trv900 or vx2000 for student films?
 

Hello,

Ive been doing alot of research for the past few months, and have narrowed my camera choices to the trv900 or the vx2000.
But I really need some advice now!

Im in art school right now (my second try) and am going to be shooting some short films, as well as some music video and "artsy videos".

I have 2 questions:

Is the vx2000 worth the extra 1000 dollars?
(image quality, audio)

Does it still suffer an audio hiss? Will using an XLR adapter help?


Thank you for the help.
-Beat

Capturing stills images
 

We are capturing still images from FCP3 (G4) and burning onto CD-R for use in PSP7 on PC (the Mac is a stand-alone) what is the best format to save in as some of the images are superb when
re-sized and printed but others saved and re-sized in exactly the same way are rubbish. We are finaly saving them as JPEGs in PSP7. Does anyone know the secret?
Regards to all David

Generally between the VX2000 and TRV900 you should get what you can afford. The VX2000 is better is most every respect not so much because it has a larger lens and larger CCD's, but because it's about two years newer.

If you need a small camera, and/or you're on a tight budget, the TRV900 is for you. Otherwise if you don't mind the size and the extra expense, get the VX2000.

If at all possible, try before you buy. Good luck,

If you truly want no resolution loss go with uncompressed images
(targa & bitmap can do this) or use a lossless compression (targa
can do this for example). You are saving in a lossy (jpeg)
compression. It throws away a certain amount of details
(depending on your settings how much) to compress the
image even further. Some pictures hold up better to resampling
than others naturally... If you want high-res pictures that are
always superb you better get a true digital photo camera with
4 or 5 million pixels on it...

Good luck!

NTSC cam on PAL tv
 

Will something shot on an NTSC PD-150 look worse on a PAL TV than something shot with a PAL PD-150?

I was thinking that due to the extra lines of PAL resolution it would.

Thanks.

Dropped frames
 

HELP In the middle of an edit, and suddenly one critical interview won't capture. Closer look----for the first time I've had the system (GL-1 and DV 500) frames are dropping out of the video. Like 9 or 10% are showed to be dropped. Looked everyhere for info in Premiere materials...please, anyone have ideas? New, blacked tapes...two shoots, on two different days. No mosaic-ing or striping....actually audio seems fine, video ok, just won't capture.


Thanks so much----Meg MacDonald at MAWM@AOL.com

Hello Meg,
We recently had someone else with a sudden dropped frames problem (I think with Premiere). I think it was Joe Redifer who speculated that the problem might be due to a fragmented capture drive. Voila! It sure was. All other factors being equal, perhaps a defrag might work for you, too. It couldn't hoit.

Good luck.

Basic camera rig...
 

It has been a while since you posted this, but I was looking through the old posts...

What do I recommend as a DP for a new shooter in teh US ?

Well, unless you are well funded or know how you are making an income from your movies I do NOT recommend PAL. You can get good results from NTSC cameras, plus you can use your camera for simpler event work, and ytou do not haev to struggle with acquiring additional PAL equipment, like a monitor.

Also, you'll have to deal with another problem...PAL equipment is meant for european 220 cycle mains power, you will need to keep European travele kits around. A minor annoyance...but if you break the kit you can't go to Radio Shack, you have to order from a country that uses 220 cycle power mains.

The alternative is to run EVERYTHING off battries...so you'll need heavier duty batteries and chargers. Anton Bauer is who I'd recommend. You may want to consider their Titan batteries since you can charge the batteries and run the camera or monitor or whatever simultaneously. Of course you can run the chargers etc from 120 cycle power.

Even once you get that PAL equipment you have to remember your primary market starting out will be...you geussed it, the good ol US of A TV market...which is in NTSC! So you have to deal with format conversions etc. If you KNOW your primary market will include film distribution, it may be worth it, but I don't think so.

In considering all the goodies you want to add on to the camera THe XL-1S is still a great value. If you buy the JVC DV500 (my ONLY other recommendation) you will spend more cash, but only a little more...so look at that.

The DV500 comes with a manual lens, a solid B&W viewfinder for about $4300 USD. After you get batteries (I recommend Anton Bauer, which means you need an adaptor) you should be at about $5500. It also includes XLR inputs.

For about the same money you can get a well rigged XL-1S. Add the rotating matte holder, rods and sunshade, plus a tripod and XLR...oh and the manual lens...and you should just scrape in under $5800. The JVC similiarly configured should run ~$7200. (Assuming you use an adaptor and "consumer" tripod. If you use the tripods and heads the camera was "meant" for (Vinten Sachtler et al.) you'll be at about ~$8300 USD.) It *is* worht the extra money, but do you have it around ?

Don't worry too much about the viewfinder. You NEED a good monitor on the set all the time for DP work, otherwise you WILL get unwanted reflections and image problems that are difficult if not impossible to fix in post.

Sorry again if this was too late, but I hope it helps somebody out there.

The biggest problem is frame rate. Not resolution. See the thread
"How to minimize flicker in PAL image" under General Topcis
for some more thoughts on this!

Canon XL1S & Firewire/ Casablanca2
 

Hi, I have just bought a Canon XL1S, i'm using 12 bit ST1-2. I can mix ok using analog cables attached to the Casablanca, but when connected via the firewire, i only get stereo 1 sound, no mix, or Stereo 2 sound. I've tried using a Panasonic E20 DVD recorder and the problem's the same, using firewire.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Please help, Mike.

This is by design (if I understand your problem). The firewire
gives you back the original 2 stereo tracks (4 channels). It
will allow you to mix them manually in the editing suite. This
is better anyway! You do not want them pre-mixed.

Adding timecode/frame no.
 

A while ago, someone was asking how to add timecode stamp to a DV. I have located a filter plugin for those of you familiar with VirtualDub that will add a timecode stamp and frame no. to each frame. The URL for this pluginis here:

http://toonarchive.com/addframenumbers/

Creating Widescreen Bars?
 

Newbie Question...

I'm pretty happy with the 16x9 footage that can be shot with the GL-1 even though it's not a true anamorphic image. But all that aside. The procedure I use if I want to input DV 16x9 footage into premiere, edit, and then output 16x9 - basically I create a DV NTSC widescreen format project, input footage, edit, and export to camcorder in NTSC widescreen format. Image on DV tape is stretched...which then plays unstretched on my 16x9 TV. I think this works...although seems like I'm getting part of the image cut off on both sides when I last tried, but not sure...have to check on that again later.

Okay, here is the actual question...

I want to be able to send copies of my completed footage to other people...but I don't want it in that widescreen stretch since they don't have widescreen TVs. I want it to be in standard NTSC format with black bars on top and bottom so the image doesn't look distorted. I poked around and I think the way to do this is with the Transform Effect in Adobe Premiere. Does that sound right to you guys? Basically I create a DV Standard NTSC format, input my finished video (which is a stretched image), then use the transform effect to squash the image and produce top and bottom black bars. Then output in DV standard ntsc format to DV tape.

By the way, why does Duke always get special treatment. I hate that. They've got like the easiet bracket this year. Go Maryland!

Thanks! that might come in handy!

Search on this subject on this board. There was a thread
that fully described how this is going to work. Basically you
open the footage in a 4:3 (NON WIDESCREEN) mode of your
editor. You let the editor resample at the correct aspect
ratio. While saving you save as the original resolution and
add black bars.

Like I said, find that other thread. It has all the things you
must do by name in Premiere.

Good luck!