[Tony]

Just because one compressed codec is acceptable for some does not imply it should be acceptable for others just because the “big boys” use it.

just my two cents.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Ron,

Another suggestion would be to find an insurance carrier which can offer business coverage (liability and equipment coverage for rented and owned equipment)

I am sure alot of us on this site could benefit from a group rate policy break.

Thanks,

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Utimately the rental facilties and client demands will make the final decision as to which camera (Panasonic, Sony,GV,Ikegami,JVC, etc etc survives or goes to the wayside.

In short screw the manufacturer’s hype and BS and listen quite closely to what your repeat clients, rental facilties or vendors you do constant business are talking about.

Be sure to read between the lines to filter out the hype and find the truth.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Walter,

Normally I would agree with you but after three years of exhaustive testing using FCP and firefox and now mail I have never had any issues or downtown due to a nasty virus sneaking onto my G4.

I wish I could say the same for my windoze XP machine which sucks, sucks and sucks some more. After two complete reformatting of the hard drives due to a virus infecting the machine I have given up on XP and decided to switch the business operations to a dedicated Mac.

In anycase for those who want a rock solid no frills system then Walters method does offer the ultimate security.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

So you are doing a feature without any lighting? Is this a documentary style film or is the director caught in in the Dogma rules or filmmaking?

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Don’t get me started Spike,

Using a camcorder as a vtr is bad charma and will get you b@$%ch slapped in a heartbeat in addition doing so puts unnecessary wear and tear on the transport heads and is a slow and painful process compared to a studio vtr.

But even with all the positives I mentioned above the drawbacks are 1) FCP does not see timecode via the embedded HDSDI signal, 2) you cannot batch capture, 3)no firewire capture 4) I will have to report your devilish actions to the rental house.

Would you put diesel in car to get better mileage when you car only runs on unleaded?

A camcorder is a image capturing device for field work and was never meant to be used as a playback digitizing device for long term use with a NLE system. That said if you have a couple of shots to capture then no harm no fowl but if your dealing with alot of tapes and shots please rent the right vtr for the proper application.

Enuff said,

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

You should be recording to the SRW-1 portable HDCAM SR or SRW-5000 vtr if using the F950 in RGB 4:4:4 mode.

Unless you have the proper hard drive raid and capture card to handle dual link 4:4:4 your setup will crash and burn.

If this is your first time out with high end HD I recommend avoid all the headaches of capturing to an FCP system which is not the most ideal method for capturing in the field and instead record to HDCAM SR tape.

Another very important consideration is to hire an experienced qualified video engineer/DIT to oversee and run the camera and vtr.

Don’t try to cheap out on not hiring the proper manpower who understands and knows the gear best or you will be setting yourself up for failure.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Your question is too vague to answer properly.

What you need to consider is if their is even a need or want for the genre of the show you are thinking about?

What is the outlet cable, network, public access, your grandma’s private movies?

Most networks sell the commercial time so they make money on the ad time.

If you are serious about the project you should consider hiring an experienced producer who know the marketing and producing of tv programming and has a proven track record.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

P22 phospors are not suitable for critical color grading. SMPTE or EBU would be more ideal.

FYI neither monitor is worth a damn without a method to properly calibrate either with a external color calibration probe which allows adjusting the gain and bias controls on the monitor. Gain is white balance, bias is black balance. There are numerous inexpensive color calibration probe available thru third party vendors which can be used.

If you don’t want to deal with this take the monitor to a qualified engineer to confirm the monitor if within specifications for EBU standards.

If either monitor is out of spec all color grading decisions are invalid as your monitor will have a color bias which only exist on your monitor not other monitors which are properly calibrated.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Depending if you are capturing via firewire, SDI or analog. All will have on the ability or lack of to do any type of proc amp changes to the incoming video.

Generally bring it all in at unity levels and do color correction in the edit to comply with broadcast standards.

Of course depending on how the camera which shot the footage was adjusted this will have an impact on certain video levels being out of spec or dead on.

Tony Salgado