Matt Irwin

Hey guys, Does anyone know how many amps it takes to start (for example) a 1200w HMI on 110v? Is there a general rule to determine this (like # amps per 100w or something)? Thanks,

I haven't heard of a direct cam-to-comp cable that uses the P2 slot (yet), however there is a DTE product in development that uses the P2 slot called the Cineporter. From what I've read, it looks as if there will be several models, each with a successively larger hard drive. As far as practical design goes, I think it's a much smarter product that the firestore, especially since it records all the extra P2 metadata. Packs a wallop on the wallet though. Here's some links: http://www.spec-comm.com/cineporter.php http://www.p2info.net/articles/misc/cineportercp2.php

Yikes. Good to know, thanks Mitch.

I've read somewhere (might have been the Kino website, can't remember) that the max run from ballast to head should be no more than three 25' extensions, so 75'.

Yeah, I have my 9" ballasts wired exactly how yours are. I used wire nuts in this case as just a temporary setup to better visualize how these new ones work (my "wiring intuition" is not very good). Looking at the ballast this morning, I realized that I could make this work with 6 taps on the ballast, 6 strands of zip cord in head cable, and then do all of the wierd combining and crossing over with the tube harnesses. I would just have to color code everything and voila! The 2 AC lines in combined with a cube tap would work as a "1/2 ON > FULL ON" function. On a slightly related note... I've heard that using add-a-taps with fluorescents is "illegal" on union sets. Can anyone confirm or deny this? If it's true... why?!

You could try shooting day-for-night. If you have no portable lights, that may be the best option. I know you're in the outback, but what sort of terrain will you be shooting in-- desert, trees, hills, plains, etc? Are you going to need wide masters? If there aren't any wide shots and you're not in flat plains, you might be able to get away with some car batteries and small units with power inverters... or do you not have access to any lights at all?

Hey Everyone, For the past few years I?ve had several 4 bank t12 electronic brick ballasts wired with add-a-taps and used in some home made units. It?s pretty simple?there?s the ballast, a head-to-ballast cable consisting of 4 strands of zip cord inside a ?snake? tube with add-a-taps and plugs at either end, and the head wired with individual tube taps with add-a-taps on the pins and a plug connecting to the h2b cable. I?m making some more units and therefore need more ballasts which is where my problem comes in? The only 4 bank t12 ballasts I could find are magnetic and 18 inches long (the others are 9 inches) and have a completely different wiring pattern. There are two power inputs instead of one (each line in powers 2 tubes), and there are 4 yellow, 4 blue, and 4 red leads instead of 2 apiece. With my old ballasts I was able to wire them so there are 4 taps on the ballast and each tap feeds 1 of the 4 tubes. That configuration also allowed the use of 1,2,3, or 4 tubes?not just 2 on or 4 on. I bought 9 of these new ballasts and after frying one while trying to adapt it to the add-a-taps, I decided to wire the ballast to 4 tubes exactly as the wiring diagram shows, pin for pin, and then work from there. I used butt splices to connect to each pin and wire nuts with zip cord to temporarily extend the colored leads. I tested this configuration (picture below) and it works. I?m not an electrician, so my ?wiring intuition? is not all that good. Basically I?d like to figure out the simplest way to wire these ballasts for use in the same way I?ve been using the old ones (ie: ballast > head-to-ballast cable > head). I don?t need to use the ballasts interchangeably. Here is a PDF spec sheet on the ballast: http://www.advancetransformer.com/eCatalog...10020679291.pdf And the wiring diagram (in WMF format for some reason): http://www.advancetransformer.com/ecatalog...Art/FWDIA25.WMF And some pics of the wiring I did to copy the diagram: Thanks in advance for any help,

I wear crew shirts to work in as well, I was referring to those who wear ten different articles of crew/gear clothing at the same time. And yeah, I'd have to agree-- If I'm going to ruin clothes, they better be free clothes.

