Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Tom. OK I´m using 1920x1080i in project settings (which automatically uses upperfield), but I cannot find where you set the auto box to AC3. (I also don´t understand what CBR is but as you say its automatic I guess I don´t really need to!). Also I gather you are saying it is best not to exceed one hour for a DVD?

Mark

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

OK, project settings are good, so 'burn to disc' won't be greyed out. Click burn to disc and choose if you want to make a DVD or BD. In 'settings' in this authoring program you'll see the audio and video is set to auto. Untick that to enable you to change the audio to AC3. I'd leave video on auto as Edius will encode at the highest possible bit-rate for however long your film is.

One hour on a DVD will give you the best image quality the medium's capable of, but 90 mins on a DVD looks excellent too.

tom.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

In premier I would right click (control click on a mac) and choose "new sequence from clip" and let premier create your sequence settings. My guess is it will create what you want. Working in the NTSC environment, 5.5.2 has an AVCHD 1080-60p setting, Id guess in PAL it would have, or create a 50p setting as well.

I can edit in premier with my (NTSC) 60fps just fine. The file I export from premier using "match sequence settings" I can use in either Adobe's or Apple's software to create a really fine looking blu ray.

Its true weather I burn a standard DVD or Blu Ray that THOSE standards will always rachet down the frame rate as they don't support a 60p standard. Still the results are really beautiful and sharp and clean.

Once I get my file out of Premier I really just create a DVD the way I create any DVD but with footage thats much cleaner to start out with.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Tom

I just did a clip to the hard disk and it looks OK. It isn´t 50P but if I had never seen it in 50P I would probably be happy! My default for the saound is AC3 so I did not need to change it. By the way, do you know the best format for exporting to a Multimedia drive (Western digital) would be? Would 50i be the best it can reproduce?

Thanks a lot for the help. It is easy with some help! I´m from Southend originally by the way. Not far from Billericay!

Mark

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

'I just did a clip to the hard disk and it looks OK' doesn't mean much to me.
If you're exporting to a HDD there's no point in downgrading the image at all, so keep it 50p.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Playing back full 1080 50P at full res and full frame rate, depending on the codec you use and your computer hardware will yield varying results. What I mean by that is, some computer systems are not fast enough to decode (playback) a file like that and play perfectly smoothly. Playing at a full 50 frames per sec progressively takes some computer muscle. Right now the standard appears to be H264 files, similar to what you get from the iTunes store ((except those are not 50 or 60p files)).

I have used this software ( only for mac ) Pavtube Video Converter-best software to convert WMV, AVI, TiVo, MKV, AVCHD MTS files.
That software supports AC3 btw.
and it seems to work fine with 60p. Im able to get expectable playback even on just a two core machine.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Tom

I mean that it doesn´t look like 50P quality. It looks like DVD and therefore OK. Probably it is the best that can be got in DVD format. Its just thst if you have seen the 50P version you become spoilt and nothing else compares!

Unfortunately I cannot yet get 50P to play on my MM Hard disk outputting to a television.

Mark

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Mark, as you have a Western digital disk for "outputting to a television" you can keep the full frame rate 50P output from Edius for this, thus enjoying it's fabulous full quality! That's what I do with my personal stuff, I make a 1080P/50 project in Edius 6, edit the film and export to mpeg2 to put on my WD TV® Live Hub™ for viewing on my HDTV or taking to friends and showing on theirs.

You can make a 50P project in Edius quite easily, here's my project settings..

Video
Frame Size : 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate : 50.00
Aspect Ratio : 1.0000
Field order : Progressive
Quantization Bit Rate : 8Bit
Audio
Sampling Rate : 48000Hz
Quantization Bit Rate : 24 Bit
Channel : 2
Setup
Render format : Canopus HQ Standard
Over Scan Size : 0 %
Audio Reference Level : -12.0dB

When you have completed the edit go to "Print to File" and in the left pane of this screen highlight "MPEG", then in the r/h pane double click "MPEG2 Program Stream". The MPEG settings window will open.

For the Basic settings tab leave Size at "Current Setting", Quality/Speed choose "SuperFine", Bitrate use CBR 35000000 and for Audio choose AC3. In the Extended settings tab, Field order should be "Progressive", Chroma Format 4:2:0, Profile MP@HL, GOP IBBP, Picture count 15 (for PAL) and put a tick in the Closed GOP checkbox.

