My IDX only draws 10 watts. However, it's supposed to be equivalent to a 35w lamp. It consists of 3 LED's, so it's very bright without drawing much power.

I am very interested in your comment about dropping the shutter down to 1/30th for night shooting. I always use the standard 1/60th. I am a bit worried about it looking a bit strobbed out but it sounds like it really helps the performance. I haven't had the nerve to try it yet. I suppose it's a good compromise.

I've always felt that my night footage looked decent because of the camera light but it has that sterile 60i framerate look. Maybe the slower shutter will give it more of that "progressive" punch which seems to be lost when shooting at night.

Well, that is on my wish list. I guess I'm old fashioned, but I like the permanence of tapes, especially for archiving purposes. For the commercial shoots I do, that is a must. I know, I can record to tape and a hard drive at the same time, but for me, a deck will do for now.
Also, my equipment dealer told me there's been problems with the Firestore for our cameras, something to do with overheating and corrupting the files. He told me not to rely on them too much. I don't know how true that statement is, but since it came from a guy who could have made some bucks selling me one, that made me hold off on the purchase.
But I'm open to input from you guys. Has anyone had issues with the Firestore device? Is it a more sensible purchase over the record deck?

Scott slowing framerate
 

(edit - heading should be shutterspeed, I only just finished my coffee!) I'll post some clips, I know I know, once I get my server up I shot in PAL DV 16:9, and will show you what a difference the changing shutter speed does. I'm shooting a cowboy on his horse in a river with a whip which is on fire, and I changed the shutter speed through each step at 50/25/12.5/6.5 per sec, I think 6.5 was the slowest, this gave the impression the flame was a meteorite, it also shows how much more ambient light you capture and also how much more juddery things get when slow shutter is used, 1/25 would be similar to the 1/30 in that its useable if things are not high action, keeping in mind I was also shooting 25P.
Having said that, I'm sure if you go outside and do something similar you'd soon see the effect and how much you can get away with .

Regards

Adam

Glen - drdh100
 

I've just come from the Australian outback, and he drdh100 performed flawlessly except one thing. This comes under the title of "How to die over and over inside", which is a lesson to all I guess.

Heres my lesson : I was in the Australian outback doing my own doco, and as an aside run into a cowboy who wants me to shoot a promo dvd for him at a rodeo.
Anyway here I am thinking I'd just be shooting some tricks and stuff with his horses and whips etc, and on day one it's, "ok we've got a chopper coming in, your going to shoot me riding over the top of a rocky outcrop". So here I am in a RU22 2 seat chopper which is used for cattle mustering that's so small I can't put the camera on my shoulder or I hit the pilot in the head, so I sit it on my lap.
Push record before take off thinking, no way I'm going to forget to hit record on this. I had a strap of a sports bag which I looped through the handle and around my neck, and effectively half hang out of the cockpit to get the shot, well I reckon I did pretty good and nailed it, I only reckon, because somewhere in flight, somewhere near takeoff, whilst the camera was sitting on my lap which was how I did the shot due to lack of room, I must have hit the record button and just after take off was where my video journey stopped!!
I was so worried about dropping my camera out the window as I wasn't really prepared to be hanging out of a chopper that I didn't notice either one of two things, either I had my arm over the camera and moved the firewire cable which broke signal and stopped the record, or a hit the record button.
Now I think there's a possibility it's the firewire, because after having everybody come back to review the footage that night (where I subsequently sank through the floor in absolute shame ) there was nothing to see, lucky I could go up again to get the shot 2 days later. And this time the whole flight I was making sure our friend the red record symbol was in my viewfinder which it was. So I go to review the files on a laptop this time before I show the client (so I could escape quickly and run - joke - or maybe not??) but the drdh100 only got me taking off and missed the horse run over the ridge. But I recorded to tape and my heart started up again.
So lesson to the masses, when recording make sure that firewire doesn't get knocked or leaned on because if you break signal you aint capturing no more! Now to some players here it may be common sense, but to those who maybe aren't familiar which such equipment keep an eye on it. Other than that it performed flawlessly in a hot, dry and dusty environment over a period of 5 weeks, just wish I had the 100Gb and not the 60Gb, but as we all know the $ sometimes drives decisions.
Oh yeh, for what it's worth shooting from a chopper is hard- simply because it's not a stable platform, and the one I was in only was 400kg or 800lbs and we were (on the 2nd time round !) blown all over the shop. I'd like to try more chopper work from something bigger and with more planning on my behalf.

Regards

Adam

I would like to mention that putting a record button on the handle is pure stupidity. I can't say how many times I ended up burning through ten mintutes of tape because I was carrying the camera around. There is also a danger of hitting record (on purpose) when you have actually just stopped recording cause you hit the button on the handle.

My 2 cents.

[QUOTE=I'm getting a Mac G5 with FCP 2 installed soon. I'll then go full HDV on all my shoots.
I'm very impressed with the HD200.[/QUOTE]

Howcome you are not getting the new Mac Pros...trust me you won't regret having dual chips with a total of 4 cores or possibly 8 cores...depends on which one you choose....though the G5's will definitely get the job done for you?

thanks for sharing your grief guys. Now I don't feel half as incompetent. The other day I cut half the lawn before I realized I never started the damn mower. Too much practicing with the camera I think...

haha, that's happened to me before... with the mower i mean...

;-)

I thought a G5 was a Mac Pro. I'm not that big on editing. I prefer field work. I still don't know how to use After Affects. Anyway, I didn't pick it, the company I work for did. Heck, I'm just happy to get it. It has 4 cores, anyway.
This will be the third FCP editing system at work. The other two guys are very happy with their new editors. As long as it can ingest 720P HDV, I don't care if my NLE is made by Mattel!

Hmm...maybe I'm missing something here but the "record lock" switch on the handle is there for a reason.

Hi Glen

I have not had my Dr 100 that long, but i have never had a problem with it

like youself i live in fla and i'm in south fla (HOT) the DR 100 does run a little hot
but at about 40/cel a small fan kicks in. i also had concerns about over heating so in call Focus Enchancements talk to 2 tech.
they said this is not a problem with firestores.
I do know that a lot people on this site use's them

but good luck on what ever you do
Joe

Nope..the G5's use the IBM made chips wihle the Mac Pro's use the Intel chips...since you said that it has 4 cores its very likely a Mac Pro...you knwo I myself have been trying to learn After Effects for ages...I got the version 6.5 and I have yet to get past the "beginner" level....Its just sooo much information you get lost from the start....if you ask me personally, its a good software (only if you spend countless hours mastering the thing) but it definitely needs a lot of work when it comes to end-user functionality......I guess you can say I am not a very big Adobe fan....Happy with Motion and FCP =)

OH you're missing something, alright. And that's if the record lock is engaged and the camera is OFF (not recording) then you cannot use that button to turn it on! AHHHHHIIIIEEEEEE!

8=]

Hi Justin,
Wonderful job with that. Love your work. How do you get the video quality so high on the net. What settings have you encoded the video?
Greetings from Australia
Dennis

I actually shoot at 720p60 but the online vids are 30fps becuase 60fps makes such a large file. Other than that it's just a simple encode using compressor at medium quality H.264. I'm pretty sure that they look good also because I digitize and work in Apple ProRes so the source file is theoretically equivalent to 422 uncompressed. Also, there is a quite a bit of color work there to make things pop.