Tapeworks Texas Inc HVRZ7U Summer Special
 

Tapeworks is having a Summer promotion for the HVRZ7U camcorder that will be valid through August 31, 2008!

Sony HVRZ7U HDV Camcorder with Interchangeable Lens Capability, 1/3" Exmor CMOS Sensors
Kit Includes: AC-VQ1050 Adapter/Charger, NP-F570 infoLITHIUM Rechargeable Battery Pack, CR2025 Lithium Battery, A/V Connecting Cable, Component Video Cable, Lens Hood with Cover, Shoe Adapter, Shoe Kit, Eye Cup, RMT-831 Wireless Remote Commander, ECM-XM1 Monaural Electolet Condenser Microphone,
Operating Instructions, HVR-MRC1 Memory Recording Unit Kit, 1-Year Parts and Labor Warranty
Tapeworks Summer Promotion Price: $5,459.00

Contact Tapeworks Texas Inc Toll free 866-827-3489 for a customized quotation!

Best Regards,
Scott Cantrell
Tapeworks Texas Inc - HDVinfo Sponser
tapeworksscott@sbcglobal.net

That's about what I paid ($5479) from an authorized dealer (that I am not allow to mention) on February 20th of this year.

kdbf

s270 capture prest in Final Cut Studio 2
 

I can't get my s270 working in Final Cut with FireWire because the capture preset isn't right.
Does anyone know the right one?

HDV 1080 50i

Camera Comparison
 

Hi,
I've been reading up on this forum and found it to be a great source of information based on user experience.

Right now, I am looking around to buy a camera for event videography and its come down to two choices for me: XH-A1 or Z7U.

I've tried looking for a comparison of the two cameras on multiple sites, but cant seem to find one. The biggest factor for me is low light.

Z7U users reported really good low light performance, but XH-A1 has varying reports of low light performance. I've heard some users complain about its lowlight while others say its really good. Has anybody done a side by side comparison of this? I'd love to see it.

CF/Tape Timecode Match
 

Here's a scenario I'm curious about...shooting with a Z7 and editing with FCP:

1. Record to card(s) and tape(s) simultaneously.

2. Edit a project native HDV using the card(s)...essentially offline.

3. Re-batch through either HDMI or HD-SDI...edit/conform/color correct same project in ProRes HQ, essentially on-line.

Will the timecode match in this case? There wouldn't be lot of quick starts and stops when recording. My work is corporate and for broadcast. I've come to like ProRes HQ. It's 10 bit and seems to hold up much better to graphics and color correction.

I know similar work flows have been talked about here, but I don't remember ever seeing a definitive answer.

Thanks,

Forrest

HDV to tape 4:3 SD to CF work flow
 

Can anyone let me know the setup for recording HDV to tape and SD 4:3 to CF on the Z7. I will be shooting a wedding this weekend and the final product will be SD. I would like to have the tape HDV for backup and future demo reel material.

Thanks
Jason

Hey Folks I finally found the thread thanks. But if anyone has any tips I should know when doing this please let me know.

Thanks
Jason

Z7 Progressive Question
 

I've read a lot about how the Z7's way of recording 24p is different and wont play back on older decks such as the M15U or GV-HD700. Is this the case when also recording in 30p?

Also, I noticed that there are 2 types of 24p stated in the Z7 online manual. Whats the difference between the two?

HVR-Z7 Tape vs. CF card recording -reation time
 

Just tested, how fast can you start recording on tape and on CF card
Here are my test results:

1.If the camcorder is turned off:
Tape rec. stars in 9 sec.
MRU rec. starts in 15 sec.
2.If the camcorder is turned on and you push the rec. button
Tape rec. stars in 1 sec.
MRU rec. starts in 1 sec.
3. If during recording push the rec. button twice (sop, start again)
Tape rec. restars in 6 sec.
MRU rec. restarts in 5 sec.
4. In sand by after a time (3min) the "STBY" sign disappears
Tape rec. restars in 6 sec.
MRU rec. starts in 1 sec.

These times are just for one type of recording (not synchronous mode)

Z7U CF Recorder + HV30 + Glidecam 4000
 

I'm going to attach (not sure how) my Compact Flash recorder from my Z7U to my Canon HV30. I then plan on attaching all of that to my Glidecam 4000. Any idea on the best way to attach the CF unit to the HV30? The CF reader has a mounting hole on the bottom (as well as the HV30), but whats the best way to do this?

