XDCAM- My Employer has purchased at DVinfo.net

Ben Gurvich · September 3rd, 2005, 03:33 AM

My Employer(a regional TV Station in Australia) has begun to rollout out their some 60 xdcams. And on thursday we got ours

My branch consists of news and commercials, as i make commercials we got the model something 30p which shoots at 50mbits and also has progressive scan and 16x9, whereas news got the 25mbit cams.

Going from an old betacam SP 7 series to these XD's is great. I have been with the company a relatively shorttime and was never happy shooting beta Sp. I always thought stuff i had shoot with the dvx100 or pdx10 was much ore aestetically pleasing and less "daytime soap opera loking"

The picture from the cam is fantastic, sharp and very filmic, also the whole disc system is a breeze to use so far. There are so many items in the menus and a memory stick slot means you can keep your settings,and take them from cam to cam. With so many things to look at in the menu, i just switched the thing to progressive, and decided id rather about everything else in the coming weeks.

On Friday i actually went up shooting in a chopper for my first time. I was using the old SP, and my colleague was using the new xd shooting 50mbits interlaced. The shots were for a corporate video on a place called the Wonga Wetlands

www.wongawetlands.nsw.gov.au/

If i can, i will post some clips in the coming weeks/months of some good progressive footage. Id say the XDCAM (50mbit) would be great for shooting a feature on and transferring to film, -while you still can.( now can i get a 35 mm adapter on this one?)

I realise this camera is generally out of people on this forum's price range including myself, but it is interesting to see how close we can get with our smaller( and not necessarily inferior) tools, and ill be very intersted to compare something like the upcoming HVX200 to the XD.

Shooting from a chopper was great. EVen on the old betacam, some advice from another "aussie" Bob Hart from dvinfo net didnt go astray either. Afterwards some colleagues asked me what the city looked like from above, and i replied "I didnt really notice, i was to busy looking in the viewfinder trying to get my shots"

Anyway, if anyway wants to talk xdcam in the coming months i should have a bit of a clue.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

Glenn Chan · September 3rd, 2005, 01:52 PM

I've seen some footage from a Sony Z1 and Panasonic Varicam in the same series. When I was first watching it, I didn't notice that they were using two different cameras. After the guy who was working on it pointed some things out, in one of the shots you can see a subtle difference (some shifting in the background due to compression in conjunction with the ground glass of the 35mm adapter they were using) but otherwise the two cameras look the same.

How they shot it:
Obviously well. The footage was exposed aggressively, so in many shots the background was blown out into white. Shooting with aggressive exposure can make things look better, see http://www.glennchan.info/video/exposure/exposure.htm.
35mm adapter on all cams, various lenses
matte box to put in graduated filters
later on in the show they had a field monitor to evaluate the image on
camera settings were tweaked.
lighting kit- On some of the shots they had litepanels available (portable LED lights).
color corrected on a ?smoke?

2- The workflow for HDV does suck, but the footage does look really really comparable to a varicam. Of course, talent and experience plays a big role in this (i.e. color by someone who specializes in it) and they were also using some pretty expensive equipment which most people here may not necessarily have access to (35mm adapter, 35mm lenses, smoke).

Andrew Pascoe · September 3rd, 2005, 05:55 PM

Hi Ben, sorry l haven't been in contact. I've been wanting to send you a pic of my Steadicam Flyer but l just haven't been able to get around to it.
So is there a big difference in picture quality between XDCAM's 25mbits & 50mbits data rates.
Also what are the decks that you are using to get the footage into your editors and what is the actual type of editing system you use.

AP

Ben Gurvich · September 3rd, 2005, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Pascoe

Hi Ben, sorry l haven't been in contact. I've been wanting to send you a pic of my Steadicam Flyer but l just haven't been able to get around to it.
So is there a big difference in picture quality between XDCAM's 25mbits & 50mbits data rates.
Also what are the decks that you are using to get the footage into your editors and what is the actual type of editing system you use.

AP

Andrew,

I understand your busyess as i have many things i need to do too-which reminds me.... The XDCAM 50mbit does look a lot different especially in the progressive mode, i think if lit correctly could look very HDish. Then again most convumers probably wouldnt notice the diff in interlaced.

The Decks we are using are XDCAM decks that look like a glorified car stereo. Aparantly they are worth upwards of 30k which seems a lot for basically a blu ray dvd player.

The Journos download proxy versions of footage from the decks in the edit suite onto another PC in their office, and make their shotlists, they can even cut footage and send the info back to the deck where it will assemble the online footage.

Anyway Sony have developed the technology so i guess they can charge what they want.

We are still cutting on our old system which is Media100 until they finally upgrade. Since our network is slowly changing over to digital, Beta Sp is still in our workflow.

Ben Gurvich · September 3rd, 2005, 11:57 PM

[QUOTE=Glenn Chan]I've seen some footage from a Sony Z1 and Panasonic Varicam in the same series.

