HELP!! Only a day old and it is broken!!
 

Hi Everyone,

Well after years of using a little hand held I finally got my XL1s...brand new from B and H and I pop in a tape like I have done a million times before ...the viewfind error pops up...

"EJECT TAPE"

The tape is jammed and it will not come out!!

So very frustrating after years of anticipation, paying the cash, waiting for the shipping, piece it together...first day...was gonna head down to the beach to take some surfin shots and this happen! @#%^&*!&!!!!


So I have a warrenty...should I...

send it in for warrenty
or take it local and have someone look at it first(as it might not be that big of a deal...and I dont want to be without it for like 4 months, during repairs!)

Any advice or suggestions would be great.

Thanks

I'd get B&H to replace the cam. Arrange it with them.

Uncompressed DV via After Market Mod?
 

Just a thought...

I wonder how hard it would be to acheive uncompressed 720x486 video out of a good prosumer cam.

The 3 ccd's all have at least 8 bits per RGB channel coming out to an ADC then into the DSP.

If you could tap off each of these and run them through an additional set of ADC then to buffered jacks.

Also jack out the hsync/vsync as well.

I would seem that it would be possible to output uncompressed 720x480i 4:4:4 video to a digital disk recorder.

Another solution would be to get a panasonic studio camera EQ-600 ($4995) and build a custom card to do uncompressed. Since it allows many different cards to be used for various formats.

I'ts great when guys like you don't settle for what Sony, JVC or Panasonic thinks would be good prosumer limitations.

But it might turn out to be more economic to go with a 26-pin CCU camera in the long run. JVC and Sony have them in the 8-10K region. You can jack them up to a mac or pc with an uncompressed card and capture away. DDR's are very pricey and you will hardly get any support on a camcorder where you have been tampering with the electronics.

I was wondering; what would you be editing 4:4:4 video on? I can't think of a card that does anything other than 4:2:2 uncompressed.

Blackburst???
 

Hope this is not a stupid question, but what is a black burst box?

A black burst box is usually found in post production and broadcast studios. Most are rack mount versions, but portable boxes are also available. The box generates a perfect NTSC signal ( or PAL?) and is usually fed to a Distributation Amp (DA). The signals are then run to the different VTRs and devices that need sync (waveform monitors/vectorscopes etc.). The different devices are then set to accept external sync and presto...all the devices are now timed together. The length of the cables effects the timing of the signal, lengths are multiples of the longest run or all kept the same length. Once all the VTRs are timed the signals can all be sent to different machines through a patch panel. This enables edit suites to feed signals back and forth.

Black burst is a certain type of NTSC signal. It contains all the timing signals (horizontal, vertical etc.) and the burst signal. The burst can be displayed on a vectorscope and waveform monitor.

Jeff

Webforums for NYC filmmakers - where?
 

Hi DV community,
I am going to produce a DV short which will be shot in September 2002.
I basically need a film crew: dp, sound, light and actors.
Does anyone know of any NYC webforums where DV/independent filmmakers hang out, posting for film crew, actors other than newyork.craigslist.org?
Please advise.
Tom

NYC
 

Thomas,

You can try contacting the folks over at DVDojo- they have tons of people there into making independantly produced dv films...they're based at downtown Manhattan (Alphabet City)....(dvdojo.com) I'm gonna try to get there in the next few days and check out the operation myself 1sthand....

...I'd like to help out as well- throw me an email and we'll hook-up.
I have an XL1S and EF adapter for EOS lenses and would be willing to participate.

Mini reflector
 

Hello all,
I just found this on a newsgroup, and offer it up for inspection. http://www.tgproductions.com/reflector/
Keith

? re: 100 IRE broadcast levels FCP
 

I need to make a call to see if my tape was duped or anything but I just saw one of my cable b-casts and the top (white) end sucked.

I use FCP which has something akin to a waveform monitor and I've got a couple of questions.

In FCP there is a saturation button which shows quite different levels than without the button pushed (where it shows what I believe to only be peaks). What is the correlation of the peaks to the saturation levels? And can you be Ok with the peaks (near or at 100IRE) and not OK with the saturation levels?

My tape (if it's the same one I submitted) showed 95 to maybe 100 peaks (man in off-white robe), but the SAT level was about 103. I've seen stuff blown worse, with SAT levels about 110, so I wouldn't think that just over 100 would be too bad. Played fine at home (sorry just a nice TV, no monitor), not on air.

No audio "interference" was apparent, but the whites were crushed and the contrast seemed to be higher than I've seen on my other stuff.

Any idea about the different levels of IRE shown in FCP's WF monitor? There's even different levels of SAT which confuse me even more.

Assuming they duped it via composite lines (from one pro deck to another) could that have messed up my tape enough to get the levels outa' wack?

-Gracias

This post belongs in the Editing on the Mac forum... I've already moved it there; please pick up the thread at that location as it's more appropriate for that forum than this one.

I'll remove this copy in a little bit. See you in the Editing on the Mac forum,

Need Stock Video
 

Hi Everyone,

I am working on a corporate piece in a few weeks and I need stock footage of needy children...the video is for a charity and I need about 20-25 seconds of stock video...

Do you know where I such video?

Thanks

Check the back pages of most trade magazines such as Videography and American Cinematographer... you'll usually find six to eight or more sources for stock footage of all kinds. Hope this helps,