Mark Geiser
March 23rd, 2005, 03:40 AM
Received my FS4 here in the Uk from Holdan and firstly I had to say that I was very impressed with their customer care, not that I needed it, but they kept me informed with telephone updates.
Other than some of the areas already highlighted like the battery LED status display which has now been ammended, i would like to add the following to the mix.
1. I thik the status LED also needs revision in terms of the manual, i think I have only seen the yellow (or is it orange) light, no green light or red, also h blinking is SOOOO slight it is barely noticeable, a much more pronounced blinking would provide a better confidence indicator.
2. The WEB sites mention that the FS4 - Pro is the only unit to support linking to other FS4 units, yet the standard version that I have has that option in the menu, and the manual makes no mention of it being a pro only option as it does with other features. Does the normal version support linking then ??
3. I will like a few I guess be using it for event videos like weddings. After looking at how I might use the FS4 in that situation I figured that I would always still use tape as a backup, and indeed my PD170 does not support tapeless recording controlled via the camera, (at least I don't think it does, have only just recently upgraded from and XM2). I also thought that I would probably need to switch between slave mode whereby I can control the stop start from the camera when I film shots outside etc, but the long segments like the ceremony and speeches etc would have it on manual as I wouldn't want the FS4 to stop recording when/if the tape ran out. but my other thought was, what happens about timecode ??? The FS4 is set to read timecode from the camera so what happens when the tape runs out and the timecode does also, what does the FS4 do...Do I have for those shots also to change the TC option ??? Any advice anyone.
4. I agree with all the other comments about the battery being soooo hard to remove, not disastrous but a pain.
5. A long life battery is a must for me, I will be ordering one as soon as it becomes available.
6. The Retro Cache option is a nice surprise. Again I think early spec showed a retro mode only on the pro. I know that their is a retro cache and a retro disk which is the pro only. Therefore more value for money. Indeed the only thing I think I would use from the pro version is the option of recording certain scenes in particular folders. I thought I would probably also use the 80Gb for more storage as those types of events tend to span across at least 5 DV tapes, but then I felt that if the Fs4 was going to go faulty I stand to loose everything, all 6 hours rather than just 3, although I would have the tape backup.
Altogher looks a great piece of kit, will see how it stands up to the rigours of use in months to come. I will be buying another when holdan get them in stock again.
Regards
Mark
Other than some of the areas already highlighted like the battery LED status display which has now been ammended, i would like to add the following to the mix.
1. I thik the status LED also needs revision in terms of the manual, i think I have only seen the yellow (or is it orange) light, no green light or red, also h blinking is SOOOO slight it is barely noticeable, a much more pronounced blinking would provide a better confidence indicator.
2. The WEB sites mention that the FS4 - Pro is the only unit to support linking to other FS4 units, yet the standard version that I have has that option in the menu, and the manual makes no mention of it being a pro only option as it does with other features. Does the normal version support linking then ??
3. I will like a few I guess be using it for event videos like weddings. After looking at how I might use the FS4 in that situation I figured that I would always still use tape as a backup, and indeed my PD170 does not support tapeless recording controlled via the camera, (at least I don't think it does, have only just recently upgraded from and XM2). I also thought that I would probably need to switch between slave mode whereby I can control the stop start from the camera when I film shots outside etc, but the long segments like the ceremony and speeches etc would have it on manual as I wouldn't want the FS4 to stop recording when/if the tape ran out. but my other thought was, what happens about timecode ??? The FS4 is set to read timecode from the camera so what happens when the tape runs out and the timecode does also, what does the FS4 do...Do I have for those shots also to change the TC option ??? Any advice anyone.
4. I agree with all the other comments about the battery being soooo hard to remove, not disastrous but a pain.
5. A long life battery is a must for me, I will be ordering one as soon as it becomes available.
6. The Retro Cache option is a nice surprise. Again I think early spec showed a retro mode only on the pro. I know that their is a retro cache and a retro disk which is the pro only. Therefore more value for money. Indeed the only thing I think I would use from the pro version is the option of recording certain scenes in particular folders. I thought I would probably also use the 80Gb for more storage as those types of events tend to span across at least 5 DV tapes, but then I felt that if the Fs4 was going to go faulty I stand to loose everything, all 6 hours rather than just 3, although I would have the tape backup.
Altogher looks a great piece of kit, will see how it stands up to the rigours of use in months to come. I will be buying another when holdan get them in stock again.
Regards
Mark