Matthew Romanis
Forum Replies Created
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Just a quick experiment to try.
Get your own stopwatch (or clock with a second hand, you could use the computer clock too), roll the footage and start your own stopwatch and compare the result. -
The original frame rate there is well over 60fps. Probably up around 500-1000fps.
What are you shooing with?
At very high frame rates the shutter is almost completely open to get enough light for exposure. -
The RED 1 EVF is like this I believe.
Do you need it just for framing or generally what most viewfinders are used for…
1-Focus,
2-Exposure,
3-Framing,
4-Colour Balance check (if you need a colour VF).Most OE viewfinders can be rigged in this manner too. Just apply 12v to the correct pins and feed monochromatic VBS signal from your sensor post process to the correct pins. Check with some techs if they have damaged cameras and see if they can release the VF and wiring diagram to you.
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I have shot a lot of projects in recording studios, some of them have angled glass which will be of benefit to you as outlined above, some did not.
In these situations you could use two pieces of black cloth, one with a horizontal slit cut into it (the front one), the other black cloth with no slit placed behind the front one allowing room for the camera and dolly if required. Don’t so much as poke the lens through the slit, but shoot through the slit, this will cut ambient light form the front of the lens and reduce the possibility of seeing reflections of lights on the lens in the glass window. Have the crew draped in blacks to help with reflections. Place props and objects in key spots to offer practical reflections in the glass if you feel you need them, you could even dolly through them creating layers.
I use rolls of black velvet from a retail fabric supplier, generally comes in 1.5m wide by 7m long, around $5 p/m.
Matthew. -
D.I.T is an Digital imaging technician in Video, Doctor of Information Technology in IT.
The really important thing to know, in order to help you further, is how much material you think you are going to shoot per camera per day, and what version of HD do you have to shoot?
The HVX 200 is capable of shooting 1080/60i, 1080/24p, 1080/24pA, 1080/30p, and 720p/60p, 720/24p (over 60p), 720/30p (over 60p), 720/24pN native, 720/30pN.
So a total of 9 different HD variants across two formats.
720/30pn and 720/24pn may be of interest to you because you can fit twice the amount data/time on a P2 card than the other variants. Normally you would get 1 minute of HD per GB (roughly) but by shooting in these p/n modes you get 2 minutes per GB in 720/30pn, and 2 minutes 30 seconds per GB in 720/24pn.
If you get 32GB cards (at least 2 per camera) then that is at least 2 hrs of footage, 64GB cards would mean at least 4 hrs of footage per camera. You just need to know that you can use these format variants in post.
Re the firestore, the later firmware versions are capable of recording pn variants too. You will need a firestore per camera.
The firestore earned a bad reputation when first released because of loss of communication through the firewire connector, but later versions had a right angle connector that helped solve this issue.
The camera displays little to no warning if something goes amiss with the firestore, so the operators need to keep an eye on the control panel for the firestore.
Whether you go with cards or the firestore, you will need to transfer data from both to your own HDD.
You should never travel with your P2 data on one drive only, either use a Raid 1 dual enclosure, or use two separate drives one a clone of the other. There is software available to help automate doing this. -
I absolutely agree Michael.
For someone who is not completely competent in on site P2 management for one camera, let alone more, then having someone on the crew whose job is to structure and perform transfers, backups, and verification is a necessity.
Just thinking about how you sometimes find it easier to round up laptops and adapters, it got me thinking just how many old Powerbook G4 laptops are kicking about. They would be useful for dealing with transfers only, having a 54mm pcmcia slot negates the need for an adapter. Viewing the footage might be hard in some circumstances, but when simple transfer grunt is required they might be a good way to go. -
The thing with data wrangling to understand is that offload times double per camera. If you shoot 720 24,25, or 30pn then you will be already in front in terms of GB p/m off load from the cards.
With 4 cameras you’ll need to consider getting a 5 card reader (AJ-PCD20) which only has FW 800/1394b as the fastest data funnel. Pour 4 cards worth of data into that funnel and it takes much longer to offload than one card, so you have to make allowances for that in how fast you need to get cards back to cameras. Using 4 x 32GB cards will take one hour (give or take) to offload all cards, not counting any verification times.
Using just a duel adapter will take more time as the fastest the P2 cards can offload data is 80MB p/s (and that is the fastest, more often than not its around 70MB p/s), so the extra head room in using an express port for speed is never realised. At least with the multi P2 reader, the excess in transfer headroom is taken up with part of another card (in rough terms).The other thing to remember is that if you do use any of the 720pn frame rates, you can’t use a firestore as the camera deactivates the FW 400/1394a port in these modes.
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Just curious, but since when do rental P2 cameras come with no cards? (sorry if I’m assuming your local are renting, but an owner op not having cards sounds fishy).
All the rental houses I deal with supply cards (64GB now) with the cameras, maybe it’s worth getting another rental quote.
How much footage will each camera shoot at one time? -
Hi Jeremy,
What do you think of the story getting around that un-powered drives start to “evaporate” over time?
Is there any corroborated evidence?
One of the universities here in Australia is conducting a study at the moment, part of the study is an empirical test for which there won’t be results for a while, the other part is survey of users and their experiences.
I pulled a drive out of a 7 year old PPC that has spent the last 3 years as a door stop, and fired it up in an external enclosure. It took a long time to spool up and eventually was interrogated and mounted. Most of the Data that was left on it seemed OK, but several Docs were definitely corrupted and could not be repaired. Not a very scientific example, but enough so I don’t take it for granted.
One of the IT guys in the study has dozens of drives that he powers up once a month, he admits he has no evidence yet if this works, but he’s not taking chances and is also backing stuff up on LTO.
I have 36 LTO tapes (14TB) worth of Data backed up on our LTO, and periodically I go through some of the earlier LTO’s and randomly retrieve video and files.
We also have a tape library of over 4000 tapes, both wild reels and program masters. We have had several jobs in the last several years where we have needed to go back to wild reels shot almost 20 years ago, and library archive rolls from the 1940’s. So I’m becoming a little concerned at the longevity of our storage media. The film from the 40’s was in good condition and had been looked after very well.
Matthew. -
If you are using the duel adapter with a laptop then eSata won’t work as it has to use the express slot too.
Stick with a drive enclosure that has 1394a(FW400) and 1394b(FW800).
eSata as well as the firewire connections mentioned is good for all round use.