[Lance Bachelder]

Concur with Norman – the Cineform codecs have exceeded every other codec we have tested 5D and 7D footage on.

We were going to edit our latest feature in Pro RES HQ with FCP (even transcoded most of the dailies) but after comparing codecs on 58″ plasma we have gone Cineform all the way and cutting with Vegas 9! It’s that much better – the codec not the NLE. You can use Cineform with FCP but you will lose most of the realtime features vs. ProRES.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Not sure if DSLR’s are the best choice for longform live events. Best bet would be to use Sony EX3’s or something similar and then use the DSLR as a floater – to buzz around the event for special more intimate shots, close-ups, shots with shallow focus etc.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

The Canon 7D let’s you switch between NTSC & PAL on the same model. You can then select framerates for the chosen standard such as 25 or 50fps for PAL and 29.97 and 60fps for NTSC along with 23.976 for 24p workflow.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Thanks Richard and Robbie – glad to be here!

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Thanks Ron and Greg! Great to be here! Love the DSLR’s – lots of pain but the results can be astounding!

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

You may also look at a company like IndiFocus. We opted to buy rigs from them because it was cheaper in the long run over rented gear for our film. I think Red Rock and Zacuto make some better quality rigs but a lot more $

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Go for the 7D – we just finished 3 weeks of feature film shooting with 2 of them and they far exceeded our expectations. Make certain you use the best glass – we shot with various Canon “L” lenses and a Zeiss 50 1.4. We plan on picking up the full line of Zeiss primes for the next shoot. Also get a good true fluid head tripod!

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

When you export your show to Quicktime .mov you’ll see the Pro RES codec among the many choices. Use the ProRES HQ codec that matches the properties of your project and you’ll be fine. Apple has ProRES readers in QT for Windows.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Thanks Dan for the in-depth article. We are shooting an indie feature for 2 weeks next month and strongly considering 2 300’s. We would shoot at 1080p AVC100. I like the lighter feel of the cam for run and gun and hand held shooting. We have a deal on 2 3000’s but thinking they’re going to be a lot heavier and batt’s don’t last long – also hear iffy thing about viewfinder.

You think the 300 would be a good choice or is the 3000 just way better? Either way I love the fact that we could shoot at 10 bit 422 and not have to transcode a bunch of proxies etc like other systems we’re looking at.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Lance Bachelder]

Please define “great”. What are you doing with the files – adding fx, rendering?

I too am having no luck with Cineform and V9 – tried XP Pro, Vista, Vista 64 – 4 different machines – constant crashes.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California