[Max Palmer]

That looks like a great site for someone like me. I’ll definitely look into signing up. Thanks for the tip!

[Max Palmer]

I guess not too much real low light. But it’s doubtful I’ll have a lighting setup, at least for a while. What is considered low light in this circiumstance? I’m have more experience with photography, where low light could be as “bright” as the interior of a building that still has significant overhead lights. I also don’t have experience with studio lighting setups, I always shot pictures with available light or hot-shoe flash. Maybe my inexperience with video shooting hasn’t been made terribly clear here… 😉

[Max Palmer]

I do agree that the Canon XA10 is my bare minimum. I’ll end up using that as my low end. I also agree about the tripod and mic, as those will be musts.

Thanks for the reply!

[Max Palmer]

Thank you, that’s extremely helpful.

I really am going to push for at the very least, prosumer level cam- I don’t have any desire to go out and buy a rinky-dink thing off the shelf at Best Buy. I’ve seen the quality and compression artifacts that cheap consumer level cams create- that, and they don’t offer any features that would make it worth even buying one anyway.

Some questions however:

The JVC GY-HM150U looks attractive due to the 3CCD setup (albeit small sensor size). However, a few things I’m not sure about. You mentioned above to stay away from MPEG2 (I don’t know why yet, but I’m going to take your word for it at this point). Also, the Minimum light sensitivity is 5lux, which doesn’t seem terribly impressive, but the measurement also says “f/1.8, +18 dB, with 16-frame accumulation” which I’m assuming means they just pushed the sensitivity of the sensor all the way up, and the camera is running at a slow frame rate- am I correct? I imagine at +18dB, the sensor is awfully grainy (just coming from my digital photography experience)

The Canon XF100/XF105- says it saves files to MPEG2 codec with an MXF format. Am I going to have any trouble with these, such as the need to convert them, or can I drop them right into CS5?

Is there any way I can compare the sensitivity performance of these cams, with an even playing field, like normal frame rate, +0dB?

Thanks!

[Max Palmer]

Sorry- I use Premiere and AfterEffects – basically the CS5 suite. Most of what I do would go out either on a DVD, or on the web, but I still want the HD capability for overhead, and being able to expand to higher resolution output in the future.

Where I work, this piece of equipment would primarily be used on a tripod for shooting meetings, workshops, corporate events, and interviews. Most of that would probably be available light, and indoors. There would be no fast action, although I would be getting a tripod with a pan head for panning, and might possibly do some dollying shots.

Please let me know if that is enough info!

[Max Palmer]

Previews are a big part of why I want to speed up my work, but I think I will start with RAM and see where it takes me.

Thanks for the help guys.

[Max Palmer]

Yes, I did post a thread on RAM a while back. I plan on getting at least 24GB. What sort of effects can I expect to be GPU accelerated then? What if I want to pick up a piece of 3d software in the future such as Cinema 4d? Or even a basic one, like Cheetah?

Just want to make sure I cover all my bases- technology isn’t easy to get where I work, so I don’t want to have to go back and forth with them too many times. 😉

Thanks for the reply.

[Max Palmer]

Ah sorry, I didn’t know if I was being clear in my last post. I will definetly have some sort of network access storage, and a gigabit connection to said device. What sort of drives should I be looking for in a network device? Can I just do standard SATA, or would I need to have a raid setup? I can’t have something crazy expensive. I was currently only planning on spending about $300 or so for a basic dedicated network server box. Right now, I’m only looking at doing maybe 2 render nodes, and it would be shared at most between two people. Projects would be small, not hi-def as of right now.

Right now it seems like I’m either going to ahve to decide between building cheaper intel boxes, and then getting a windows lisence for AECS5, or just buying some mac boxes and using the mac software I already have.

Thanks for the help!

[Max Palmer]

Even if no license is needed to run just the render engine?