This will produce a single file, video and audio combined, just what you need for the media box and the quality is amazing because you have not thrown out half the pixel information by converting to 25P (50i actually I believe which is what you would need to put on Blu ray or DVD).

Roll on the day when we might be able to put 1080P/50 or 60 on Blu ray...

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Hi Claire

Did everthing you said - works perfectly! Quality superb!

Thanks a lot for the help (and in so much detail).

Mark

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Hi Mark, pleased to have helped.

Since I got the TM900 over a year ago it's taken me a while to get to this stage where I can archive and replay recordings from it fairly easily while retaining the original 50P quality. Yes 35Mbps MPEG2 from Edius is normally sufficient for the TM900 in 50P mode... plus Edius rocks exporting it, 8 cores of my i7 processor pegged at 100%, all the way through!

50Mbps is better still, I do a lot of fine detail work so sometimes have used this data rate and never found any playback difficulties from either the media box to telly or on the computer, I can recommend a great free player for the computer if you have stuttering problems with others, it's called "Splash Lite" and is freeware.

The disadvantage of using 50Mbps is that file sizes gets bigger, one can always connect an external drive to the WD media player box of course, but for ultimate quality together with smaller file sizes I find x264 format absolutely the best. Edius 6 cannot export in this format so I export a temporary Canopus Lossless AVI file to feed to my x264 encoder.

The quality of x264 is astonishing.. I have often put the result above the original in the Edius timeline and can discern no difference toggling between the two which is very reassuring. BTW I am not looking at computer screens here but on my large screen HDTV connected via Edius/Storm 3G hardware running at proper full 50P, not interlaced or converted in some way.

The only disadvantage I find in producing x264 is that takes much more time than simply churning out MPEG2 direct from Edius timeline but I do find it's worth the effort for really important stuff.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

I am wondering if anyone has used the Lexar 128 gig SDXC card for recording video on the TM900, and if so, what your experience was, Pro or Con?
Thanks,
Denny

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Has anyone done a hands on comparison between the TM900 and the new X900? I bought my first TM900 when they first came out. I bought my second TM900 when they were on sale at B&H for $699. I am now thinking about getting a third cam to match the other two. For many of the performances that I shoot it is best to have at least 3 primary cameras. I am currently shooting with the two TM900's and a Canon HV30. I sometimes add two PD-170's (shooting in 16x9 mode) on more complicated environments. The TM900's shoot far better video than any of the other cams. The intelligent contrast on the TM900s is a godsend. When filming groups of people onstage under various lighting conditions it is usually difficult to properly expose the darker faces while keeping the brighter faces from turning into lightbulbs. The HV-30 and PD's don't deal with this situation well at all. The TM-900s almost completely eliminate this as an issue. You can zoom in and out on unevenly lit groups of people and maintain a pretty good exposure on all the faces. Hooray for the TM900's!

I am now finding that I don't want to use any more of the HV-30 footage than I have to because the TM900 footage is so much nicer. And of course the PD footage is a step lower yet. So now I'm considering another TM-900 to match my other two. This would give me 3 cams of identical color and quality. Of course the TM900's are pretty scarce these days, and the few places that still have them are pretty expensive. So I'm trying to decide whether to go with an HS900 (the hard disk model that is still available), or go with one of the new X900's.

I'm a little concerned with the 20% shorter battery life with the HS unit as some of the performances run for 90 minutes. I'm also intrigued that the X900 might produce even better video in some circumstances (less outdoor overexposure?). But I have only seen a few customer reviews on the new model and they weren't from folks who appeared to have experience with the earlier models. I did see one review that suggested that the LCD was blurry. I'm wondering if anyone on this forum has any experience comparing the two. Anyone have any information to share in this regard?

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Allen,
Go to camcorderinfo.com. There is a full review of the new 900 as well as comparisons to the older models.

Hope this helps,
Denny

Re: TM900 (Diamond Jubilee - Thames River Pageant)
 

I've been busy with work so have not contributed to this thread for a while. However, yesterday I used the TM900 to capture the amazing Diamond Jubilee River Pageant in central London.

Filmed from a spectacular, elevated position in St George's Wharf high above Vauxhall Bridge with commanding views from Battersea Power Station upstream to The London Eye downstream. Although a dull and damp day, the atmosphere was truly electric. Luckily, the rain held off until most of the 1000 boats had passed this point of the Thames. I got a few fabulous shots!

