John Ealer

Best guess is that the detail was cranked up on the camera settings. Detail is, basically, an electronic process that enhances the apparent sharpness of the image by accentuating edges. It was originally developed for SD back in the day to help make the image appear sharper despite the relatively low resolution. Depending on the HD system you're using, little, if any, detail is generally needed. Again, it depends on what look you're going for. You can try to add a bit of softness back in in post, but it's a bit tricky to get rid of that "detail"-y look without making the image look soft. It's one of those things that once it's baked into the image, it's tough to get out. J

The HDX-900 of course shoots 24, 30 and 60p, and provides great results at all those frame rates. If you want the 24P look, you'll have to conform back to 24P...how you do that will depend on the edit platform you're using. If using FCP, you may want to explore the DVCPROHD Frame Rate Converter Tool (in the TOOLS Menu) or Cinema Tools. J

Yes, and of course with the shutter set to your desired angle / speed as well. J

Depends on what you want the shot to look like, of course, but personally and generally speaking I would tend to use the cooler (6300) setting since most of the time you want the crank up the warmth of the rising sun, anyway. J

Of course, you could try one of the spinning ground glass relay/adaptor systems, like the P+S Technik Pro35, which add texture to the image by focusing it on an oscillating ground glass and then capturing that image with the HD camera. Advantages are 35mm DOF, PL mount lenses, and, if you like the texture, the texture. Disadvantages are: light loss (up to 2 stops), bulkiness, and, if you don't like the texture, the texture. There are many other threads you could explore that have feedback about the many adaptor system out there. I think you're right, though, not to try to simulate grain through electronic noise. Different beasts. J

The battery setting only determines how the cam determines battery level since different batts have different discharge characteristics. Hytron 100 setting will be fine.

If you want the best results, I would shoot 24PA, remove the pulldown during capture, then output a 24P quicktime and have that converted using the Alchemist... But if you want to make it easier, you can just shoot 24p and convert the camera original tape, which I've done many times and yields good results. A lot will depend on the PAL / NTSC converter - the Alchemist is my favorite, followed by Teranex...but these options are both expensive... The absolute least expensive but still adequate approach would be to do the conversion in Final Cut (if you use it) using the Nattress Standards Conversion plug in. J

IMHO, I'd take the set of (8) digiprimes and shoot the whole thing wide open - a 1.6 or 1.9 depending on the prime. Saves all the hassle of the rig and the oscillating ground glass and the light loss. J

Also, with the BT-LH1700, as with most Panasonic monitors, there's a gamma setting. For most situations you want it set to NORMAL and not FILM. The FILM mode is usually used when shooting with the Varicam in FILM REC mode.

Simply put: In the same environment you plan on viewing the monitor - i.e. inside / outside / with hoodman, etc. 1. Send SMPTE bars from the camera. 2. Turn on "blue only" function on the monitor. 3. Adjust chroma and phase until the there's no difference in brightness between any sections of the blue bars. 4. Turn off "blue only." 5. On the bottom right of the screen there are three black bars called a "pluge." Adjust brightness until you can just make out the right-most bar. The other two should be indistinguishable from the adjacent black areas. 6. Adjust contrast to eye, until the white block at the bottom left looks "white" and the white bar on the upper left looks slightly less bright than the white block. 7. There's a waveform function on the monitor you can use to double check your exposure, etc. J

It really depends on the post production pipeline and what color correction, if any, will be done later. If you're shooting news, I would say you're best leaving it at 100, since it's legal and will have to go on air right away. But for other venues, I generally think it's worth to keep the extra dynamic range above 100, gives you a little more detail in the whites that you can pull back in later. For broadcast distribution, most shows will get pushed through some sort of legalizer to check black and white levels and clip off anything above 100, anyway.

Sorry, but miniDV (25mbs) is only SD - it's basically working very much like a DVX-100 at that point. With P2 you can also shoot DVCPRO50 (SD at 50Mbps) and DVCPROHD (1080i/720p at 100Mbps). J

If you shot on miniDV tape with the HVX, you shot SD. It doesn't record HD on tape - all the HD formats are P2 only. J

I assume you meant that you shot miniDV 24p with the HVX, not HDV (which the HVX doesn't support). If so, then you can play the miniDV tape back on pretty much any miniDV camera...or even DVCAM deck or DVCPRO deck...and just capture via firewire. J

Set camera mode to 720 / 24p, set SYSTEM FREQ to 59.94. This will give you 24P (23.976) look pulled down to 60P (59.94), which is ideal for downconverting to NTSC. Also, not all camera people are "boys"... J