Best Tripod for the 700 and a few more little things
 

I am going to be buying the 700 soon and I was trying to figure out what set of sticks to get. I have always used Sachtler products when shooting news. I was looking at getting the DV6 head with a 75mm bowl, CF SL The dealer I will be buying the camera from is pushing Miller. MILLER/151DS20. The miller rep said that the DV6 Sachtler head isn't strong enough for the camera so I was thinking about the new DV8 head. What are your thoughts? Also when I looked at the 700 the picture looked kind of grainy on the LCD display. The gain was off. Is this normal. Lastly it was set in 720p30 and when I moved the camera the picture on the LCD display and in the viewfinder looked like it would be 24P or strobish. Any thoughts on any of this?

I also do know I put it under the camera section but I thought it was specific for the camera. Sorry if it needs to be moved to tripods.

If the new DV8 is as good as the DV6, I don't think there is a better choice in this range.

The Sachtler DV8 is listed at 26.5 lbs. load, and the Miller DS-20 at 20 lbs. load.

The DV8 has a 100mm half ball and the Miller DS-20 a 75mm half ball.

The 100mm would be my preference for the olympic-length JVC camera.

In general, I think the Sachtler is superior to the Miller, though it is also more expensive.

I use DV6 with GY 250 + 3,5-13 lens( which is heavier than camera) + DRHD100 and it works like a breeze.
If you can aford it stick with sachtler.
I used Sachtler for the last 19 years and never failed.
Good luck,
Eugen

Dv8
 

I've owned a DV8 for about 2 years and I love it. I originally got it for my JVC DV5100, Dionic 90 battery, 1 or 2 wireless mics and mounting boxes, Frezzi, and porta prace armor. I think the total weight is 23 lbs or so and the tripod does great. No complaints!

Was the image underexposed? that could make it look grainy.
30p will also be "strobish" with a rapid pan movement. With 24 or 30p you will need to adjust the way you shoot with camera movement. 30p is slightly less sensitive, but will still have a pan speed that causes unpleasant jitters.

24p 30p
 

That is interesting. I have always thought that 30P was equivilant to the SD of 30frames per second. What would I shoot in to get that same look, a fluid non jittery look?

well NTSC is 30 frames true, but at no point are they ever exist as a full frame. It is actually 60 individual interlaced fields, each shot 1/60th of a second apart. It's only your mind or your HDTV that merges the 60 interlaced fields together. Hence you have a sampling rate of 60 fields per second vs 30 or 24 complete frames a second. On the other hand, shooting 24p and ouputting to DVD played on a HDTV, you don't get the stair stepping and other ugly interlaced artifacts.

So to the 2nd part of your question? How to make 30p or 24p look like 60i? For 30p shoot 1/60th or 24p shoot 1/48th shutter speed, and pan slower or faster than you are used to panning with NTSC. Treat it like a film camera.

Something else to consider when you are moaning about my statement. If you look critically at 1080i footage, the pans that looked juddery in 24p don't look very good in 1080i either. The motion blur from the shutter speed makes the sky and ground turn in to blurry vision. NTSC did as well, but 720x480 on a Tube TV hides a lot of sin, and you really couldn't see it.