Just goes to show if you know what you are doing you can get some very convincing results, especially with a 35mm adapter

James Connors · September 7th, 2005, 06:27 AM

I'm so envious like you wouldn't believe.. altho I've never had any experience with any true high level professional cameras, its the one thats always stuck out to me. I doubt there's that many in this country (Wales, part of the UK) but if i ever hear of anyone with one.. i'm gonna hunt them down!

If you're able to shoot in progressive, any chance of posting some stills? They're a lot of money, but in all honesty, they totally sound like they're worth the investment hearing some of the people who've used em talk about them. Whats the ease of use like? Do you have to really know what you're doing to get usable footage, or can you pick up and point-and-shoot, and learn your way from there in a relatively short amount of time?

September 3rd, 2005, 03:33 AM	#1
Ben Gurvich Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 329	XDCAM- My Employer has purchased My Employer(a regional TV Station in Australia) has begun to rollout out their some 60 xdcams. And on thursday we got ours My branch consists of news and commercials, as i make commercials we got the model something 30p which shoots at 50mbits and also has progressive scan and 16x9, whereas news got the 25mbit cams. Going from an old betacam SP 7 series to these XD's is great. I have been with the company a relatively shorttime and was never happy shooting beta Sp. I always thought stuff i had shoot with the dvx100 or pdx10 was much ore aestetically pleasing and less "daytime soap opera loking" The picture from the cam is fantastic, sharp and very filmic, also the whole disc system is a breeze to use so far. There are so many items in the menus and a memory stick slot means you can keep your settings,and take them from cam to cam. With so many things to look at in the menu, i just switched the thing to progressive, and decided id rather about everything else in the coming weeks. On Friday i actually went up shooting in a chopper for my first time. I was using the old SP, and my colleague was using the new xd shooting 50mbits interlaced. The shots were for a corporate video on a place called the Wonga Wetlands www.wongawetlands.nsw.gov.au/ If i can, i will post some clips in the coming weeks/months of some good progressive footage. Id say the XDCAM (50mbit) would be great for shooting a feature on and transferring to film, -while you still can.( now can i get a 35 mm adapter on this one?) I realise this camera is generally out of people on this forum's price range including myself, but it is interesting to see how close we can get with our smaller( and not necessarily inferior) tools, and ill be very intersted to compare something like the upcoming HVX200 to the XD. Shooting from a chopper was great. EVen on the old betacam, some advice from another "aussie" Bob Hart from dvinfo net didnt go astray either. Afterwards some colleagues asked me what the city looked like from above, and i replied "I didnt really notice, i was to busy looking in the viewfinder trying to get my shots" Anyway, if anyway wants to talk xdcam in the coming months i should have a bit of a clue. Cheers, Ben Gurvich

September 3rd, 2005, 01:52 PM	#2
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	I've seen some footage from a Sony Z1 and Panasonic Varicam in the same series. When I was first watching it, I didn't notice that they were using two different cameras. After the guy who was working on it pointed some things out, in one of the shots you can see a subtle difference (some shifting in the background due to compression in conjunction with the ground glass of the 35mm adapter they were using) but otherwise the two cameras look the same. How they shot it: Obviously well. The footage was exposed aggressively, so in many shots the background was blown out into white. Shooting with aggressive exposure can make things look better, see http://www.glennchan.info/video/exposure/exposure.htm. 35mm adapter on all cams, various lenses matte box to put in graduated filters later on in the show they had a field monitor to evaluate the image on camera settings were tweaked. lighting kit- On some of the shots they had litepanels available (portable LED lights). color corrected on a ?smoke? 2- The workflow for HDV does suck, but the footage does look really really comparable to a varicam. Of course, talent and experience plays a big role in this (i.e. color by someone who specializes in it) and they were also using some pretty expensive equipment which most people here may not necessarily have access to (35mm adapter, 35mm lenses, smoke).

September 3rd, 2005, 05:55 PM	#3
Andrew Pascoe Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Bendigo, Victoria ,Australia Posts: 43	Hi Ben, sorry l haven't been in contact. I've been wanting to send you a pic of my Steadicam Flyer but l just haven't been able to get around to it. So is there a big difference in picture quality between XDCAM's 25mbits & 50mbits data rates. Also what are the decks that you are using to get the footage into your editors and what is the actual type of editing system you use. AP

September 3rd, 2005, 11:57 PM	#5
Ben Gurvich Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 329	[QUOTE=Glenn Chan]I've seen some footage from a Sony Z1 and Panasonic Varicam in the same series. Just goes to show if you know what you are doing you can get some very convincing results, especially with a 35mm adapter

September 7th, 2005, 06:27 AM	#6
James Connors Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Cardiff, UK Posts: 223	I'm so envious like you wouldn't believe.. altho I've never had any experience with any true high level professional cameras, its the one thats always stuck out to me. I doubt there's that many in this country (Wales, part of the UK) but if i ever hear of anyone with one.. i'm gonna hunt them down! If you're able to shoot in progressive, any chance of posting some stills? They're a lot of money, but in all honesty, they totally sound like they're worth the investment hearing some of the people who've used em talk about them. Whats the ease of use like? Do you have to really know what you're doing to get usable footage, or can you pick up and point-and-shoot, and learn your way from there in a relatively short amount of time?