[Reg Gothard]

(Thanx Thax… Duh – why didn’t I think of this? (rhetorical question))

So the 12V stuff is a doddle. That covers my mic receivers and most on-camera lighting.
But I was hoping to find a product that provides several outputs from one (12V) source, with each output having the facility to
a) select a voltage
b) select a polarity
Why? Because of the non-12V equipment I have and/or might acquire in the future. For example, camera…
I’d like the option of running my camera from the same external DC power supply as the other items (darned Sony InfoLithium batteries have that “memory effect” and I’m always scared of a battery manifesting that effect at a critical moment – yes I carry spares…)
VX2000 AC adapter outputs 8.4V at 1.5A (there’s a symbol just before the voltage – two horizontal lines – the upper one is solid, the lower one a dashed line. Can’t find the meaning of this symbol)
VX2000 batteries output 7.2V.
Sony sells a DCC-L50B car battery adapter that apparently you can run the camera from, but that’s just trading one power brick (AC-DC) for another (DC-DC).
I’ve been reading about DC voltage stabilizers, shunt regulators, active regulators… but I’m not electronically inclined (wiring a flashlight circuit is about my limit…)
Am I wasting my time looking for such a device? Am I wasting other peoeple’s time asking? (if so, multitudinous apologies!)

The other part of my question related to carrying the equipment (especially wireless receivers) around on my person. I don’t want to scare people by looking like I’m wearing something that might detonate, but I do want to be mobile. Any suggestions, given that for the foreseeable future I won’t be trading my VX2000s up for anything that allows easy/direct attachment of wireless mic receivers? The only thing I can think of is a vest with pockets big enough for all this stuff. A large fanny pack (large pack not large f…) would work but it’d have to share my (rapidly-disappearing) waistline with a battery belt.

[Reg Gothard]

My strategy for burning DVDs (with 100% success on well over a thousand discs so far) is to burn them slowly.
My faulty/return rate was about 3% about 2 years ago. I read, asked, experimented… and as a result am using Taiyo 8x DVD-Rs burned at 4x on Pioneer DVR-109 burners.
I had been using Ritek, then moved to Maxell at the same time I reduced my burn speed and changed my burner(from a poorly-supported LG burner). Since then I’ve changed to Taiyo discs. Although I changed burner, DVDs and burn speed, I’m positive that the burn speed was the thing that really fixed my problems. My rationale for that view is that it explains why every brand of DVD has both fans and hate-mail – ditto for most decent brands of DVD burner. The fans are burning DVDs slowly, and the hate-mail writers are burning them quickly. (Sweeping generalization, but…)
Some people advocate that we should burn at 2x (despite the abilty to burn at 8x, 12x, 16x), but I’ve found that 4x is slow enough.

I also keep my bitrate down below 6000 for the most part. I’m not sure if this helps though. I remember reading somewhere that in order to call itself a DVD player, a machine has to handle a minimum rate of 8000 (it might have been even higher). I just need time to do some more messing around with constant vs. variable rates, and high vs. low rates, and then I’ll start getting adventurous with bitrates…

But to re-iterate – my recommendation is to burn DVDs slowly.

[Reg Gothard]

Not sure if this question is posed for me, Neil or both of us. But anyway – I’m using VX2000’s at present. The events that I shoot that might need mobile footage include weddings (indoor and outdoor), equestrian events, and the odd documentary.

[Reg Gothard]

This is something I’d like to read more of people’s experiences about. I’ve been researching for something that will help me go mobile in a range of situations, and my conclusion so far is that no one item will do everything I want.
Varizoom’s Flowpod strikes me as an excellent combination of monopod and stabilizer (although I haven’t tried one yet), but if a person wanted to throw in the occasional up shot from near ground level, you have to pause and re-rig the Flowpod with its low-flo kit first (I’ve been told about the “turn the camera and monopod upside down” trick – haven’t tried that yet either).
And the big disadvantage of most stabilizers is the strain they put on your arm (I’m told).

