Finally Pulled The Trigger - XH-A1
 

Ordered it, 2nd day, this afternoon from B&H.............

I want to add my thanks to all the great folks who have furnished so much information since I began lurking around here a few months ago. I am an amateur's amateur, but I feel that changing and hope to see my status change quickly in the coming months. I'll ask for your continued patience in helping me learn.

Here's my setup....

Dell XPS 600, 3GB Core 2 Duo, 500GB, 7200RPM Main Drive, 2 X 250 GB, 7200RPM in Raid 0, 300 GB External Maxtor One Touch II (firewire), 2GB Ram, 2 nVidia 7900 w/Dual DVI, Dell 2405 and 2007 digital monitors.

Learning and editing with Adobe Production Studio Premium Suite. Daunting, but FUN!!

Here's what I ordered today....

XH-A1
Rode NTG-2 w/DeadCat
Portabrace Bag (CSDV-3U)
BP-970 Battery
Hoya Filter Kit (UV, Warming, & Polarizer)
Misc stuff, Tapes, etc

Libec LS-38 Tripod (Tapeworks Texas)

Probably gonna order a J-Rod this evening. I'll get Cineform Aspect HD when the credit card cools off and the smoke dissipates.

Thanks again to Chris for a GREAT site and to all the other professionals and amateurs as well. See y'all around the boards.

Sheesh thats a nice setup man, congrats on making a decision, im pulling my hair out waiting to do so. Ah well.

- Kyle

damn my eyes turned green just reading your computer description. I will most likly be purchasing an A1 in the next week or so if I dont change my mind once again.

Sounds like a great set-up. I'll be interested to hear how you get on, especially with the Rode mic. I have the Rode VideoMic, which shares some componants but has a plastic body and unbalanced output. It sounds pretty good (for the money) but is very prone to wind-noise even with the dead cat and low-cut filter on. Do you have a shock-mount for it or will you mount it in the built-in holder? You may find it needs a bit of padding to be secure in there.

Will it be delivered on Saturday so you can play with it this weekend? Hope the weather's good...

I've ordered the J-Rod with the EA-86 shock mount. Unfortunately, it will not arrive Saturday, so I'll have to muddle through until early next week. Not a problem though.....I slept much better last night just knowing it is on the way and I've committed.

Hi Dearl, I also ordered an A1 this week AND edit with Adobe's PC software. My cam hasn't arrived yet, but I've played around with downloaded M2T's on the timeline in PPro 2. I'm anxious to see if I'll need to invest in Cineform software to keep things near realtime with multiple streams. I have an older dual-core AMD 3800+ that I might have to upgrade, as well.

I've been editing SD content with Adobe's suites for about three years now and, barring a few niggles, think they make a great package for video, motion graphics, sound, and DVD authoring on the PC.

Anyways, it's nice to know someone on the forum with a similar camera and software to mine.

Stay in touch,
Brian Brown
http://www.brownland.org/blog/

Me 2

Got the A1 3 weeks ago,

my setup is:

Intel Core 2 extreme 2x 2,93 GHz
2Gigs RAM
Geforce 7900 GT 512MB Dual DVI
Asus Motherboard P5B Deluxe
2x 200 Gig HD SATA2
Samsung Syncmaster 930 BF (saving for my 2.)

Adobe Production Studio Premium

As far as I can say, my computer handles HDV very good...no need for intermediate codecs ;)

Hey....must be something in the air! I ordered mine this week as well!!!!!

I also managed to pick up one of those dead cat things you were talking about along with a neat fitted case:-

http://www.benchtest.com/pictures/cat_in_case.jpg

I'm having trouble finding a suitable mount, any suggestions?

That's good to hear, Rolf! Hopefully mine will, too.

Of course, your processor is a little more Extreme than mine. Wow! That's a nice setup you got there.

Take care,
Brian

Really? I didn't know that, I have ner respect for my videomic now.

Alistair.....See Post #5 regarding mic mount. Thanks for the cute "deadcat" pic. We have an OLD (18 yrs) Siamese.

Woohoo...I got a parcel..I got a parcel!

First impressions coming from an XL1 are.....my word....it's small!

But...so long as it does the job then I'll be happy (I'm sure I've found myself saying that before?)

Boy oh boy...they sure have crammed a LOT of stuff into this camera. Some of it I feel at home with from my XL1. A lot of it is new so there will be lots of bedtime reading.

It is small... but I think that's wonderful. I've been lugging around an XL2 and H1... now that I have the A1 it's my camera of choice, a much more convenient size.

And you know what, I've been doing a job the past three weeks shooting interviews for a small company. I used the H1 every day initially because I thought its size would impress the client. On Monday I switched to the A1 and continued shooting interviews with the same group. Nobody noticed the change! Being a bit of a tech-head I found that unbelieveable, but the point is if you're doing your job right nobody cares - size doesn't matter - and the A1 is a slick machine anyway.

Enjoy your camera!

Mine came today too. I took delivery at the office and, so far, have only charged the battery. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long night though.

I finally ordered one over the weekend, along w/ a Libec LS-22M Tripod.