PD150 Questions

[Mike Krum]

Can You Customize The PD150 Like You Can The Xl1s? I know the pd150 dosen't have the different lens thing but i am making my first movie and i would like to get to the same kind of image that danny boyle had for 28 days later.(That Movie Rocks) HELP!!!

[Wayne Orr]

No problem, Mike. Just tranfer all your footage to film and color correct it and you will be good to go. That's a bit of sarcasm you understand.

I don't think they did anything mysterious when they shot their film. They used a lot of cameras for the London after the apocalypse shoot, so I doubt they messed around with all the cameras. I'm sure there are more detailed answers, but obviously the majority of the work came when they did their post.

Short answer; shoot the best footage you can and don't mess with it! Then when you transfer you will have good quality that can be manipulated to your heart's content. Even if you don't transfer to film, you will still have footage that you can manipulate with digital color correction in your NLE.

If you want to see good looking footage shot with a PD150 and transfered to film, check out Personal Velocity. Then check out the commentary track.

Wayne

[Chris Harvey]

I am looking to purchase a pd150 second hand. What is the life expectancy (both in hours of operation and tape run) of these cameras? Any pd150 owners care to comment on how many hours they put on their camera before it needed major repair work? Thanks for your help.

Chris

[Mike Rehmus]

kinda random depending on when the camera was made.

Sony had to replace the transport bearings in my first camera at 10 months. I probably had 200-300 hours on the drum at that point and the transport could be heard grinding across a quiet room. Then they got the transport rebuilt, and started to work on the OIS randomly banging about. But they were stumped by that problem ( I sent them a sample tape showing the problem as one should always do) and they gave me a new one because they didn't know about the general RF susceptiblity of the camera design at that point.

The builds (they build them in batches) have had some notable problems including the audio hiss and transport failures (see above) and then Sony got everything settled down and they made a generally reliable product which I think it was for the second half of the product lifetime.

Batch building tends to have problems that many or all of the batch will exhibit. Like the rash of hard-to-close tape doors on the 170 not too long ago.

OTOH, I have almost 800 hours on my DSR-300 transport and my DSR-20 and narry a hitch.

Sony unofficially will claim between 1000 and 1500 hours for the heads.

I reacon that every hour costs about $2 that must be put away for head and transport repairs. So if you buy one that has 500 hours on it, the price should reflect the amount of head and transport that has been used up.

And don't forget that Sony stops the blanket repair charge policy and charges actual parts and labor for any product that hasn't been produced in 7 years.

As a sort of standard process of buying used equipment, I call the service center and ask them what might be wrong at the approximate age of the equipment and what it would cost to fix. It always gives me a departure point for setting a price.

[Pat Sherman]

I probably know these have been asked before, but I did some searches.. I didn't find the answers..So..

I have a PD-150 camera and a couple questions. I want to shoot some 16:9 widescreen for the letterbox look. However, the camera shows a 16:9 function, but is that REAL 16:9 or just adds a letterbox?

Second question.. Please bare with me, as I don't even know if I am wording this correctly. I am shooting my brothers wedding outdoors and there is no power sources.

I want to catch the audio from the bride and groom during the ceremony. I don't know if this exists or not, but is their a wireless lapel and power pack that attaches to one of them and then a battery powered receiver and hooks to the camera and inputs into the PD-150 XLR input? I have seen large batteries on the backs of PD-150's with two antennas but I don't know if that is what I am looking for.. basically I am very new to all this camera work stuff, editing I can handle.. Shooting..well thats another story..lol

Thanks for your time in advance..

Patrick

[R Geoff Baker]

1) It is true 16x9 recording, but not true 16x9 imaging chips so the output is better than letterboxing in post, but not as good as a device with 16x9 chips;

2) Yes there is. A good combo costs more than $1,000 -- there are OK ones for less, and really awful ones for little. Consider renting a good one for a special event.

GB

[Pat Sherman]

Thanks for the reply..

I guess I would have to know what to rent.. What exactly would I be looking, brand/models?

Thanks

[R Geoff Baker]

You are looking for a wireless lapel mic and a diversity receiver. Get advice from the rental house near you ... I expect they'll only be offering the better stuff.

GB

[Troy Christian]

Hi all,

Shooting an exercise video with my fairly new PD150 with very low miles tomorrow. Shooting rehearsal today, I started seeing blue smeared light in the viewfinder. It kind of looks like water but it is obviously something that is affecting the camera in some way. At first I thought it might just be the LCD. Nope, the problem is in the viewfinder as well. I pulled tapes out and it didn't seem to exist on the footage. However, I just got home and did a few tests. First of all, I used a sony cleaning cassette to try and clean the heads. Secondly the camera was reading no tape when I put a tape in it. I tried resetting the camera with th resest button. Finally I got the camera to recognize a tape, the blueish light filled the LCD. When I pulled the tape and played it back in my DSR11, the problem is clear as day. Blue light, particularlt in hot spots.

What should I do?? Has anyone ever experienced this? Pleas let me know asap as I shoot tomorrow morning.

Thank you,

Troy

[David Mintzer]

Originally Posted by Troy Christian

Hi all,

Shooting an exercise video with my fairly new PD150 with very low miles tomorrow. Shooting rehearsal today, I started seeing blue smeared light in the viewfinder. It kind of looks like water but it is obviously something that is affecting the camera in some way. At first I thought it might just be the LCD. Nope, the problem is in the viewfinder as well. I pulled tapes out and it didn't seem to exist on the footage. However, I just got home and did a few tests. First of all, I used a sony cleaning cassette to try and clean the heads. Secondly the camera was reading no tape when I put a tape in it. I tried resetting the camera with th resest button. Finally I got the camera to recognize a tape, the blueish light filled the LCD. When I pulled the tape and played it back in my DSR11, the problem is clear as day. Blue light, particularlt in hot spots.

What should I do?? Has anyone ever experienced this? Pleas let me know asap as I shoot tomorrow morning.

Thank you,

Troy

Your camera is in need of repair...I dont think there is anything you can do.

[Troy Christian]

I appreciate your response...

[Saturnin Kondratiew]

so few days ago i reset my camera...
now none of the counters seem to move and data code doesnt show up..
all i have is 00's and -----
help please
thanx

[Mike Rehmus]

That should not happen. Try resetting it again.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Interesting... the other day I accidently hit a wrong menu item on my Z1 and got the same sort of effect. I don't ever use those time code options myself (which I believe are the same on the 150) and don't understand them, but I had accidently chosen something like "TC PRESET" - I think. Going back to the menu and clearing the selection made everything OK again.

[Pete Wilie]

I had something similar happen a while back. Try pressing the "TC/U-BIT" button inside of the LCD compartment.