Shot in Full HD in 1080p50 on my TM900 as I needed a highly portable but capable cam to get through the crowds into/out of central London with. Camera was on 1/50th second, auto focus and auto exposure most of the time. Picture adjust was set at -2 for exposure, everything else at -1. All hand held and a Rode VMP was used for sound. Then it was a quick edit today in Adobe CS 5.5 Production Premium on a Mac Pro into a <10 minute highlights type film before suitable encoding for YouTube uploading tonight (it's still encoding some of the resolutions). When I get time I'll do more work on selected shots, warp stabilise some and a more slick edit.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Andy,
It is a shame that the event couldn't have happened on a sunny day. It would have looked even more spectacular than it does.
Nice work,
Denny

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

I was doing some testing with the 24p setting using the cinema color and was pretty amazed at how that looked. This camera keeps amazing me.

Loved the Jubilee River Pageant. Personally I think overcast does pretty well to diffuse the light it looked great!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Alan, I also have two TM900's but the footage does not exactly match with regard to auto white balance so I would not assume that you would achieve matching footage if you were to add a third. This was tested using identical shooting conditions both inside and outside with both cams attached to a bar on a tripod. I also added a TM700 :- )

Not a direct match but not far out. Usable most of the time without colour correction when cutting between cams in Vegas Pro multicam mode.

I would now avoid the use of internal hard drives as they are going to be a pain if data recovery is required. I now have 32gb SD cards in each of my 3 cams. I bought these Sandisk 45mb/s ones on Amazon:


The length of your shoots wouldn't be an issue if you use the larger batteries. I have the Panny high capacity batteries for one TM900 and one TM700 but baulked at the cost of getting more. However recently I bougght this aftermarket battery for the TM900 on amazon for a fraction of the Panny price and its duration is only slightly lower than the real thing. It also gives an accurate capacity readout on the cam:


I also got one of their chargers and that works fine as well:


The charger works for both the aftermarket and the Panny batteries.

There doesn't seem to be much point in paying over the odds for the X900. Unlike with the TM700 where I found that the newer TM900 is far easier to operate partly by virtue of its larger touch screen.

Pete

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Thanks for the nice comments on my Jubilee River Pageant film. There were a couple of shots where the YouTube encoding fell apart a bit (e.g. on a couple of panning shots) but on the whole I was pretty pleased with what I managed to capture in poor weather conditions and how it came out. The 20x digital zoom got used a lot - I never go above that - and the excellent image stabilisation on the TM900 worked well, even on that long a reach (most of the time). Sure, in ideal situations I would have taken the EX3/Rode NTG3 and my new, excellent Vinten Vision 3AS Tripod for the main shots and had the TM900 locked down on a little Gorilla pod tripod for some of the wide shots - but that just was not possible on Sunday. As well as taking my older daughter to the flat I also had to carry quite a lot of booze(!), food and several birthday presents for family. My wife had to stay home and miss it all too, in order to care for my younger daughter who currently has chicken pox - so that was 4 pairs of gear carrying hands I lost for the shoot!

When I get more time I'll definitely try and edit a much more polished film using the hour or so of recorded footage and excellent sounds that I now have.

As an aside, I've had two friends tell me that they got more of the atmosphere, sounds and saw more of the scale of the event from my little 10 minute film than from watching 3 hours of the live BBC coverage on the day! I did n't see the live BBC TV coverage (obviously) but I gather there has been some moanings in the press about just how poor it was.

Back on topic, I agonised for a few minutes about what Exposure adjustment to make in the Picture Settings menu. For those that don't know, when in Manual it's accessed via Menu>Record Setup>Picture Adjust (Page 8 of 9). As other owners of the TM900 will know, and as discussed in this thread some time ago, the TM900 will blow out/clip bright parts of the image very easily.

