I'm always interested in what gear other people own. Specifically combinations of equipment, whether a tripod works with a jib, or a mic fits on a camera etc.

Would it be possible to create a profile of each user where the can tick what gear they own. And if it's not listed, add a piece of gear to the list.

Then for example, if I want to find someone using a rode stereomic on an HV20 I could find someone who owns both. Then look at their post in the audio forum for example.

If they have posted about it then great, if not but they've agree to being asked, I could PM them about the kit.

Also if this could be linked with a geographical flag that Chris Soucy has mentioned I could find local users of the kit I'm interested in. Also they could find me, if they want to pop over for a mess around on a bit of kit they are interested in.

Good ideas, and the good news is that we're about to do a major update to the forum software which will provide a significantly expanded and customizable user profile section along with a few other surprises. The "social" side of DV Info Net is about to get a lot better.

Duncan:

Hmm, cannot see the "gear list" working terribly well, there's so much stuff out there, the combinations and permutations would be infinite.

You can already ask anyone on DVinfo about their kit privately (if they have registered an e - mail address), so no change there then.

Ah, the geographic flag!

I have no doubt Chris is going to stun and amaze us all with how this is going to work - he's been working harder than Santa's Little Helpers on Steroids on this (going on his e - mail response times!).

I jest.

As Chris said, good ideas, keep 'em coming.

[Stunned and amazed anyone (apart from Chris) actually read that post. Duncan, you've obviously been doing you're homework on this.]

Chris:

Do we have an ETA?

"When it happens" is good enough for me, but just to get the juices up ..................


CS

'You can already ask anyone on DVinfo about their kit privately'

But I can't ask every single person, in the hope that they own what I interested in. There's lots of stuff I own, but I never visit the particular forum about the kit. And I'm not taking about permutations of what works with what, just who owns what.

This could be used as an extension to what we already have, it shouldn't stop open discussion about kit.

If someone had a question like - will a certain mattebox fit a camera with a certain wideangle lens on. Sure they can ask on the specific forum for the camera. But not everyone read the forums all the time, the thread gets more than a few days old, and it slips down the list, never to be seen.


I own lots of sound gear, but rarely visit the sound forum.

Someone might be interested to know how well a Rode boom performs with a Sennheiser wireless transmitter on it. How would they ever know that I have both bits of gear. They can ask me if they know I own both bits, perhaps I use them together.


It's not a written list that every person had to write.
Just a series of Sections and Subsections eg.

Camcorder - Sony - HDV - Z1U etc.

Select a tick box next to the kit you own.
You can see what combination of kit someone owns.
Or maybe search for them.

Chris: Do we have an ETA?Hey Chris, I know I owe you one or two emails. The forum software upgrade should be in place within the next few days. We'll announce it.

When?


CS

Now I'm curious as well.

We're doing a test this week and should have it live on this site by Monday hopefully.

Really looking forward to the new, all singing, all dancing DVinfo!

Thanks Chris.


CS