[Nate Stephens]

Noah,

Ya got me all excited and then I read this, “If your Mac only has PCI Express (PCIe) expansion slot, please do not purchase this PCI-interface card reader.]” on their web site under the specs list….

Appreciate the effort, but no ‘points’ We need one that works with MacPro…

[Nate Stephens]

Thanks Walter,

but did you say in that thread that you are running 10gb of ram… What combination did you use? 2-four gig modules and the stock 2-one gig modules? I thought I had read where you need to keep all the ram the same size in matched pairs…. filling a minimum of the first two slots on both ram cards…

[Nate Stephens]

Thanks David,

I knew it was out there somewhere. That is what I like about the COW…. Somebody always remembers the “inventory” better than you… So just “COW IT” and go to bed….. Why stay up for another 4 hours…

I was planning on buying the memory from Transintl also… I just needed to check the accounts before I over spend the bank.. Didn’t know they had the “sled”…. thanks for the tip

So what is the value to 16 over 8 over 4 gigs of ram on the 3.2 Octo core?

Wally B. always suggest 4 gigs.. But he did say he was getting a new 3.2 so I wonder if he stayed at 4 or splurged on 8gb of ram…

I am moving from a 4 year old G4 Dual gig….. so I am trying to find the value point on souping up this 3.2 power monster…

[Nate Stephens]

I just ordered a MacPro, using my clients University Discount. It was the University Mac Store suggestion to use my clients university’s ID card for the discount… It saved about the cost of the State sales tax and after rebate you get a free iPod Touch….. No too bad a favor from a client who cut 40% from my summer contract….

[Nate Stephens]

Christopher,

“would even dream of shooting DV instead of HD on a professional paying job with the HVX.”

I guess it would be the definition of professional paying job….

This is the third year in a row for this three week contract. We started with DV and Nikon stills to document this event… This year they cut my budget by 40% – 4 weeks before the event….. They have the money (federal grant) It is just the Old Dr. Geezer professor who is in charge, wants to make points or feed his pockets…

If I had had another “Pro” job to fill this three weeks,,, Yes, I would have walked…

But low pay is never a reason to do bad video, just do not give them the pretty stuff…. They can’t understand, or see the difference… so don’t kill yourself, for fools….. just do a good job and take the money………

Yes, I know the HD is so much prettier….. just show me the money…

[Nate Stephens]

“we always run mics through a mixer, always”

That explains how you are getting the control you were talking about….

Which makes Tom’s suggestion on a good little mixer a damn great idea…

Thanks to both….

Question, is the HPX500 audio controls response similar to the HVX,, If so, that would confirm the need for the Sound Design mixer… I can use it with both cameras..

thanks guys

[Nate Stephens]

Thanks Tom,

I will google the mixer now… It is nice to know that it isn’t my ears going bad, just low volume out of the headset jack… I am used to shooting Betacam SP and it is much more tolerant of excited voices..

I appreciated the suggestion…. Is the limiter on the Sound Devices very noticable or adjustable?

The HVX has on doesn’t it? Any experience with it… My experience with limiters is not a happy one..

[Nate Stephens]

“And don’t get used to that, that is way too low in my opinion. Digital audio works way different than analog. Even though -20 is 0, you have way more headroom to play with over ‘digital 0’ than you’d expect. A lot of experienced audio guys kind of didn’t believe us when we told them to raise the levels beyond -20 way back when we started with digital audio. I tend to have things peak @ -10, and even -6. Don’t be afraid to push the levels in audio just calibrate your mixer as such. This will help your headset volume as well. ”

When the new Sennheiser G2 wireless got here last week I tried them out on my self and it seems that when plugged directly into the camera, the voice would start to rattle when the audio meter hit the second bar (-12) … So I turned down the sensitivity in the Sennheiser to -20 and have been averaging the interviews on the HVX meter at the first mark which is -20, so the interviewed won’t peak much above -12 and hopefully not rattle.. My headset is not the best and the speakers in edit suite “B” are very basic, so they might be distorting way to early on playback..

I am plugging the wireless directly into the HVX, I can understand where a field mixer would be very helpfull.. (But this one man band has only so many hands…. I even get to ask the questions…..)

The HVX has a -50 and -60 audio setup. It seems if it had a -40 that I could use the middle of the mic dial instead of the first 2 dots…. But then I am not an audio expert… These new Sennheisers just make me sound like one..

If I don’t have to be so critical to avoid the voice rattle,, give me some hints on how to save that audio and correct that distortion in post…

[Nate Stephens]

https://www.addonics.com has all sorts of enclosures that you can build a raid from… But they will warn you that they do not offer the support dedicated raid VAR do… Addonics is just a distributor of the part-n-pieces…

But if your brave go for it… The Silicon chip set you refer to is only one of the chip sets that have the Silicon name.. if I remember Bob Zellins post about three months ago… Find the defective model number and steer clear…

If you get a raid to work from scratch, post your results and recipe… I hope to have the extra money to build an external raid by this fall..

[Nate Stephens]

Thanks Jeremy,

I appreciate the reminder. I am editing this in our “B” suite, our MBP laptop hooked to a monitor, not where I usually edit… and I forgot about the Quicktime default… you nailed it… thanks…

And I was just double checking that I was pumping the best DV from this little baby… It doesn’t seem as tight as our big Sony DXCwsl35/dsr1 but it is 1/3 the price and 1/3 the weight…. and comes very close to matching the Sony… I think the Sony is a little dryer looking, less Chroma… The Hvx is very chroma rich, the Sony is sharper edges but that is to be expected and maybe a little less noise.. But you have to struggle to point out noise in a well lit shot on this HVX…

I just don’t have the time or allowances for re-takes or back ups shooting these interviews. So, I can’t play with the setting on location. It is the first time I have had the HVX in the field.

I also noticed that the mic levels are not very sensitive between the off and the first and second dot. I tend to get no audio or almost too much and this is with the Sennheiser G2 set to -20dbs,,

That and the volume for the headset is way low.. I am used to lots of headset volume… But I am not so used to keeping the audio peaking at -20 either…

Every camera has their own dance… and I am enjoying my dance with the HVX…. just trying to make it perfect…

The first time out…