John Jay
May 24th, 2003, 06:30 PM
same question over on chanel 2
does SONY do custom mods to its cameras ?
Im thinking more electronic/digital over physical
Ken Tanaka
May 24th, 2003, 09:11 PM
It probably depends. How many hundred cameras are you planning to buy?
There was a rumor that modifications to the audio of the VX2000 were made for a large BBC purchase a while back. Regardless, though, I doubt that any manufacturer would find it worthwhile to modify chip-level programming for any single customer. It's just too expensive.
Why did you ask such a question?
John Jay
May 25th, 2003, 08:09 AM
Thanks Ken
I guess the answer is maybe nada
I just want some tweaks doing that I see are possible from reading the service manuals
Wayne Orr
May 25th, 2003, 01:51 PM
Sony won't do it, but you might find a technician who knows what he's doing with a RME95 (I think) which is the instrument they attach to the camera to do the modifications you are talking about.
This is what the Sony techs used when the fiddled with the camera set-ups when David Lynch shot a Playstation commercial with the PD150.
Boyd Ostroff
May 25th, 2003, 02:16 PM
Take a look at this page on bealecorner http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/rm95.html for info on the RM-95. Sony's website lists it for $78 (go to http://servicesales.sel.sony.com/service/homepage.htm and enter part number J6082053B), not a bad deal if you need this functionality. Has anybody played with one of these?
Using the regular remote on Sony TV's you can punch in the following key sequence [PWR OFF], [DISP], [5], [VOL+], [PWR ON] to get into service mode where lots of parameters can be adjusted (warning this can screw up your TV if you're not careful!). I wonder if such a "magic cookie" exists on the regular wireless camcorder remotes?
Rob Lohman
May 26th, 2003, 07:11 AM
The BBC has indeed modified their VX2000's for better sound.
There is a shop in the UK that you can contact to have your own
VX2000 modified as well
More info on this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8926) and this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1846).
John Jay
May 26th, 2003, 11:44 AM
W, B & R thanks
For sure the RM95 is an essential if you own a sony cam, Ive had a RM95 for about 6 years, however this is a case where in addition to the right tools you have to have inside information on the best codes as well as checksum data and the service manuals are geared for factory setting rather than tweaking
Someone made a RM95 for next to nothing to get hex dump and changes to cam memory. Even one with a panic button in case things go wrong like a cam lock-up !
The NVRAM (page 0D) has been pretty well explored
see these links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/dv/codes/
http://lea.hamradio.si/~s51kq/DV-IN.HTM
however the area im interested in is pages 0F & 0E where all the juicy stuff is like colour matrix, exposure gain, back focus adjustment, etc, which is the tweak area that D Lynch probably used.