[Matthew Romanis]

The times when rolling shutter can be an issue are…
1- Excessive vibration through the camera makes the image appear to wobble. Chopper mounts, tracking mounts, shooting from a bridge that vibrates can cause this if the mounts are not isolated well.
2-Fast pans on vertical orientated objects can make the object appear to be leaning. If you pan quickly past a fence or post it can look like it is leaning over. Slowing down the rate of pan resolves this issue. Tracking shots can be a problem here too, vary the speed to solve the problem.
3- Flash photography and strobe lighting results in one frame having half the image exposing for the flash and the other half not, the next frame may have the remaining timing of the flash (depending upon flash duration and shutter speed). Most people when watching this don’t seem to notice it, however if you are after a standard flash (one frame overexposed) then this artefact will annoy you. I’ve found that only when you point out the problem does the untrained viewer notice the problem. This may be a problem for you if are shooting an electrical storm.

Having said this, these examples are all of the extreme kind. Changing the ay you are shooting a given subject, or making sure that your tracking and stabilising mounts are in good order. The flash artefact is perhaps the only one you can’t do anything about, if you are after that “flash” effect.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hi Tony,
I apologise, my response was meant for a complete different post to do with format bashing. I don’t know why it ended up here.

BTW, Do you regard the Varicam as having an edgy video look?

[Matthew Romanis]

It’s funny, never before has there been so many affordable options for acquisition and workflow yet people still find negatives to hang on too.
The great thing about the file based acquisition method is that almost all NLE’s have some way of dealing with the footage without the expense of hiring/buying expensive VTR’s. The major thing people seem to have a problem getting their heads around is how to pass off the data form the cards. Never before has mass storage cost so little, or being so quick.
Of course some jobs are difficult, like long format multicam jobs, but most of the time the data management is straight forward and with some 3rd party software, virtually automatic.
Even the optical disk based system is flexible, I know some people who have bought several of the low cost readers to pass around their clients.
Also, the cost of these cameras is in most parts 1/2 to 2/3rds the cost we used to pay for SD Digital Betacam.

[Matthew Romanis]

It would be best to wait and see the final release of any camera before criticising aspects of image processing. I’ve never seen a Sony or Ikegami pre release camera that didn’t have some major issues.
Noise in “Blues” is always a problem in these pre release cameras, traditionally any 3 chip camera pre filters noise form the other two chips into the Blue channel as most images have less blue channel information than reference green or red. The amount of pre filtering is always tweaked until release.
I remember seeing the same issue in the PDW 700 prior to it’s release.
The manufacturers are doomed if they show or not show the product and images before release.
It’s part of the process of letting future customers in on the production process.
You would never want to drive a pre production car, there are rattles, things don’t work well, the ride quality is less than ideal.
Matthew.

[Matthew Romanis]

Depends how “professional” is classified. Broadcast style ENG cameras with CMOS chips don’t have this feature.
Dalsa has a high speed series “Genie” camera with global shutter on a CMOS chip.
It can be done, it’s up to the manufacturer to specify the technology for use.
I believe that a rolling shutter is technically easier and uses a bit less power than Global shutter on CMOS chips. This ultimately means lower noise levels off the chip.
Many “machine vision” cameras used in manufacturing are CMOS with global shutter.
Matthew.

[Matthew Romanis]

[Mark Shepherd] “The problem is “rolling shutter” which occurs with CMOS cameras”

Hi Mark,
CMOS cameras don’t have to have rolling shutters. There are some CMOS sensors around that have a global shutter like CCD, it comes down to the manufacturer as to how they equip their products.

[Matthew Romanis]

Also with all the QT re wrapping plugins, such as MXF4QT, you could work with the original P2 files rather than transcode them to QT files.

[Matthew Romanis]

There is a way to do this, though as has been posted already it’s not an ideal way.
Hook your 200 up to the MAC via firewire, set the the Audio/Video capture settings to the codec you are recording at in camera, then in FCP’s log and capture window click on “Clip Settings” and de-select “Video” leaving only the audio box ticked. Now set your device control to “Non controlled device” and use “capture now” to record audio through the 200 direct to your MAC’s media drives. You will generate audio only files and save space. Remember when you finish to re-select the video box in clip settings.
I’m not sure about this part though, you may be able to record to DV Tape as a back up at the same, bypassing your P2 cards if you are concerned about space on drives.

[Matthew Romanis]

Be aware that DVCProHD is a recording codec and there are many flavours of this, 1080 or 720 60i,50i,60P,30P,25P, and 24P, with all the various NTSC variations to suit.
With Varicam however, the recorder is always recording at 720 60P regardless of what the camera is cranking at. The recorder uses resources in the user bits to flag a cascade of frames to suit what the operator has the frame rate cranking at, anything between 1 and 60 frames per second.

[Matthew Romanis]

If you are dead set on using FCP and don’t want to go to the effort of doing what is suggested, then just create a folder “AUDIO” and drop that into the contents folder. FCP is just looking for the correct file structure for the MXF files.