In strong sunlight I find -3 or even at times -4 adjustment on Exposure is needed (and I always use 1/100th sec shutter in good light too as the cam handles things much better that way). We had no strong sunlight on Sunday! This was all shot at -2. I toyed with the idea of -1 but you can't really tell from the just the LCD image - other than the excellent Histogram (which I have on screen all the time and watch like a hawk). I thought that shooting wet boats on a river (i.e. reflective surface, potential boat wash situations etc.) might risk clipping on the whites - and once things are blown you can't get them back in post. Anyway, with this set within the Picture Adjust, I then run it in Manual but with Auto Exposure. Then, if needed for a particular shot, I manually adjust the exposure (using the quick menu options, taking care to keep the shutter speed under control by how this is done). I find that the TM900 does a pretty good job 95% of the time with exposure when set up and operated like this. It all came out fine as you've seen. Auto focus nails it most of the time too, but again, can be quickly put into manual focus when needed via the quick menu (and when in manual focus I have it set to show the blue peaking by default). I'm so familar with this little cam that capturing good images can be done almost by instinct - and very quickly! Just the way it needs to be with any cam used in event recording, especially one off events like this where so much was going on in front of us and you have to work fast to try and capture a good range of both wide shots for scale and detail shots for interest.

If I was doing it again I might have been tempted to put the Colour adjustment within the Picture Adjust settings at 0 or maybe even +1 (rather than the -1 that I usually have it at) just to lift the colours a little more in such dull conditions - especially for the last few shots when it was raining.

Now some comments about the X900 versus older TM900. I think the main thing that would tempt me would be the ability to shoot wider. Often I find the 35mm widest setting on the TM900 is a bit limiting (especially indoors). The iris having more blades would also be a nice feature - OOF areas can look a bit ugly with the diamond/criss-cross pattern that the TM900 displays.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Guys, I hate to be off-topic, but I would really need your words of wisdom for a gig tomorrow. It's about setting up the VideoMic Pro on the TM900. I filmed a concert last night with the mic on the 0db setting and the TM900 on auto microphone volume setting (AGC off). The display showed me that most of the time the level reached the first red bar, which I thought was fine (the 2nd red bar I thought to be the problem).

After a few hours of filming when I got home and reviewed my footage... utter disaster, the sound was heavily distorted :( I was filming right near the stage, a few meters from the subwoofers, maybe I should have lowered the bass volume? Or kept the camera on auto mic volume but set the VMP on -10db? Or just set a value for input in the TM900's menu that would be close-ish to the first red bar in the level meter and stick to that throughout the entire gig? Not sure which would have been the best way to go. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thank you very much!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

The physical stop/start recording and zoom buttons on the bezel of the TM900's LCD screen are absent on the X900. I use these while rotating the lens with my right hand to manually focus, the TM900 is in manual mode and I display the standard icon set that allows quick selection of manual/auto focus and manual/auto iris. The X900 doesn't have these real buttons, they are replaced with more on screen icons, unfortunately they can't be displayed at the same time as the icon set I use, it's one or the other, so no way to make a scene adjustment without changing the whole menu display, a real slow down, this was a MAJOR problem for me while doing close up filming work. I hated it...

The wider angle lens was nice to have but both X900's I tried (and gave up on) did not give me the same image quality as my 1 year plus TM900. Had the image been as good then this wider lens and addition of very nice roll correction to the OIS would have swayed me on their own since these two features were the reasons I desired this model. I am still wondering if both the X900's I tried had faulty lenses, they were rather early models.

BTW the claimed higher resolution LCD screen on the X900 was not something I noticed, perhaps the screen is not large enough to benefit from all those extra pixels but I did find it a bit weird to view, occasional artifacts when fine detail was in the scene, like a badly downscaled image with cross hatching, I have never see that on my TM900 screen but then it's not a 3D display and I wonder if that has something to do with it.

So I am in two minds about this newer model, some strong points but then.... ???

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Luc,

Loud environment with a Rode VMP on the TM900 I would tend to go for AGC and set the mic to the -10dB setting as there will be no issues with the AGC pumping up quiet background noises and giving you hiss etc. Only use manual mic settings if you're good at knowing where you need to be on the meters (TEST, TEST...) and are ACTIVELY monitoring the result through headphones. Anything important, always have a second device recording sound (I use Fostex and/or Zooms). Also, make sure you use a good pair of monitoring headphones (i.e. ones with reasonable sound isolation) to check what you're getting (as best you can in a loud environment where the noise will bleed into the earphone cups).

Claire,

Interesting and very informative (if somewhat disappointing!) info on the X900. I forgot about the loss of those useful side LCD buttons. The LCD sounds like a step backwards as indeed does the Menu system. However, the killer sounds like the image quality is not the same with this re-jigged lens. What a shame. Can anyone else with a X900 comment on image quality?

