[Mark Doyle]

Amen Nick!

I hope everyone realizes the economy will never recover (for us) if rates are not maintained at a fair level! $2300 is not a lot to ask for a professional crew, $100k of equipment, insurance, and a vehicle to carry it all and the client all over the place.

While your market may vary, know you are cutting your own throat – as well as your friend’s – by working at sub-standard rates!

Keep your p**ker hard and your powder dry & the world will turn.

[Mark Doyle]

I have just returned from my friendly neighborhood broadcast sound house here in Gotham, NYC. I took my hdx900 in for a visit and to introduce it to the letrosonics SR. As I anticipated they did not get along. While the SR powered up fine the HDX would only put channel one audio from the SR onto either channel 1, channel 2 or both channels of the HDX. As expected, channel two from the SR never left the receiver! Aweful.
It seems to me that this is most directly a panasonic problem, in the here and now anyway. From what I’ve heard and what I’ve read the HDX was not wired for a second channel from the unislot even though the pin configuration supports it. Great. So what now? Why would I buy a unislot from lectrosonics unless I plan on using it in a bag or velcroing it to a dvx? Or why would anyone who wants to use dual channel unislot (more than a few people I bet) buy an HDX?
I also understand that the Sony’s PDW530 2/3″ chip XDCam (and others?) ARE in fact wired for two channel unislot functionality but require a firmware update to work with the lectro. Incidentally, Sony will not perform the firmware update as the lectro SR is not a proprietary Sony product. Presumably, Sony will be offering their own dual channel unislot receiver at some point relatively soon and don’t want to yield any market share to Lectro. Understandable…I guess. Again though, the question returns to Panasonic. Will panasonic NEVER offer dual channel unislot receiver operation in the insanely popular HDX900? If so that sounds like a really bad plan for Panasonic. Surely there has to be some way to update or modify current HDX900s to work with the dual channel unislot receiver (aka the lectro SR). Yes I’m sure the HPX cameras will support this, but it’s pretty clear that P2 has a while to go until it surpasses the popularity of tape. Someone please clear this up (panasonic people?)…hopefully before June, when I embark on an around the world show…hopefully with my HDX (if it can support dual channel unislot). I’d much rather keep the HDX instead of switching to another camera, but right tool for the job prevails! What’s the bottom line?