Need Advice on filming hs football FX1000

[Tim Rogers]

Hello Guys,
My first post here and not very familiar with camera terminology at all. I have read most of the entire forum posts on the FX1000. I have been filming high school football for the past 5 years or so with a DCR-TRV280 and just last week purchased a FX1000. Now i find myself lost in all the different settings and not even knowing if i should be filming in HDV or DV. My end result is always DVD's for the coaching staff and college scouts, also i convert the video to flv for the web.
One of my first questions is should i be shooting in HDV 1080/60i and then convert that to MPEG2-DVD 720X480? I have Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore and Sony Vegas 9 but have never used any of them, i had always used Ulead Studio up until now.
Some basic understanding of what my camera settings need to be to shoot the games would be greatly appreciated. I did film a scrimmage game the other night with the FX1000 and i didnt really know what i needed to be filming in, i think i had it at 30p 16:9 and that didnt really work out as well as i wanted.
Also, besides what settings i need to use, would it be possible for me to buy a dvd-recorder and record my film directly from the camcorder to dvd for the purpose of getting a disc out to the athletic director the same night as they do film exchanges with the coaches of the next opponent the following day.

[Adam Gold]

You don't want 30p for sports. 60i will give you smoother motion.

The FX1000 is a great cam for field sports, especially at night. It can practically see in the dark.

Sony makes a standalone DVD recorder that can burn DVDs directly from tape. You downconvert in the cam as you output to the device. It takes as long as the tape is, so one hour of tape would take an hour to burn to DVD. The current version is the VRD-MC10, I think, but all the versions back to at least the MC3 can do this.

Always shoot in HDV. You can downconvert upon capture to your PC or you can do it later as you burn your DVDs. I do the latter.

Make sure you do a proper White Balance at night under the lights. For daytime shooting, just set the WB default to OUTDOOR (the little sun icon in the LCD). Leave everything else on AUTO until you're comfortable with the basics of shooting and feel like experimenting a little (but not during a game, obviously; play around with the settings during some non-critical shooting). Make sure you use a tripod at all times and get as close to the action as you can (unless you must be shooting from above in the stands).

Most of all, spend a couple of hours with the cam, the manual and a cup of coffee and read everything. Twice.

Premiere will do just fine for editing all this stuff, if you have CS3 or CS5 and a fast PC.

[Tim Rogers]

Thank you very much for the advice. I was unsure of whether or not i could capture in 1080/60i and then burn it to a regular dvd for viewing on standard tv.
I also didnt think of adjusting the White Balance under the lights. I shoot from above the press box and usually use a fishing pole ( i guess is what its called). I still have another 5 days to figure out what i need to do in Premiere or Encore, and yes i do have CS5.
Any other useful tips would be appreciated.

[Adam Gold]

A fishpole? You mean like a boom or jib? For what? Holding the cam or a mic? You're better off using a regular tripod -- more control and more stable. Maybe I'm not understanding.

If you have only 5 more days on Premiere, that says to me you have the trial version, which doesn't do HD in any form. You'd need to convert upon capture using i.LINK CONV in the cam and setting up a standard DV Widescreen project in Premiere. Or just shooting in DV mode -- whether it's 16:9 or not is up to you. Not the ideal setup but it'll work.

From that far away it appears to me you'll be sticking with fairly wide shots to do play analysis. Because of all that small fine detail, I think you're going to want to shoot and edit in HD and burn to Blu-Ray for playback on a Blu-Ray player into an HDTV, so you can see all that detail. The difference is shocking. But of course that means the school has to have the right playback equipment and you need the full paid, registered and activated version of Premiere and a Blu-Ray burner. You can get the educational discount on Premiere if you're doing this for the school -- have them buy it for you. And BD players are really cheap these days, burners only slightly less so.

For short clips -- under 20 min -- you can burn as a data (m2t) file to a regular DVD and it'll still be in HD. But again you need a BD player which can play this type of disc -- not all do but a PS3 does -- and a proper HDTV to display it on. Or you can avoid the whole disc thing altogether and just render to your hard drive, copy to a laptop and output from laptop to HDTV if the laptop has HDMI or DVI outputs.

[Tim Rogers]

Sorry, i meant 5 more days to tinker around with the camera and Premiere beofre the first game i have to film.
The thing im talking about is what i would call a mono-pod, lol, it collapses and extends. its just a single pole, ive used it for the past 4 years.

[Adam Gold]

Got it. Monopods are okay but for something as big and heavy as the FX1000 I'd still recommend a good heavy tripod.

[Tim Rogers]

ok, yes ive had a tripod for awhile now but just never used it. i will give it a try. i did notice the other night when i filmed the scrimmage game that the weight of the cam had me worn out by the time it was over.
i am going to film a couple of practices this week in HD and then do the cown convert to SD so that i can familiarize myself with what i need to do come Friday night.
I looked at the Sony recorder you posted also. I was looking at a recorder at Wal Mart that was 250.00 that had an input for iLink, but for 300.00, the Sony is probably a better one.

