[John Sharaf]

I was at a Sony F65 event last night and all the US and Japanese management was there, but they wouldn’t commit to a date, only “soon”!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Andrew,

The upcoming 1.3 software upgrade reportedly will fix the routing issues so that you will be able to record the 10bit 422 on the SD and KiPro recorders (neither of which has dual link 444 inputs)./ In the mean time you can turn on the S-Log and record the 10 bit 422 out of the SDI spigot, but as noted in the first posting above, you cannot have a viewing LUT. You should be able to use the the A link output for the viewfinder although it will not be a complete color picture. Let us know if this is the case.

JS

[John Sharaf]

If you operate the camera in “standby” mode the deck will draw no power, however you’ll need to activate the Nanoflash to roll with it’s dedicated switch. If however you roll tape in the camera at the same time, which would provide both a good backup and archive you can slave the Nanoflash starts and stops to the roll buttons in the camera and lens.

John “still have several Varicams” Sharaf

[John Sharaf]

EFP not film but Electronic Field Production, more studio like technicals on location, such as camera control units, engineering and/or switching.

JS

[John Sharaf]

80ire is plenty white, 100 will often cause interference with the sound in transmission, and yes face at 60-70 is normal. This is more or less the convention for white cyc photography for broadcast. I’ve done it many times and it looks great.

JS

‘

[John Sharaf]

Now you’re thinking!

I’d paint the walls grey, or even consider painting muslin cloth that you could hang in front to the walls and windows. This would create a “limbo” effect that concentrates the viewers attention to the foreground actors.

Experiment with different shades of grey to determine the best density. The closer the subjects are to the wall, the darker you should go. This way you do not have to deal so much with controlling the light “off” the background.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Chris,

If it’s your studio, I’d suggest you work there and learn how to make your space work for you. Whatever you’d spend in renting another space should go towards the budget to make your own space work, besides a proper studio, like a three walled white cyc and the necessary lighting would cost ten times the $500 you suggest.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Chris,

Quite simply, your main issue will be lighting the action area without lighting the white walls. This will require careful control with grip equipment to control the “spill” of you key lighting.

In addition because of the windows you’ll have to use daylight balanced lights such as HMI’s or 5600K tubes in Kino Flos.

Obviously the mirrored wall posses additional challenges in hiding the windows and your cameras and lighting equipment in the reflection.

Quite a challenge, but it can be done; with skill, proper planning and the right crew and equipment.

Of course you could still make set dressing choices that change or minimize the issues with the windows and mirrors.

JS

[John Sharaf]

That is my opinion, some others believe otherwise because of more horizontal resolution in the 1080 recording because after the subsampling there is a higher number. I think one would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Further, I believe this was more of an issue in the past when Avids were not able to mix formats in the timeline. If editing on a current version this is not a problem.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Mark,

What you’re missing is that the HDX900 is a 720 imager camera, and the “blowup” (really transcode) is done in the camera before the recorder which does in fact record at 1080 if you select.

In general it’s a good policy to shoot 1080 (but not interlace) unless your client requests otherwise. I work a lot for ABC News which does request 720, but often at 29.97 which my usual cameras (PWD700/800’s) do not accommodate. In this case I shoot 1080/29.97P and instruct them to transcode on playback or just mix the formats in the timeline.

I can’t tell you though how many jobs and rentals I’ve lost because clients have asked for HDX900 to shoot 1080, while my Varicams (with the same imager as the HDX900 could do it just as well and could be transcoded in playback or mixed in the timeline, but they could not understand.

JS