Tip Mcpartland
Forum Replies Created
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I bought my F350 and Fujinon lens from them, the contact/owner is Billy DeCola. Frankly, I couldn’t have afforded this camera and the good lens I got buying them any other way than Billy’s “grey market” operation.
The merchandise comes in directly from Japan, Billy DeCola has an office in Tokyo and ships to your address, he handles/pays customs duties and shipping (at least he did for me) and he is totally legitimate, although of course you must perform your own due diligence. But Billy seemed a pretty cool guy.
My camera arrived in perfect condition, it still works perfectly several months later, it came with an English language manual, and if I need warranty repairs Billy will expedite Japanese warranty service with one-day shipping each way. Personally, I believe that having warranty work done at the Sony factory in Japan instead of here is perhaps a benefit, although I haven’t had to find out for sure myself. Billy says the work is better, the wait is shorter, and the shipping is just as fast.
Someone once told me that these “grey market” Sonys will always have to be serviced in Japan, but one of the best LA area distributors assured me that they will service it post-warranty, but double check on this, having to send it to Japan in the relatively unlikely event of a warranty repair is one thing, but having to pay Sony Japan to repair it later would probably be a bummer, so if you are really interested in one of these grey market cameras make sure you are clear on your service options.
One more thing — my camera accepted the latest firmware upgrade (US) without any problems.
Tip McPartland
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On one of the Avid forums I read that Xpress Pro works well with Sound Blaster cards, I installed their cheap X-Fi card ($80) and the application started up with no issues.
Tip
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Updated the graphics driver, it is an ATI Radeon. Before the update it said X300, now it says X300/x550.
No change, still hangs on “initialize audio.” One more thing, sometimes it gives an error message like “cannot initialize audio hardware” and then it closes the application (which was never really open). Once it also complained that there was no Digidesign hardware. Does any of this make sense?
Tip
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Michael, thanks for your reply. It gives me something to try. The OS is Windows XP Service Pack 2 (version 5.1 build 2600) but it is the “Media Center Edition.”
I’m going to try to figure out what the deal is with the video and audio drivers, I suppose that both have built in (on the MB) hardware.
Tip
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Call me at my work number: (310) 806-4406. I am Los Angeles based, and know several other people with good XDCAM gear.
I have the 350 model with Fujinon 13×3.3 HD lens (very wide) and much more. I also have a good little “B-Cam” which is the Sony V1. The XDCAM HD shooter would be Chris Rhodes, Emmy-winning network veteran — one of the best cam-ops in the business. I am also a competent shooter and this would be more economical, but Chris is a genius with a camera. He also owns a Cam-Mate jib and is one of the best jib operators in town.
Give me a call at the above phone number anytime between 11:00 am Monday and 5:00 pm Thursday for more information.
Tip McPartland
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I would think that the single frame is recorded as a 12 frame GOP, but since there is no difference between it and the following eleven frames there is no delta information, so all the bandwidth can go to the one frame, making it effectively intraframe.
Tip
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Hey Nate,
Thanks for your post. My mind is to some extent put to ease knowing that 30P is good, but who would’ve thunk that they screwed up 24P even by that percentage. Do you know why that happens? If 15%, that would bring the camera down to 918, still a bump up from the JVC but will probably go fuzzy on the newer 1080 line TVs. Anyway, gracias for the info.
If you’re in Santa Monica or West LA, call my office at 310 806-4406 and I’ll pop for lunch.
Tip
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Jim,
Fair enough, I haven’t been able to try the one disc I made on a set-top player, so I certainly can’t disagree with you. But I would be ticked off at Sony if that was the case.
Tip
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This drive by Logitech is reputed to be a Mac burner, and if so it would be a good one since it has 50 GB dual layer recording. I didn’t read the article yet so I can’t jot down the release date.
https://www.macnn.com/articles/06/08/02/first.mac.blu.ray.drive/
Tip McPartland
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In the first line of my last post I mentioned the Sony player, I meant to say Sony burner.