OK back to Warp stabilising my project (I'm working on a much improved, highlights version of the Jubilee River Pageant film posted a couple of days ago!)

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Andy, so what you're saying is that the problem was that I had to change the mic setting to -10. Therefore I should still keep the microphone in AUTO, AND enable AGC? I thought everyone stayed away from AGC. The camera likes to keep the sound level very close to the first red bar, no matter if i'm filming a concert or just people talking.

Also, do you ever change the bass level in the TM900's menu? I'm still suspecting that the powerful bass was somewhat responsible for what happened.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Luc, generally, yes keep away from AGC. However, in certain situations (such as when the sound pressure level is more or less constant) a sound recording with AGC is MUCH preferable to one that is full of distortion. If you are skilled and able to record reliably without AGC, then sure, that's a better option. It's all down to your skill level as a combined camera and sound man in an evolving live event/fast moving type situation.

Regarding the -10 dB cut. Yes, use it when you think it's needed. Only you can make a judgement on that depending on the situation you're dealing with. I've never needed it on my TM900 but I don't shoot live, loud music (much) or next to sub-woofers. Rode provided this useful feature, I imagine for the exact scenario you now need it for (and also perhaps to better match with some camcorders pre-amps) so test it out with your TM900 (preferably before the shoot!) and decide if it is the way to go or not.

Good Luck. Hope this helps!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Thank you sir, I do appreciate it and I'm sure this won't happen again :)

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Thanks to those of you who replied on the differences between the X900 and TM900. I noticed the same issue with manually white balancing my two TM900's. They don't come out identical. However, I do get pretty good results when I use one of the white balance presets. I now usually use a preset rather than manual white balance when I can find one that seems pretty close to the correct colors. I can make tweaks in post if it is only slightly off, and apply the same tweak to the footage from both cameras. This seems to work pretty well at matching the two cameras I currently have.

With respect to getting the disk based version of the TM900 before they also become unavailable, I'd like to point out that one can record to SD card on them instead of using the disk. So one can have the reliability/convenience of an SD card even when using the disk model. The issues that I would perceive with the disk model would be the shorter battery life (the specs say battery life is shorter even when not using the disk to record) and potential disk rotation noise creeping into the audio. Does anyone have one of the HS900's? Is the disk audible?

Here's a question for Andy. What is the difference between "auto" audio and AGC audio on the TM900? I have been assuming that auto is equivalent to one of the AGC settings (probably=set AGC 0dB), as I don't see how a useful auto setting could be accomplished without incorporating AGC circuitry. I also have yet to figure out what exactly is accomplished by setting AGC to a different level than 0dB. A possible theory is that you can force the ceiling point of the AGC to be a lower level than 0dB, which would give you a bit more headroom for sudden changes in volume where the AGC can't keep up. Is that what is happening/intended? Some experiments that I performed a while back suggest that this is the case but I'm not sure. If you have figured out what is really going on with these audio settings then please instruct me as the manual is pretty confusing from my perspective.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread - AGC+SET
 

Hi Alan,

Good question and one that reminded me of yet another feature about this amazing little cam that I had completely forgotten about. I agree the TM900 manual is very vague (pages 72, 73 and 74) on the audio settings but from my understanding of it/testing it out on the cam, this is what I think is happening.

Put the TM900 in Manual mode (mine lives in this mode!)
Then it's Menu>Record Setup>Mic Level (Page 7 of 9)
Once in Mic Level you then have 2 options, Auto or Set.
I assume Auto is AGC controlled

Now the Set option opens up some interesting features.

If the AGC button (bottom of screen) is not selected/activated (i.e. not highlighted in yellow for those that are new to the cam, just toggle on or off by pressing once each time) you can simply adjust the level up or down from 0dB (steps of - 3dB in the downward direction, steps of +2dB in the upward direction). When you have it where you want it (using the on screen noise bars and headphones to judge sound levels), then just press Enter. This is simply manually adjusting the sound level and is what I've been doing most of the time on my TM900. It will show as SET in the Menu.

Alternatively, if you adjust the level to say - 6dB and touch the AGC button to activate it (and then press Enter) the Mic Level is then displayed in the Menu system as being SET+AGC.

I believe this is exactly as you imply Alan, the ceiling for the AGC control is set at a lower level than 0dB (by whatever you have selected), in this case it would be - 6dB (to spell it out).

