Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

I've spent almost all my working life in Broadcasting, both radio and TV as a studio engineer. Currently in TV. In NZ and engineer means you operate, project design systems and install them plus do maintenance.

Much of my time is care of our 30odd Panasonic SPX 800 and 900 cameras and a few very aged Sony SX rigs (but tape... that's another story).

The Station went for P2 several years ago as one of the 1st in the world to wellcome in a Tapeless Newsgathering workflow with Avid Newscutter. It has been quite successful at meeting our needs.

It always great watching the cameraman's eyes light up when we issue them a handful of ever increasing sized new P2 cards as Panasonic has slowly produced increasingly lager units. I can recall how 4GB hardly lasted and now well, we've 64GB amongst all the crews...

I am often tied to a bench repairing something that has been snapped off or worn away and because each camera is part of a crew-member's kit they become quite attached to it. Some of the worse damage was 6yrs ago, a 1week old SPX900 that was thrown to the ground and jumped up and down on by a bewildered member of the public. The lens was destroyed, along with the viewfinder but the camera still works fine to this day.

Then there are the 'mods' such as using old past but working Sony Radio Mic kits and interfacing them as v-lock 2nd mic between cam and battery...

We've taken delivery of some new HPX3100s and will soon set up the WiFi Proxy on them but i have a huge battle suddenly with issues of the cams perceived pic sharpness at SD_SDi, which the Station still uses for News...

Great to see a well setup Forum safe from Spam (thanks to Chris and his team) and posters that just want to wreck things (i have had too much experience from that kind of thing to the point it puts you right off using the Internet).

That's it for now...

Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Interesting read read Pete, welcome.

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Welcome Pete, and hello Josh. I have been to NZ twice, both trips to the upper half of the North Island, and greatly enjoyed my visits. Friendly people, good food, beautiful country, GREEN ! Hope to get back someday. I am an anesthesiologist in a small town at 6000 ft in Southwest New Mexico. Nice place, but worlds away from NZ. What do you do in Wellington, Josh ?

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Hi Mark,

I run a small (two full timers) video production house in the capital, Wellington, shooting publicity and training DVDs and web videos for government and corporate clients. But I want to make a feature when I get my act together...

And you Mark, what brings an anesthesiologist to DVinfo?

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Good to see a lot more Kiwis joining the ranks here - welcome to you both, sorry for my tardiness, been a tad hectic, happens, even down here in little 'ol Dunedin.


CS

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Welcome from Chch. I was waiting for Chris to post so I wouldn't make Dunedin look bad. :,)

Fam went up to Auckland for the 48hours finals. Nice place... Civic is amazing. All the tall brick buildings rather freaked us out. We realized how quake-conditioned we are when we all would stop instinctively before going into tall buildings.

Working on our feature now. Hopefully will start shooting this summer.

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Welcome from Banks Peninsula. I was waiting for Andrew to post so I wouldn't make Motukarara look bad!

I note you are a seasoned professional. Great; the more the merrier and Kiwi's are the best. I'm just a retired layabout doing community stuff and on the go right now is a little thing for the Akaroa Lighthouse Preservation Society. Not too stressful and keeps me off the streets.

I'm sure you will enjoy the DVINFO community.

Cheers...

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Josh - sorry for the delayed response, I was in Houston over the weekend for good food and relaxation. I became interested in quality video about fifteen years ago, and have slowly gained knowledge and some experience over the years, primarily recording high school and college sports events. I tried a wedding or two for friends, but didn't find that very interesting (although often challenging). I'm interested in the technical end, and am a ham radio operator (but not even close to an electronic engineer). That is some of my background. Mark

Re: Hello, Auckland New Zealand here...
 

Super old thread to reply to I know.... But thought I'd do it anyway! As is the most recent mention of Auckland in this forum :-)

I'm a keen DoP living in Auckland Central, shot lots of short films, music videos, weddings, events, corporate, tv / web series, and worked on a few features too.