[Jay West]

Tim:

Check on the manual for the DVD recorders. The VRD MC10 apparently does not allow live recording from cameras such as the FX 1000.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...ctId=819855292

One of our local high-school music teachers has a setup where he uses an older disk recorder from Sony (can't find the model number right now) with an FX1 to do something similar with concert recordings.

I definitely agree with Adam about tripods. The FX1000 is a lot bigger camera than what you have been using. ANd, while I don't know where your press box is situated, you will likely be zoomed-in for at least the ends of the fields. These shots will be mucccchhhh steadier with a tripod.

I also agree about white balancing for night games. Get a large white posterboard, put it on the field under the lights and follow the instructions on pp. 37-38 of your FX manual. Then save that setting as a preset so you can call it up whenever you need it with the press of a button.

Here's another thought for something to use while you check on DVD recorders. Use Adobe On-Location with a laptop with a firewire port. This at least saves your the time for capturing from tape and so you only have encoding time to make game DVDs for the coach. You are in a fixed location and you can probably get an extension cord up over the press box. (I'd strongly recommend getting a UPS/battery backup; you never know when somebody might unplug your extension cord or stumble over it). I used this kind of set-up for theater and dance productions before I got tapeless recording units. I also used an external firewire drive because (a) most laptop drives aren't fast enough for video capture and (b) it was easy to put the drive on my main workstation to more quickly encode and burn a DVD.

[Jay West]

Disregard the link I posted. For some reason the link doesn't work; I linked to the page with the reviews but the posted link takes you to a generic Sony page.

The link I was trying to connect to is the Sonystyle page for the VRDMC10 under the "reviews" tab. The first review describes the issues about the VRDMC10 not working with the FX1, FX1000 etc. for live recording.

The music teacher tells me that the Sony recorder he uses --- that works with the FX1 and presumably the FX1000 --- is a couple of years old and that thinks it might be an RDR GX300.

[Adam Gold]

Yes, as I sort of implied in my first post, all of the VRD-MC series are really designed just to burn direct from tape that's already been recorded. I mean, I guess there's no reason why they shouldn't have been designed to record live as well but I've never heard anyone say they could. I suppose Sony wants to preserve that function for more expensive devices. Sorry I wasn't more specific.

The VRD-MCxxes are great when they work, but I've had a very high coaster to disc ratio with my MC3. Never once burned a coaster from my PC, for what that's worth.

I also thought about mentioning the OnLocation workflow as well, but wasn't sure how involved Tim wanted to get.

[Leslie Wand]

a. you NEED to shoot from a tripod.

b. you can buy a 'cheap' dvd recorder and simply supply it with a feed from the firewire out on the camera.

c. there's absolutely no point in shooting hdv in your circumstances.

[Adam Gold]

Point (c) above couldn't be more wrong. There's absolutely no point in NOT shooting HDV -- it costs you nothing in time, money or effort and even if you think you'll never use your footage in HDV form you'll always have that beautiful sharp original if you need it, like for an end-of-year highlight reel that some may want on Blu-Ray. Or to actually be able to read the players' numbers from way up on top of the press box.

What's foolish is having one of the best consumer camcorders ever made and not using it to its fullest. I just don't understand people who have HDV cams but shoot in DV. You can throw detail away but you can never add it.

[Tim Rogers]

i agree. im actually thinking that there will be people that have blu-ray players that will want games in that format even if it will cost a little more.
i am still trying to ingest alot of the posts here....lol...i have never had a camera with so many options.

[Ed Roo]

Here is the reason you shot HDV...
After the game you download the tape to your computer hard drive.
You do the NLE conversion to DVD and get it off to the coach the next day.
You spend the next four days marking and editing a high-lights video for that game.
Save the high-light file separateley.
Do this for each game.
At the end of the season, you combine the high-light videos into a single video.
Because it is HDV, you now have a hidef high lights video you can play through your computer on a HiDef TV before and during the end of season banquet for all the players and parents to watch.

[Leslie Wand]

well, i don't want to start an argument, but....

afaik, in the situation i painted above, you get out of firewire what you want, ie, hdv or dv to feed DIRECTLY into a dvd recorder.

i have no experience with your market, but i have a local shooter here who does the equivalent 'match' shoots for both footie and rugby. she shoots with a v1p.

to start with she shot hdv, etc., to produce dvd's for coaches and families. after about a year she decided that there was no market for hd dvd's (maybe we're behind the us in hd take-up?), and opted for the sytem i described in my last post.

she shoots, dupes, and distributes within a day with NO need at all for an nle - simply copying the necessary amount of dvd's from the 'live' recorded one.

adam's quite right, hdv has an awful lot going for it, but to my way of thinking, if i need to drive to the corner shop and i have a smart car and a 8 wheel truck, why take the truck unless i know i'm going to be buying more than will fit in the car?

but hey, if they'll buy hd, go for it.....