Attach a small ball head or something to the hv30's shoe and put the mrc1 ont he other end. Or get or make some sort of bracket like the one that ships with the dr60.

Powering Z7U
 

Never mind...

HD to tape...DV to card (as it pertains to 24p)
 

Hey there -
Just want to confirm...

If I choose HDV 24P Native, or 24P-A to tape, and then choose DV to the card.... the 24p DV file will not behave the same as the HDV recording correct? That is, going no native 24p DV straight to card, and no 24p-A DV file. Just the 24p over 60i.

That's my understanding anyway.

Will this throw off the notion that the DV Timecode info would match the HD source tapes if I shoot HD 24p Native to tape?

My guess is that if you wish to shoot HD-tape / DV-card, then you ought to stick with HD 24p over 60i, or 30p over 60i, or just straight up 60i. Yes?

Otherwise my guess is you may have trouble assembling an HD version down the road.

Is my thinking correct here?


I'm asking because I'm doing some quick turn stuff that is only needed Standard Def, but we're toying with 24p (for web and/or embedding into a powerpoint). My understanding is that if you're playing off a computer, then it's good to stay progressive and not mess with the pulldown (24p over 60i for instance).

In order to get a 24p video file to edit in a 23.97 timeline, I'm guessing I'd have to simply run every clip through compressor or another tool - correct?

Just thinking outloud and seeing if there's something I missed.

My other option is to shoot 30p and not worry about pulldown etc...


BY THE WAY... is there any difference in the HDV 30p Mode found in the Progressive menu and 30p found in the Interlaced menu?

Welcome to DV Info. I read your post many times and find it confusing.

23.98 (23.976) cannot exist on tape which is not HD-CAM SR or D5*. Otherwise, it is over 60i as you say. If you final output is web - don't worry about pulldown either way. Pulldown comes into play when you film out (telecine video back to film) or make composites for VFX or need your content to live on HD-CAM SR or D5. For web, anything goes. Any frame rate will display on a TRT / LCD / VGA monitor. Any format will display, NTSC, PAL, SECAM. Don't trouble yourself with progressive and shoot in 24 p normal (inside 60i), don't deinterlace HDV unless you have to (HV20/30 is have to in my book).

Hope this helps,
-C

*There are exceptions but not worth noting.

Does the Z7 work with the SGpro 35mm Adapter?
 

I heard somewhere the Redrock adapter didn't work because of its autofocus macro, but does the R3 Sgpro work with the Z7?

alternate charger for cam?
 

Hi all,

Just curious - are any of you aware of an alternate way to pull power off the wall vs. having to route through the double battery charger? Even just a standard (and smaller) power brick to plug the one half that goes into the cam

If it uses the same battery as the PD170, Z1 and V1, wouldn't one of the adaptors for one of those cameras work?

Has anyone else noticed tearing of saturated reds in progressive HDV?
 

Using Final Cut this seems most apparent with HDV 25p footage captured to CF, also visible with HDV 25p Progressive captured to Tape.

But viewing HDV 25p Progressive captured to tape in just QuickTime viewer (not FCP) I'd say its not there.

http://www.drcoffee.co.uk/Z7_Capture.jpg

"Smooth Gain" issue?
 

Hello,

I just got back from a shoot and noticed someone strange with the Z7U "smooth gain" featrure. I used smooth gain with the "slow" setting today for the first time. One (but maybe both) my Z7U’s seem to have a flaw or problem with gain. I was changing the gain settings (while shooting in full manual) and noticed that 3db, 6db and 9db all looked the same. The conference room we were shooting in was was dark -- the iris was at f2, the gain was 6db and the shutter speed 1/60th. I couldn’t figure it out, so I changed the high position to 15db just to run a test to see if this would make a change obvious. And the difference in the image was identical at 3db or 15db!!! The histogram didn’t indicate any change had been made via upping the gain. I took the camera off of “smooth gain” and then gain started to behave like I’d expect it would. You could then see the jump in gain in both overall image brightness -- and the histogram proved it too when you switch it up. At first I thought, “wow, smooth gain REALLY works, since you can’t see any differences as you change settings”. Has anyone also had a problem changing gain values while using smooth gain? I will test tonight with both cameras. It seems like enabling smooth gain disables the gain select switch – even though you do get a proper readout on the LCD of the gain setting selected.

Thanks . . .