Sounds like my personal hell! What kind of scene is it? That will greatly effect the lighting approach... White rooms are a nightmare to light if you want even a little bit of contrast. I usually go for top light or a high cross key and do whatever I can to keep the light off the walls. Unless you're shooting an Overstock.com commercial, plan on carrying a LOT of flags and loose duvetyn.

When recording to tape in the HDV format, the color sampling = 4:2:0 like all HDV cams. When bypassing the VTR and piping out via SDI, the color sampling = 4:2:2. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, you can. The HVX has a tape transport identical to the DVX100B, so you can record 480/24p,30p,60i to tape if desired. So when in Tape Mode, the HVX in a sense becomes a DVX100 with a 16:9 chip and better optics.

But I love my Moviecam jacket! :P What always cracks me up are the guys that wear their resume to work. Ya know- Panavison hat, CSI script bag, Waterworld Rigging Crew t-shirt, Substitute 10 jacket, Bad Boys II boxer-briefs.... :lol:

Well, that's kind of a hard call to make because it's totally subjective: one camera will look better to one person while someone else might prefer the look of the other one. Both cameras have 1080 chips, however the HVX's chip is progressive while the XLH1's is interlaced. The HVX does true 24p, 30p, 60p, and 60i in 480, 720, and 1080 (no 60p in 1080), while the H1 does "24F" and "30F" (not true 24p, but looks really close). Based on the footage I've seen from both cameras and keeping in mind that the HVX is still in prototype stages, I think the Canon shoots some of the best looking HDV I've seen, but overall, I like how the HVX footage looks more than the H1. They way HVX renders motion as well as it's color rendering (4:2:2 as opposed to HDV's 4:2:0) appeal to me more. Now of course the SDI footage from the Canon that was recorded to an HD deck looks amazing, but as far as the cameras alone are concerned, right now I like the HVX. Again all of that is subjective, so I think you should look at the footage yourself and decide which cam you prefer.

Can you give some more info? What kind of output do you want to achieve? How big do you need it? How do you want it to mount- on roller stands, off of the light, etc? Also, are you talking tungsten? Fluorescent? Materials needed will be different for either.

Unless my brain is malfunctioning, no. The XLH1 is the only below-$10k camera out there that OUTPUTS 10bit 4:2:2 via SDI. I have heard that the HVX outputs analog uncompressed via the component out port, but don't quote me on that. My thoughts exactly. The advantage to using an XLH1 for it's SDI port right now is that you have the ability to RECORD uncompressed HD to an on-set RAID array as opposed to applying compression to that footage by hooking the SDI up to a HD deck. Like I said in my post above though, with the current technology and pricing, hooking that camera up to a deck or RAID is totally impractical if you need portability. Of course, that could all change tomorrow. If you need to record in an HD codec, the HVX/P2 system makes far more sense to me because it all happens IN the camera-- no tethering to a deck or washing-machine-sized RAID array.

Well, in the case of the HVX, yes. The tape transport in the HVX is identical to that in the DVX100, so it only records DV 24p/30p/60i. In order to record in DVCPRO50 or HD on the HVX, you would have to record to P2, firestore, or some other DTE. The difference between recording HD to tape and recording HD to P2 is that there is no possibility of dropouts and there is no need to digitize footage-- just drag and drop. SDI is professional connection that is NOT Canon-proprietary. In fact you'll find an SD- and/or HD- SDI port on most modern broadcast cameras. In the case of the XLH1, the SDI port gives you the ability to bypass the HDV recorder and pipe out 10-bit Uncompressed 1080 4:2:2 (the image is actually processed at 8-bit and output at 10-bit, according to Canon @ DV Expo) to a RAID array (to hold the uncompressed footage) or to an HD deck where the footage will be recorded to HDCAM or DVCPROHD tape (a codec is applied and the footage is no longer uncompressed). The problem, for now at least, is there is no portable solution for the SDI connection. So if you plan on staying in the studio with the XLH1, you'll be fine; but if you want to use the SDI for run-and-gun shooting, get a hold of a ruck sack, an HD deck, and a car battery. :D

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,

I talked to a few Panasonic reps at DV Expo, and they are saying the actual release date is Dec. 29, even though officially it was yesterday (Dec. 7). All in all, after playing around with the camera and having a long chat with DP Matt Siegel (who's been working with the engineers on the HVX development), I'm extremely impressed. Panasonic really listened to the end users.

