!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Nils,

It sounds like you want a soft pool of light in your “action area” and the rest of the room dark. If this is the case, you might consider a lantern or chimera “pancake” and use “skirts” to cotrol the spill off the walls. Unless the room/set is large, you still might have to resort to draping the walls with black cloth to maintain the “limbo” look.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Mike,

They saved you a lot of work by dictating that there be no artificial lighting! If that’s really the case, you really have two choices; flood the room with the daylight from the windows, leave the fluorescents on and white balance. Then try and favor your shots away from the windows, in other words , place the camera near the windows and shoot inwards. The other coice (if you must shoot in every direction, is to use the blinds to minimize the windows and white balance in the flurescents and shoot away.

If you have a budget, another alternative is to switch out the tubes in the flurescents with photo quality (color) daylight tubes; this way the shaddow detail will have the proper color if you mix the daylight and the practical light.

[John Sharaf]

Dan,

Kind of sounds like you fried your firewire card by plugging or unplugging it with the power on! The only way I know of field testing it would be to try and plud a firewire camera in and try to play out to it. If it works, it’s something else.

Otherwise it’s a trip to Panasonic’s repair facility where they’ll have it for a week or more, charge you $260 and probably tell you nothings wrong or it’ll cost $5000 to replace the board!

Isn’t this business fun?

JS

[John Sharaf]

Laurie,

That’s not right! The Varicam transport is normally one of the quietest I’ve ever seen. You have to look at the tally light or TC reader to confirm that you’re rolling.

I would definately check with the camera’s owner even if it’s after hours and get a replacement. I doubt that you’ll be able to get it serviced or replaced on location, it’s hard enough to get service from the big factory shop here in LA!

I have to assume you’ve tried several different cassettes?

Bottom line, don’t go on a distant location with faulty gear even to such a civilized place as Switzerland!

Good luck,

JS

[John Sharaf]

I don’t think so. I’ve been told privately and publicly that there will be no Varicam announcements at this NAB.

Panasonic knows that the capacity and price of the P2 cards is not appropriate yet for the high datarate of HD production, and the future of P2 to me is seriously in doubt because of the new Express slot configurations that are appearing in Apple, Dell and other laptops, which will limit the demand for P2/PCMIA media and therefore the Moore’s Law factor in future deployment of larger and cheaper cards.

Granted the SD cards within the unit have many other uses, and their size and price will most likely evolve, but Panasonic alone will control the implementation of what is their propriatary P2 media.

[John Sharaf]

David,

I have to agree with your analysis. It seems to me that P2 workflow exists for three reasons; mainly as a media to record DVPRO100 HD without the need of an expensive deck in a cheap camera, secondly to accomodate the news folks demands for a media that is a computer file to eliminate capture and third (as an included benefit) to create a recoding media that will survive high g-force and other shocks. I can imaging that the future P2 Varicam (2007?) will be able to use the cards (perhaps in a striped configuration) to record a higher format than DVPRO100, such a D5 or a higher frame rate for slo-mo like 120 fps.

For most production however, I still see originating on tape to be the best method of both moving the product to the computer environment for editing and providing at the same time an archival master.

This is not to say that in a few years time when the effect of Moore’s Law has lowered the price of the P2 card to $ .70/Gb, which is what the best priced DVPRO100 tape is now (32 minute Yellow label @ $22), and has expanded the capacity of the card to usable lengths (like 32 Gb), it will not realize its ultimate potential. But the evolution of the card slots in the recently announced laptop computers does not bode well for the P2 cards longevity, and this may effect the progress of Moore’s law based on supply and demand factors not stimulation further evolution.

I don’t want to be pesimistic about all this, I’m very high on the possibilities of the HVX200
and am very anxious to get the several units I’ve had on order since last NAB, but I’m constantly reminded how the manufacturers are all beta testing their products on us, and how competition has driven rival technologies to the detrement of both profession and consumer users (for example Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD).

I’m not asking for pity or anything, I’ll buy these cameras, and use them to make money, but it’s not too satisfying to participate in such a temporary or short-lived phenomenon. I was definately spoiled by the thirty year life of my 16mm cameras and then by the fifteen year life of my Betacams (which are actually still in use). This purchase (the HVX’s) will be the first I’ve ever made where I can see the obscelecence before I even receive the unit. For that matter, if I’m forced to buy 4Gb cards, they are essentially obscelete on arrival. If this is the trend of the future, I’d say we’re all on treadmill to nowhere!

[John Sharaf]

Jan,

My bad, I did read the rest of the thread after my post to you!

Thanks for your reply though,

JS