I thought I'd post one of Vinson's posts from another forum here. He's got a point.

Many of us were "seduced" by the film-look output. I gather by your responses you're not an indie filmmaker, but the trend is to go straight to DVD and let the distributor deal with everything else. If they want a film print they'll pay for it but if they're only going to put your movie on video and DVD anyway they'll just do it from your master saving them time and money. And let's not forget cable. HBO pays good money for movie rights and will take HD and film-look products. They're so much stuff being shot with the film look and not on actual film and we never know the difference. Fox's Titus was shot in HD and so is Eight Simple Rules, I believe "Fastlane" is shot in HD (but I have no confirmation on that) and a bunch of other things. Especially if you're a fan of the SCi-Fi channel their the kinds of the HD/film-look stuff. They got major shows that are shot that way. That's what I keep saying for me this is the right camera for the job. Some may say shoot with the video-look and it'll be okay, but I'm not going for okay.

It is true that some people where hyper about being able to transfer to film at 24p but many of us just wanted the look of 24p. Frankly I might even shoot at 30p but the cinegamma makes 30p look like film. And since I'm not going to film, that's all I want. Not to mention what this means for TV studios who could pick up a few of these and still not spend the money that the Sony would cost. Would the normal TV viewer know the difference. The truth is no. (Some of you will disagree I know but remember most people aren't video or film pros like some of us). Think about this. This would put an end to many costly production applications that many people normally use film for.

-Vinson

Hey Frank!

Did you end up buying a DVX? So far, I'm pretty pleased with mine and the GL1s have already gone bye-bye. My feathers are a bit ruffled with this sync issue, but I'm pretty confident a fix will follow. I've got my fingers crossed.

Skip

Hey, Skip. I read your posts on the other thread. No, no DVX for me. I can't afford it. I still have those 2 DVL9500s and 1 MX300. I've played with a DVX a couple of times and think it's a great cam...but with any cam, there's always issues, hey?

I bet they're working on that now. I was wondering is the sync thing a problem before or after the extra frames are dropped. Is this in 24p only or in any shooting mode because I never noticed it on the cam I used. I get the impression that's it's just some DVX's that have the problem but I'll be keeping my ear to the ground for info on it.

-Vinson

I'm sure they are. This is their baby, and most likely their new bread and butter.

The problem sounds like it can be fixed in post but I want to hear what Pana has to say about it. Like you said this is probably their bread and butter now so they'd do well to fix this before it becomes a big deal. I know the original XL had some sync issues with some NLEs. There's a special button in Final Cut Pro 3's audio setting that deals with this, it may deal with the DVX100 too.

-Vinson

The sync over so many minutes field in FCP is for non locked audio. Non locked audio can drift +/- 1/3 of a frame. The XL1 was within spec. FCP did not capture non locked audio properly. Apples fix was the sync adjustment in preferences which forces FCP to count the audio frequency.

The DVX100 is a video delay problem. In doing some of their digital magic the video signal is processed for a longer period of time than the audio signal. Thus, when viewed, the audio is about 2 frames ahead (faster) of the video. This is not within spec. for unlocked audio.

Jeff