I have just checked all this in the cams menu (whilst awaiting for yet another render to finish!) and it seems to make sense.

This could be pretty useful now that you've reminded us all that this feature exusts on the TM900! I would stress that I've never used this SET+AGC function in anger, as I usually just shoot with Manual control on the sound level (or occasionally AGC, i.e. "Auto" Mic Level). This feature might be another very good option for Luc to use to stop overloading his cams sound pre-amp - so let's hope he reads this in time.

It would be great to hear from someone who uses this feature a lot in real live situations to confirm what you and now I think this does.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

I use a Videomic Pro on mine, just turn the switch to -10. Works like a charm, but still and all, a bit of a hissy mic. I usually end up running a de-hisser on the footage. By the way, I always bring headphones to monitor my sound. It's one of the benefits to using a camcorder like this.

Al

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

TIme for some Magic Bullets Looks! (G)

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

No way Al!

A deep blue Thames and a sunny sky, "Californian style" would just not match the typical English weather (and the atmosphere that goes with it) that we often seem to get on these special occasions! Right now as I'm finishing the edit we are being battered by 70 mile hour winds and "European monsoon" rains here in the UK. Yep, this must be England in June then!

If I can get this Diamond Jubilee Thames River Pageant re-edit finished sometime today/tomorrow I'll post it on here this weekend. It's taking a lot of my 8 core Mac Pros resources in CS5.5 as I've now got nearly 80 clips dynamically linked between Premier Pro and After Effects (mostly for Warp Stabilisation - which it has done a fantastic job on). However, I've now decided that after this project I will be placing an order to max out the RAM in this thing!

Re: TM900 - Jubilee River Pageant (Highlights)
 

Here you go!

I did a lot of work on the sound that the Rode VMP captured to help recreate the magical atmosphere. Lots of Warp Stabilisation too - you would think most of it was shot on a tripod now! I also repositioned, reselected and/or chopped/trimmed lots of shots so this one is 100 seconds shorter, and I hope a slicker edit. Further notes/details on the YouTube page. It is also now on Vimeo. Still no blue skies though....;-)


I still think it is amazing that one can get such good 1080p material in poor weather from something that is so small that it almost fits in a pocket - if you've got something unusual and a perfect spot to film it from!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Hi Andy,

A really great effort. Having suffered the travesty of the BBC's boring, totally uncoordinated live coverage of this event, with seemingly unlimited resources, I have to say, your coverage captured far more of the atmosphere. The Director General of the BBC is stepping down: would you kindly take his place please.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Thanks Guy for that great compliment!!! :-) I had heard the BBCs coverage was pretty bad on the day. You are the forth person to make this kind of comment about my little film. [The DG position was a bonus the others omitted!]

It was a nightmare re-edit so compliments like this are much appreciated! For those that want to know, I lost my Dynamic Link from After Effects about a day and a half into it (a worrying sea of red "Media Offline" all along my Premier Pro timeline). I had to do some serious head scratching/problem solving into the small hours to recover the project. Luckily, I have very regularly back-ups and managed to find a way to get it to all hang together again for a final render of this Highlights film. 12GB of RAM just ain't enough so 32GB here I come. Mind you, I'll need to spend some of that high salary the DG gets on something.... I suppose :-)

Back on topic, well sort of. Luc, when you're next on, how did the audio go with the TM900 and Rode VMP in that next gig?

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Andy, could you have boosted the contrast/saturation just a bit on the river scenes? The cutaways are much more vibrant to my eyes, and with a bit of punch (but not magic bullets) I think the river scenes would have been more interesting. Awfully flat on my monitor.

All the best! Wish I was back over there again.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Yeah I did wonder about that - good suggestion - and a few other things I'd like to do to it.

A lot of the 20x zoom shots in particular are a bit flat - but of course it was pretty dismal, dull and misty day and that's all part of the history of it!

However, in view of the hiccups well into re-editing, my main aim then switched to get "something" completed and in the bag.

I'm archiving copies of the whole project on multiple external drives and when I've got the extra RAM installed on my Mac Pro I'll try and re-open the project and see if that speeds things up. [For the first time in 6 months of using CS5.5 this project brought my system to its knees with a few lock-ups, crashes etc. - up to now it's been wonderful and zippy fast, as indeed has been the project I've just completed today].

