newbie advice?

December 13, 2005

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, but you may have seen me on B-roll.net or some other groups. I've been working in TV and video production for about ten years. Most of the shooting I've done has been with Betacam SP and SX cameras. I own a JVC GY-DV500 and I've used some DV palmcorders.

This weekend I'm going to be shooting part of a documentary with a DVX-100A. I've used one a couple of times before, when other people set it up for me. This time I'll be flying with out a net. Does any one have any advice on shooting with this camera before I go out in to the woods with it for two days? :blink:

We're shooting 24P for video, in 16x9. As I understand it, there are a couple ways to shoot 16x9 with this camera. In one it just puts up black bars, in the other it shoots anamorphic (?) squished video. All I know is that in FCP-5 on the producer's computer it looks fine in the preview monitor, but when she puts it on the time line it has to render and then it shows up in the time line monitor as 16x9. Does that give any one any hints as to which way the previous footage she has was shot? Is there another way to tell?

Thanks!

-Brian

Matt Irwin · December 13, 2005

We're shooting 24P for video, in 16x9. As I understand it, there are a couple ways to shoot 16x9 with this camera. In one it just puts up black bars, in the other it shoots anamorphic (?) squished video. All I know is that in FCP-5 on the producer's computer it looks fine in the preview monitor, but when she puts it on the time line it has to render and then it shows up in the time line monitor as 16x9. Does that give any one any hints as to which way the previous footage she has was shot? Is there another way to tell?

Yes, there are two ways in which the DVX does 16:9. The "squeeze" mode ignores the top and bottom pixels on the chip to get the 1.78 aspect ratio and then squeezes the image horizontally in order to fill the 4:3 frame. The result is "anamorphic" video, that when imported to your NLE, becomes 16:9. The "letterbox" mode simply puts black bars over the top and bottom and records a normal 4:3 letterboxed image. Either way, the verticle resolution of the 16:9 image is the same (although mixing letterbox and true 16:9 footage can complicate things in the edit).

In order to find out which mode the previous footgae was shot in, just look at the information on the clips in FCP. If "anamorphic" is checked, then it was shot in "squeeze" mode. If not, it was shot in "letterbox" mode.

Hope that helps,

Edited December 13, 2005 by Matt Irwin

December 14, 2005

Yes it does!

I spoke briefly with the person who shot the previous footage. He said he shot it in the F6 mode. Is that true 24P, or a 29.7 24 frame emulator? It's also animorphic right? Does it also turn off the auto iris and autofocus automaticly?

Any more info' and pointers on shooting with this camera on this setting would be greatly appreciated!

David Mullen ASC · December 14, 2005

Yes it does!

I spoke briefly with the person who shot the previous footage. He said he shot it in the F6 mode. Is that true 24P, or a 29.7 24 frame emulator? It's also animorphic right? Does it also turn off the auto iris and autofocus automaticly?

Any more info' and pointers on shooting with this camera on this setting would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not sure what the question is. The camera always records in 60i (59.94i / 29.97 frames per second). In 24P or 24PA mode, it captures in true 24P, adds a pulldown (standard or "Advanced"), and is recorded to 60i.

The trouble with the Scene Files is that they can be modified by the user -- 16x9 mode can be switched off, etc. Plus the DVX100A has two ways of doing 16x9 -- one is to crop & stretch, the other is to just letterbox 4x3. Auto features can be turned on or off in any Scene File mode.

I seem to recall that Scene File 6 in the factory settings uses 24P Advanced. But I believe whether you want to shoot in 16x9 mode has to be selected, but maybe I'm wrong.

One tends to tweak & personalize each Scene File setting for whatever project one is working on. But I remember using a DVX100A for some TV shots in my last film and having to switch between Scene File 6 for the 24PA behind-the-scenes stuff to Scene File 1 for the standard 60i video look, but having to manually turn off and on the 16x9 mode, because we were shooting 4x3 for the 60i material.