[Todd Terry]

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong (and I hope I am), but I’ve never been able to find any available compliations of settings… even after pretty exhaustive search.

Now that being said, I will admit that most of my searching came shortly after we bought our XLH1, which was very shortly after the camera was released. Someone might have released something by now, but I looked a bit pretty recently and haven’t been able to find any.

My best suggestion would be to do what we did… just bite the bullet and make your own. We spent a good bit of time very carefully going through all the two-dozen or so settings and tweaking them to death until we came us with some presets that would emulate my four favorite filmstocks (all Vison2… 5201, 5212, 5217, and 5205) and was finally able to match them pretty well. I didn’t use any scopes or test instruments, I just did it by eyeball with a good calibrated color monitor.

Unfortunately my numbers will not accurately transfer to anyone else’s XLH1, because we never use the stock video lens. We use cine primes which of course have very different color and contrast characteristics compared to the Canon video zoom… so my numbers really only work for my particular set of Leitz/Panavision primes. In fact we had to make a couple of extra specific presets for a couple of Lomo and Arri lenses we have so they would match the others.

If there IS an available settings list floating around, I’d be interested in it as well, as we might have call to use the video lens sometime.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yes, both tripods…..

I would block it like this….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

It’s been a while since I’ve had the XL1’s out, but if I recall, you CANNOT turn any of the on-screen display off from the video-out feed by using any of the camera controls or settings (you will make yourself crazy trying to figure out how).

If I’m remembering right, you can ONLY turn off the on-screen display using the camera’s remote control. I don’t remember exactly where the button on the remote is or what it’s called (sorry, our XL1 is packed away in storage, or I would check), but I imagine it is called either “DISPLAY” or “ON SCREEN.” Just use that button to toggle the display on and off.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yep that’s good advice, 4:3, 60i.

You specifically said NEWS B-roll… I can’t imagine any news outfit going for 24p footage just for plain-ol B-roll that they need to be able to intercut with other footage, it just doesn’t look like their other stuff.

Now if you have exclusive footage of a one-time news event, then they would probably take whatever they can get.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hi Matt…

Firstly, thank you for your service.

The advice given to you above by the other two guys is very good and valid… great suggestions.

I guess it bothers me a little that Uncle Sam doesn’t provide you the help you need, OR make use of your talent and my tax dollars by already using you in the area of your growing expertise. I mean, you’re not learning anything about the video biz by being an MP (and sounds like you don’t want to be one either), and it’s not making good use of abilities that you already have. I realize of course that it is not exactly your choice as to what you get to do while in the service.

Couple of cases in point…

Over on the “Art of the Edit” forum there was recently a soldier asking for tips on improving the video production that he does for the Army. His work was not bad, not bad at all… and he obviously was getting some resources, toys, and maybe some instruction. He will be in a darn good position when he is out of the service.

A past junior editor of mine joined the Air Force after he left our company. He is presently shooting and doing various video production for the Air Force. True, he is in Baghdad… but at least doing video.

Just last week I got a resume and DVD in… the showreel of a young guy fresh out of the Navy, where his assignment was “videojournalist.” His reel has several “news story” type pieces that he produced on board ship… where he did everything, shooting, lighting, editing, etc. I must say that I was very surprised in that it was pretty good. Pretty darn good, in fact. One of his stories was on the plumbers on board a ship. Another was on the guys whose duty is to restock all the vending machines on board (who knew that was even a job… let alone a HARD job? You should see these guys literally throwing thousands of heavy cases of Cokes from one deck up to another all day).

My point is, our service members (with a few exceptions) don’t get paid enough for what they do… so I wish SOME of that payment was in the form of training that will help you back out in the real world. I know you can’t just transfer wherever you want whenever you want and do whatever you want… but if there was ANY way to get you in that position that would be the way to go.

In the meantime, take the other guys’ advice greatly to heart.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yikes, I hope not… that’d drive us out of biz.

We don’t do half days, or full days for that matter. We work hourly, only. Half day?…if you consider that to be 4 hours, well that’s 4x our hourly rate. Full day is 8x or 10x, however long you need.