Enter the stabilizer-and-vest combinations. But now (I assume) you’re limited to the reach of whatever mechanism links the camera to the vest. No quick change to high-up shots or low-flo shots. And I think I’d feel like a bodyguard with that vest on under a suit…
The demo footage of the Steadicam Merlin is VERY impressive, but same likely problem – arm strain. And it isn’t a monopod substitute like the Flowpod.
I haven’t yet tried the Fig Rig – it was recommended to me at a recent meeting, but I’m not convinced it’s going to help me and my shaky hands…

After reading back what I just wrote, I think I convinced myself that the Flowpod is the best compromise for me, but before I part with my money… please would those of you with experience of different systems be prepared to share your experiences – pros and cons of the various systems?

[Reg Gothard]

I’d like to echo two points made in these responses…

1) don’t burn at anywhere near highest speed. I use Taiyo Yuden 8x DVDs that are encoded to allow me to burn at 12x – I burn at the *minimum* speed, which is 4x for these discs.

2) Don’t allow high bit rates. When the program is shorter than say 90 mins, it seems logical to increase the bitrate to fill the disc as much as possible. I now keep it below 6000kb/s no matter what. What prompted me to check this out was after playing a short-duration DVD I’d burned on a customer’s DVD player and seeing it pixelate. Their player has an analogue bitrate meter built in, and that triggered the thought in my mind. I re-rendered the program with a lower bit rate, and the resulting (half-empty) disc played perfectly.

I’m currently using Ulead DVD Workshop for DVD authoring/burning, but have DVD-A sitting on my desk waiting to install. So I can’t comment on possible bugs in DVD-A.

I used to burn at 8x, and was getting returns (e.g., 3 out of 135; 3 out of 103). The last two projects I’ve done were burned at 4x with a limited bitrate, and so far I’ve got zero returns out of a 37 disc run and a 42 disc run. Early days I agree, but the signs are good…

Having changed burners, shut everything else down on my computer, tried Riteks, Maxells and now Taiyo Yudens, I believe that the burn speed and bit rate were the causes of my woes.
Hope this helps.
Reg

[Reg Gothard]

Thanks all for sharing your wisdom and opinons. I’ll digest, see how fat the piggybank is, then make my choice. (aaagh! decisions decisions!)
Regards
Reg

[Reg Gothard]

My personal advice wood bee never too re-lie on a spell chequer. This email was typed inn Word and nun of the (at least 19) miss takes were picked up. (Chequer might fail inn US English, butt Canadian and other flavours of English let it through).
Spell chequers mite bee useful for course-grained pick-up of typos etc., especially in large amounts of text, but will knot pick up wrongly used words or miss spelt names of people, places etc. (witch comprise a high percentage of the text I putt in videos). You should all ways check the old fashioned way.

** A good tip ** for proof reading your own writing is to read it backwards

[Reg Gothard]

Hi,
I know there’s a lot of people out there suffering with the “Tray not aligned” error on the Epson printers.
Did a lot of digging, and found that Epson redesigned the tray. (Clear plastic strip replaced with integral leader) I got a new one, and so far it’s working perfectly, although it’s early days yet.

Had to re-do my Googling to find the info, but here is a link to a forum that explains what I found out by other means.
https://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=167431

The post in question lists three dealers who have the replacement tray. I got mine from Compass Micro in Portland, OR for US$7.00 (approx).

Here’s the link to the page from Compass’s web site
https://www.compassmicro.com/partsdetail.cfm?ID=2034&Printer=648&backpage=1

For those of you in the UK, here’s a link to a place – cost is 9.99 pounds though, and I can’t vouch for them having the redesigned version.
https://www.amscomputers.co.uk/?page=products&action=viewitem&subaction=main&nodes=47,108,111&id=312

Hope this helps someone…

[Reg Gothard]

Thanks all for your suggestions and info.
I’m planning to buy the product in September (no time to play before then) but this one keyboard shortcut was my only reservation. I thinbk I can now “buy with confidence” and finally eliminate my dependence on my Radius Firewire card.