Hi from Rainy England!
 

Hi All,

I'll start off by saying how great this forum is, it is the best and biggest dv forum I have found online.

I've been searching through old threads for loads of useful info.

Anyway, I'm from Northern England in the UK. I've been playing around with my basic 'trv-15' mini-dv camera for a year or so, and hope to progress up to a GL2, or vx2k this summer.

I'm currently on my second year at college studying a degree in Multimedia and Sonic Arts. My main interests at the moment are producing short experimental films and video installations. I hope to also shoot some docs as well.

Thanks,
Dave.

Hey, Dave. Hello from rainy Vancouver. Welcome to DVInfo!

Hello from "sunny" Holland across the pond. Welcome aboard Dave!

Hi Dave,

Welcome to the board!!!

Glad to have more people from the UK here!

Happy shooting,

Ed

'sonic' arts! Wich i did something interesting like that whhen i was at uni! Welcome Dave. GM2? PAL version is XM2. Im here in sunny north east uk too.

Hi Michael and all,

That was pretty much my first post, so I called it a GL2 (so the US guys would know what i was on about), now and in future posts I'm calling it the XM2 as I should do living in pal land ;)

My tutors say there was no uni course like mine even ten or fifteen years ago and even now 'Multimedia and Sonic Arts' is by no means a mainstream course. Many would say it is a 'mickey mouse' course (i.e. a pointless waste of time) with no scope or use for the future - my old Grandpa said so himself!

My degree has got me into dv and stuff, so I'm glad I decided to do it, and it is expanding my horizons all the time. I would never have thought I would want to produce or direct a short experimental film, and also video and sound installations.

Many thanks,
Dave.

Me neither. Hey Mickey mouse was prettey sucessfull though wasnt he! Tell your granpa that. Film him saying what he thinks about the course! Its only a bit of paper now, but give yourself twenty years and people will respect the certificate a lot more. See, when you learn loads yourself, through your own experiences, and people see you have something to offer, they would rather give your university bit of paper the credit than you! Whereas at the moment it may seem the other way round and peole just want to knock it. Now is the time to be coming into what your coming into. You felt strongly that you wanted to do the course, and there was a reason for it. There are gonna be big developments in tv media.
xm2/gm2.... (yea i sometimes do the smae)...was just checkin...thought youd gone a bit weird and bought an ntsc version for some reason.

I haven't actually decided which cam to get yet it's definitely between XM2, VX2100 or DVX100. They all seem to have their pros and cons.

XM2 - 20x zoom, lightweight, frame-mode. VX2100 - More rugged than XM2, 1/3" super low light low noise ccds, more recent technology. DVX100 - Great true 25p progressive, cine gamma, 1/3" ccds, XLR inputs.

People say choose a cam for your needs, but for what I want to do there is no winner of the three above. If the Sony had true 25p prog, it would be my camera of choice. The XM2 is about two years old now - could be replaced by Xmas?. An XM3 would probly be pretty sweet. I'm gonna wait a month or so, to see if there are any new models. I'm not that fussed about HD cause it can't fit into a prosumer cam without being not too great, the JVC cams proved this. Maybe in 5 years SD will be old news, we'll see.

However, I'll probly get an XM2 cause I don't wanna wait too long.
How do you like yours? Have you been able to compare it too the sony or panasonics? The DVX seems to have side-stepped the UK though, it doesn't seem to be in any shops or online.

Anyway cheers,
Dave.

A not sure about the dvx100. Just looked it up, and if it is the one i played with at the London video forum its very tasty. If i remember correctly i was totally sold by the fantastic picture. But then i realised that i was viewing the picture on a monitor that cost thousands of pounds. I definatley liked it though.
I have used the vx2100 a couple of times, before i got my xm2. Yes its a nice camera. And its low light is slightly better than the xm2, as is the screen, and it does feel more rugged, but so does the panasonic.

However the xm2 is smaller. Is really handy for fitting into a laptop bag and you can cary it anywhere. The larger zoom (20x) is very usefull. It gives a very good picture. And of course.. its a lot cheaper.
The money saved here would be wisely spent on the accessories your gonna need whatever camera you get. Such as a steadycam (ive seen a £300 model that doubles up as a shoulder support!), tripod, long life battery and microphone/s . And a stock of tape.

What do you mean by 25p progressive? Are you on about de interlaced? XM2 has this but i havent bothered with it as yet.
Ive had my xm2 about six months and love it. You can read all about its negatives in the gm2 area of forum, but pound for pound its gold!

The dvx100 does true 25fps progressive mode and also 50i standard interlaced video. The 25 prog is much better than de-interlacing in post - you have 25 full resolution frames per second which also gives youa motion signature similar to shooting film. Do a search for film-look or progressive on the forum if you don't already know all this. The Panasonic DVX100 section is also good.

The XM2 has a pseudo 25fps progressive 'frame mode', which is less resolution than the DVX but gives you a similar 'film look'. Many people on this very forum seek a 'film look' due to the standard interlaced video shot by most cams looking too 'real' or 'like the news' and not good for narrative film-making.

What kind of stuff do you shoot by the way?

Cheers,
Dave.

yes i thought this is what you meant. I would have to see the same footage shot in different modes to fully grasp why this is a desirable effect, i understand that in actual fact the camera takes 2 shots of the same frame, so you have in actual fact 2x25 frames, whereas without film mode there are 25 interlaced. Dont get it fully. I know people on this forum are very keen to do this.
Ive shot a couple of kids drama shows on stage, and a couple of weddings, and trying to build an archive of outdoors stuff to make my own programs, im not sure what of yet! Got some cool iceicle shots a few months back, and a great shot of the sun dissapearing behind a mountain. I learned from a friend afterwards that i was very silly to do this without filters, and am very lucky not to have burnt my ccds!