Failing that, I'm looking at a new Graphics card as well (all this is on a thread I started in the Adobe section on here) but that involves upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard and a few other things, all of which I'm reluctant to do in view of ongoing client projects right now. The RAM can be installed without any other changes - so will be done as soon as I can get it delivered!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Andrew, before you get too far down the road of computer upgrades, take a look at Premiere CS6. First reports are that there are improvements to the Mercury Engine and the camera stabilisation effect is integral to the editing program. This will prevent you running both Premiere and After Effects, which is eating up the RAM. Unfortunately I missed the preview in Brighton last month, but hopefully someone on this forum went and may enlighten you as to how much of an improvement the latest version is.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Thanks Guy. I'm following CS6 developments VERY closely. There seem to be a few serious bugs for Mac and AVCHD users (in particular) - which will get sorted soon I'm sure....and then I will be upgrading. CS Production Premium is such terrific software and the guys and gals at Adobe actually listen to what us professionals want and need so I have no doubts about this at all.

In the meantime, I figure that the RAM upgrade can only help my otherwise normally superbly stable and pretty fast system (I'm editing one of the films I shot in my wife's native Mauritius last year - family stuff - and it's flying through it!). I really need to upgrade the Graphics card - but that comes with some complications that I can't risk right now (I need FCS2 on my system as well). I'm hoping to get that done sometime in the next few months, important ongoing client projects permitting.

More details about the RAM and Graphics Card upgrade I'm considering in this thread in the Adobe section:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-cr...ade-worth.html

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Andy, as a long time Vegas Pro user, I'm really enjoying CS6! Also purchased and tried FCPX, but it didn't work for me or my MacAir. CS6 runs fine on the Air and for the first time with the cloud options, I can run on both Mac and my PC. I'm sold!

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Well... below is a sample. Unfortunately I did not read the SET+AGC trick in time for the event, so I just set the camera to AUTO mic volume and the VMP to -10dB. Compared to the last event I filmed, the sound is much better and cleaner. However, I am still hearing slightly distorted lows. I'm guessing it's because of the reason you mentioned earlier, the camera is always trying to stay on 0db, so the song beats surprise it and it doesn't have enough time to react and lower the input level. I just hope the SET+AGC setting doesn't lower the volume too much on every beat, then increase it when there's no beat, then lower it again on the next beat and so on. That would actually be worse. I can't wait to test it tomorrow, don't want to wake up the neighbours now :)

And thank you Andy! I wanted to come here and complain about how useless the sound settings are for this camera, but apparently it's a bit smarter than I thought. One thing that does disappoint me, however, is the low light picture quality. What you're seeing below was shot at 1/50 exposure and anywhere between +6 and +12db of gain (auto iris). Everyone praised this camera for its excellent low light capabilities, but in all honesty it's not that great.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Mkay, I did the test. Conclusion? Disappointment. Here's what I did:

Record Setup -> Microphone volume -> SET -> -6, AGC ON
VMP on -10dB

Now, from what I understood, the level meter was supposed to stay somewhere around the -6dB mark no matter the noise level. What I did to test this was just increase and decrease the volume on my 5.1 sound system while watching the level meter. Unfortunately, when at max volume, the level meter on the camera showed the sound to CONSTANTLY be on the first red bar, sometimes even hitting the second one. When I lowered the music volume, the level meter was somewhere in the middle. Unless I'm missing something, I seem to be looking at using fully manual mic volume from now on. Video below.


As a sidenote, I did a quick time lapse today to drain a battery. What in the world is going on with the quality of the footage? I know it's not in the 50p setting (HA mode used) but the footage just looks horrible in comparison.

Re: The Panasonic TM900 Users Thread
 

Hi Luc,

Thanks for the update. The AGC+SET thing at -6 dB test looks disappointing - I wonder how this is supposed to work then. Anyone know?

Cannot really tell from your video about the timelapse quality as I am out and about and only viewing on my Samsung Tablet. Last year I did try an extended timelapse with my TM900 and I will say that I was so unhappy with the quality of it when I got home that it never even made it into a family video. I ONLY ever use it in 1080p50 now. Each camera has strengths and weaknesses - get to learn them well and use them to play to their strengths whenever possible!

Sure, low light performance on the TM900 is not stella. What do you expect with 3 small chips! This kind of thing is all relative. I can tell you it trounces my old Sony HC1 and a friends Sony V1 that were my main tools a few years ago. If you need good low light get a Canon 5D Mkiii.