We usually charge the same base rate (which, by the way, is the cheapest in town) no matter what the format, be it DV, Betacam, HD, 16mm, or 35mm. That “base” is $300/hour, and includes camera, crew, support, lighting and sound packages, Losmandy jib, skateboard dolly, track…etc. Tack on the usual extras like film or tape stock, mileage, etc.

We generally don’t cut that rate if all the toys aren’t needed. If a shoot only requires one camera and one guy and literally nothing else, it’s still the same rate. That has kept clients from nickle and diming shoots to death, and keeping their bean counters from making my creative decisions for me (i.e., “Yeah, a crane shot would be cool… is that gonna cost a lot more?”).

We usually charge a little bit more per hour if the client needs a teleprompter (because we need an operator for it), or Steadicam (because I’m getting older and my back is tired).

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Some cameras do it differently, but on the HV20 if you use the camera itself to “downconvert” HDV footage to SD, it will be anamorphic (the 16:9 picture squeezed side to side to fit 4:3). I don’t think there is any other way with the HV20. The HV20 is a GREAT little camera expecially considering it’s almost throwaway cost, but there are limitations with it like specific capabilities like this. I’m not sure about the internal downconversion capabilities of the XHA1 (we use the similar XLH1, but never use the camera itself to downconvert so I’m not sure what all it will do).

So… you probably want to do the downconvert and resizing during capture. That will all depend on the capability of your system. I’m sorry, I’m not much familiar with the Black Magic workings… it might be the case that it will easily do this for you.

For example, when I want to caputure standard-def versions of HDV footage (my machine has an AJA XENEA board and KONA breakout box), I just take the signal in via HD-SDI… capturing via AJA Machina, I can define that I want the footage captured as SD, not HD… and can assign whether I want the footage captured as letterboxed, anamorphic, or center-cut. Perphaps there is some kind of similar capabilities with Black Magic. I would inquire over in their forum.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

“If this client insists on using this music, I would insist that they sign a release taking full responsibility for any legal action that occurs as a result of the use of said music and I would even float it by their supervisor if there is one.”

That’s a good idea in theory, but in practicality (if someone took you to court) it won’t hold up. It might show “good faith” but it does not actually release the producer from any liability. It’d be a bit akin to shoplifting, getting caught, but telling the cop “My buddy said it’s ok, he signed a note taking the blame.”

In some instances a signed “waiver” like that might actually hurt, because you can no longer “play dumb”… you now basically have paperwork saying that you fully know you shouldn’t be using the music.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Ok John…

First of all it is VERY important that you do this exactly right… if not (cross polarity), it can have very bad consequences.

Ok step one… the goldmount plate. Hold the plate so that you are looking at it with the two connector pins facing UP (and the three mounting holes in the place will make a “face,” two holes at top for eyes, and one hole at bottom for mouth). If you are holding it like that, then the pin on the LEFT is NEGATIVE, and the pin on the RIGHT is POSITIVE.

The way that it is oriented on the picture below, the LOWER pin is NEGATIVE and the UPPER pin is positive…

You want to wire the AB plate so that the NEGATIVE of the goldmount connects to pin number ONE on your four-pin XLR connector (well, I said pin, but it’s a hole, not a pin, you should be connecting to a female XLR connector). And connect the POSITIVE of the goldmount to pin number FOUR on the XLR. The other two pins on the XLR aren’t connected to anything.

GOLDMOUNT with pins pointing up
LEFT is NEGATIVE
RIGHT is POSITIVE

XLR connection from goldmount
PIN 1 connects to goldmount NEGATIVE
PIN 2 is unconnected
PIN 3 is unconnected
PIN 4 connects to goldmount POSITIVE

Sorry for the repetition, just wanted to stress how important it is that this is not hooked up backwards.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

The “CP4” indicates that the custom presets are turned on, and preset #4 is selected.

The presets on/off switch is on top of the camera body under the handle, there is a row of buttons and it is the second one from the rear.

Read up on presets in your manual, it’s a little too complex to get into here.

I’m fairly certain your audio drops and glitchy video are completely unrelated to this. Try another tape, and find a brand you like and stick with it. Cameras don’t like swapping brands, the lubes can be incompatible and get gunky.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com