Ian

night shooting
 

the gama and black balance controls are a new feature to me. im coming from a dsr250 that I put over 1500 hours on.

being new to this im hoping someone can give me some liks or advice on what all those setting actually do. I've got pp1 and pp2 set to boost the black gamma and pp1 all +7 and pp2 all +3. the more gain used the more the picture looks soft so I've limited the gain to +9.

I have bought vortexmedia's video but he dosn't cover low light very much and many of the settings he uses would never work under my circumstances.

remember I'm doing all night footage so im working with only street lights and car lights.

Z7 softer than FX1 in lowlight (aperture 1.6) ?
 

Hi,

We are using 2 FX1s and recently bought a Z7. I discovered that in low light situations, the Z7 is softer than the FX1. Artificial sharpness is set to the default on both camcorders. Even going setting it higher on the Z7, the Z7 is softer. The 2 cameras have been on full manual, aperture 1.6 on both, gain on 18db on the FX1 and on 9db on the Z7 in order to match brightness of both images. If I go higher then F4, the Z7 seems to start becoming less soft than the FX1. I tried automatic lens flange adjustment, even in a big room, with just a wall and the focus chart on it in order to be sure no other objects in the field of view influence auto adjustment.

Also conerning manual adjustement, has someone already done it ? I tried it and for the Tele end, it is very simple but for the wide end, I don't see any difference ?

Bye,
David Arendt

If you have the Vortex video for the Z7U, there are some nice, crisp and noise free examples of night shooting. Check out the part of the video where "slow shutter" is both talked about with some examples shown -- this might be helpful. I've done night work also, and the Z7U can do a great job at producing really good night shots with practically no noise.

The use of gain as high as +9 was too high for me in shooting nights (with lots of darks). I used 0db and had great results. You will need to do a night test and try different settings to test for the right exposure. The three I needed to play with mostly were iris, shutter speed and gain. For gain I tried -3db, 0db and +3db. Since you are shooting at night it's hard to know where to expose unless you do a test and keep a record of your settings when viewing footage. I ended up keeping my iris open (somewhere around f.2) and used 0db gain and shot at 1/30th. For me to achive the best result so that night really LOOKED like night meant that I had to aviod overexposing -- I found the use of the histogram, etc. is difficult to get the perfect exposure that I was looking for in night exterior shots.

Also, the black gamma setting if you adjust too far from default (with a lot of blacks in your footage) might look a little milky or just not quite right. I keep mine at either the default or at -1.

Also, since you have the Z7U Vortex title, have another look at the picture profiles chapter. There is some good advice about using the profiles to the user's advantage. If you find a profile that you like, use it . . . and if it's not quite right, simply give it a tweak to get the result you want. Since a lot of the profiles handle blacks differently, you might try testing at night with the camera's on-board pic profile settings combined with exposer settings. Keep good notes and you should be good to go.

Good luck with the night work.

Ian

Has anyone rated the ISO of the Z7U
 

I will be shooting with the Z7u this coming week and I am interested in what the ISO rating would be for the Z7u especially in 24P. I've shot a great deal with the V1 and have that rated at 250.

How do you measure this???

Sony Z7 Capture
 

Hi Everyone,

I have a friend who has recorded a whole lot of footage on a Sony Z7 in 25P mode onto tape.

I was just wondering how you go about capturing this footage, as they no longer have access to the camera. We have tried capturing it using a number of the Sony VTR decks, but they all just flash a "Wrong Format" error.

Can you capture footage from the Z7 using a Z1P? As far as I'm aware, the 25P footage is recorded to a 1080i time-line anyway, so it should work? When you fast forward the footage on the Sony decks you can see the footage - so I know the deck SHOULD be able to read it. I presume there is just some kind of "meta data" on the tape that tells the deck that it's "progressive" even though its recorded as 1080i.

Do you have to use a Z7 to capture Z7 footage? Are there any workarounds?

Thanks for your time!

Chris!

I found the deck answer here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-hvr-...ive-modes.html

But can anyone still confirm or deny that you can play back Z7 tapes on a Z1P?

Thanks!

Chris!

Hmm, when I compare my Z7 footage to my FX1, I see improved sharpness on the Z7 in all lighting conditions. It could depend on a variety of factors. I leave my sharpness setting to default, I shoot in 1080 60i, with 60fps, my gain level never gets higher than three, and I always use a picture profile similar to what Doug Jensen recommends on his Mastering the Z7 DVD. I use manual focus 95% of the time with peaking on high, so I know my focus is spot on. My results provide superb picture quality!

