[Martin Phillips]

Thanks for the ideas. We filmed it just over a week ago. Used a lipstick cam supported on a mic stand pointing straight into mouth and it worked a treat. 2 other cameras (manned) round both sides. Got some really good angles. Dentist was careful not to obscure the lipstick cam which didn’t seem to obstruct him. Oddly the dentist’s light was not great on film and blew all the exposures, so worked without it and result was great.

Thanks, Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

Well, I’ve got this sorted now. So just for info I downloaded the 5.1.4 firmware update which is at https://www.apple.com/support/downloads/powermacg5firmwareupdate.html

All working fine.

Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

Just heard back from AJA – who say I need a G5 firmware update. The only one I can find is for the single 1.6 processor 5.5f1. Don’t know whether I should put this on?

[Martin Phillips]

Thanks Jerry,

I have Kona selected in my System Prefs, have tried the others but still does the same ……

Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

When I tried to install ‘over the top’ it produced strange problems in Compressor. Spent an afternoon doing complete System Disk wipe, then reinstalled everything from scratch. Time well spent – system rock solid now. However used new Hard drive for reinstall just in case I forgot anything!

Hope this helps.

Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

Well, I’ve been conducting some quite exhaustive (and exhausting) testing of this issue. I have been using some other HD footage not from the HVX 200. It is HD footage straight from Panasonic.

Instead of the pin-sharp image that I was expecting, again it was rather soft on the downconvert.

Anyway, I eventually phoned BM support to be told that ‘this is what you would expect doing a down-conversion and this is as good as it gets’. Also, I was told that the (SD) SDI would not be much better.

So, all in all I am very disappointed with the card. I wanted the dual facility of playout to HD and SD, but it seems that the SD downconversion facility will not give the picture quality needed.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions so far – any more very welcome!

Martin

[Martin Phillips]

Jonathan, I am not sure (as I am just editing the client’s footage), but I think that it was the Panasonic HVX 200.

I didn’t need to render the clip on the timeline. So I am presuming that it was shot at 1080i50 rather than progressive.

Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

I think that I may have narrowed this down to a Downconverting problem – my settings for downconversion are (Hardware conversion) HD to SD 16:9 Anamorphic. Picture still looking soft. DV Footage looks great, as mentioned earlier.

I am sure that there is something simple that I haven’t done, but I am at a loss for now, and a bit desperate to get to the bottom of this!

Thanks – Martin.

[Martin Phillips]

Yes, up to full quality on the sequence settings – have been fiddling around, but still no joy. Still looks like footage is slightly soft-focused.

[Martin Phillips]

Noah,

Don’t know whether you can see what I mean, but try: https://www.videodvdmaker.co.uk/SoftImageP2.tif

Thanks, Martin.