Siders are nice to have. Frankly, all that stuff would be nice to have if you can afford it. The follow focus is more worth getting because although it's not marked, the DVX focus ring is calibrated and repeatable.

I know this sort of thing has been addressed here before, but using a meter with video is not really necessary. A calibrated reference monitor (and/or a waveform monitor, budget and camera permitting) would be better tools for judging exposure on video. I usually light to a reference monitor and then use a meter to keep the footcandles on the key as well as the key-to-fill ratio consistant during coverage, but not to determine exposure. That's both the blessing and the curse of video: You can see exactly how your image will be exposed before you roll.

Yes, I'm on a mac. You don't have to pay for QT7 Pro to support h.264. The support is part of the upgrade. I'm not entirely sure how quicktime works on windows machines-- Quicktime is engrained into the mac OS so when you update on a mac, that's it- all your QT-based apps are updated. I have never used Screenblast before, so if there are issues with that program I am unaware. I am by no means a codec expert, but from what I have seen, h.264 absolutely trounces WMV. Sorensen 3 is not bad either. I usually do all my compressing with Final Cut via Compressor, so I don't really do personal work in the Windows-oriented avi or wmv formats. I think to be compatible with anyone who might view a site, I would offer clips in both WinMedia and QT based codecs. You'll have to decide how much you're willing to compress the clips, but from what I've seen h.264 has the cleanest image-to-file-size trade off.

I'm on a 3 meg cable modem. Your pages loaded within 2 seconds. Good, clean site. Here's what I noticed: -My monitor res is set at 1600x1200, so when I view your pages, there is a considerable amount of white space around the sides. Maybe it's just me, but the white is a little distracting. Maybe change it to black or a darker shade of grey than your page background. -Also I think it would look better if the page was centered on the browser window. Right now it has a left-side bias. Centering would look much better on monitors/browser windows set at high resolutions. -Video: While Real Media is a decent-enough delivery format for the web, it might be a better idea to go with a Quicktime or (hate to say it...) Windows Media codec. Or both. Those formats are much more common than Real Media, and will run problem-free on more computers. (I know people who refuse to look at .rm files because it gives them too much trouble on their computers). The new Quicktime h.264 codec is an awesome delivery codec. Far better compression with better quality AV than .rm or .wmv. If you do use h.264, make sure you link to a QT7 download because all previous QT versions won't play it. Hope this is helpful,

Stephen, If you can't leave Arkansas, keep your ears and eyes open for any productions that come to your area and try to get a job or internship wherever you can. Chances are that it would be a PA position, but just try to make any connections you can-- Especially with local crew. That way you might be able to start a local working relationship. If you know what area of film you want to go into (writing, directing, cinematography, edititing, production design, etc.), you should start practicing to hone your craft as much as you can. Good luck!

I'd have to agree with Josh here. If you end up sending your film to a festival, you might have a better chance getting it shown if it's 10 minutes or less. It's easier to put a 10 minute film into one of those "shorts programs" that may have ten films lumped into a 2 hour slot. If you are just starting out, maybe aim for a shorter running time than 10 min. Just be as tight as you can while still telling the story you want to tell. A lot of beginning student shorts I've seen could have been much better with a few minutes cut out.

Just so I understand your question, are you trying to connect an XLR shotgun mic to a 3.5 mini-jack on the camera? If so, a company called Beachtek makes an adapter specifically for that purpose and they can be found here. Since this is a cinematography forum that deals mainly with lighting and camera work (etc), you may get more replies to audio questions at a production audio forum or DVInfo. Best,