New Cameras
 

Please direct any replies to the thread linked above (it's our discussion in the News forum). Thanks,

Any HDV vs. HDMI (Blackmagic) captured footage..?
 

Can anyone point me towards any good comparisons of HDV captured and HDMI captured, with say a blackmagic intensity card, footage. Has anyone had experience of capturing from HDMI port and recommend this?

Cheers

sony Z7u in DC/MD/VA?
 

anyone in the DC/MD/VA area with a sony z7u willing to digitize 1 63 min tape (music video footage of women on the beaches of st. thomas) for me?...the hdv/minidv tape was mailed to me from the director who shot the footage w/ a sony z7u ...i'm having a hard time finding a deck that can play the footage...getting message that i need to change to correct format...assuming it's because it was shot in 1080p and most decks only play back in 1080i...able to pay $125

thanks in advance!

please contact me at ralston@globaleyes.us or just respond to this post and i will contact you...
i'm located in alexandria, va

Z7U AVI or Raw DV - That is the Question - AND MORE ?
 

I've just started using the Z7U camera with Avid Liquid and Liquid unlike most NLE's and when using multicamera/multisync, will not see the file data as DV like the DVX100B DV that we use with this camera. Anyone else have this issue?

To clarify, when we digitize our DVX100B material and also material tape material from a Z7U with it set to DV and NOT HDV, the Z7's file is invisible when we try to muticam-sync the two 100B's and the Z7 . . that is, until we fuse all three clips (transcode) (since Liquid will only work in multicam when all the clips are of the identical format) Weird. We didn't have this same problem with an HVX200/200A or an XH-A1. Any ideas?

Thanks to anyone who might be able to help. BTW, we've also tried the CF unit with the same result but to date only as an AVI and haven't tried it as Raw DV setting.

Sennheiser G2 kit on Z7
 

hi. just some quick advice on best configuration when hooking up the receiver to the xlr input

also.. has anyone tried hooping up the transmitter into an edirol r-09 to record live dancing music


cheers

The following works best for me (it might not be the best solution but it is how I am doing actually):

1. z7 xlr input switched to microphone
2. z7 xlr input wind and noise reduction off (I prefer recording the sound as pure as possible as the other things can be better done in post production)
3. g2 output gain on receiver to the lowest setting
4. z7 audio to manual and 10
5. g2 gain upped step by step until the levels are a bit higher than needed
6. z7 from now on, only change audio levels on comcorder

Also I generally record the sound from the on camcorder microphone to CH1 and from the G2 to CH2 as ambient sound can lot of times be of use.

Z7U CF Card with AVID on MAC OSX
 

I know there is a Sony Clip Browser that can be used with the AVID on a mac osx -- but I think it only works with the XDCAM EX... Is there a way to get the sony clip browser to work with the Z7U Flash Cards? Similar to the way that final cut pro's batch & transfer option works?

Anyone know?

Audio Input
 

Is there a way to take an RCA audio signal and use that as the input with the Z7U?

Thanks.

Hi Eugene,

Yes, 2 ways. If you feed the RCA signal into a small mixer unit, and take the output via XLR cable into the Z7 (set mic to LINE).

Alternatively you could get a RCA to XLR cable and correct directly.

instant playback from Z7 CF Card
 

Hi,

I want to shoot ice hockey on a Z7 and display on a large screen live(not recording) and provide a facility for 10 second instant playback of key goals etc. I plan to use the cache feature, and press Run/Stop twice immediately after a goal. I then need to switch from camera to playback and then press Play on the CF unit to playback 10seconds+ to the screen. After the clip is complete, I will need to flip back to Camera mode to resume live shooting. This appears a little cumbersome compared to the EX1 system which can playback the last scene recorded whilst still in the Camera mode- it flips back to live images at the end of playback.

Do any of you guys know of a workaround for the Z7? can I playback whilst in camera mode? can I assign a button to do this, or is it requiring the CF Unit to do the playback? (the Z7 can do this if it is playing back the last scene from tape).

Are Sony Z7 colour bars 75% or 100%?
 

I've got a broadcast monitor with a 75% or 100% switch for component input, if I am giving it a colour bar feed from a Z7 should it be set to 75% or 100%? Would this differ from a feed from Final Cut through a Blackmagic Intensity Pro component cable?

I found this: 75% for transmission, 100% for testing between equipment...? I'm still not sure which one...?