WARNING: forehead-slapping-beginner-Q's.

Soon to purchase PDX10

Stupid question (but no such thing right!?) - does the PDX10 have time lapse function? - you know the old "watch the grass grow".
err.. I can record at different speeds right?

So apparently I cannot transfer DV to PC via USB?! I cringe at this question, but.. "how is it done then?"
How does everybody get their footage on to PC for post? I thought USB was the primary method for uploading Digital media..

With up/downloading to PC, are you losing on DV quality?

This is all fundamentally fundamental!! sorry. But until I get some comprehensive info or hands on experiecne - it's all Latin.. Pig latin.

Thanks

Time lapse : Yes ( I have not used it but I remember reading it in the manual) Looks to have quite good functionality where you can set the recording length and the interval. you will need a tripod!

Transfer to Computer* ususally done via firewire. (in real time)

Can't comment on WIndows, but on the Mac it is a breeze. Apple even include the cable when you buy one of their computers.

If you want grief free video uploading and editing, get an Apple.

Regards P

It works like a charm, but to be honest, it's only a sort of timelapse. DV has a constant frame rate built in, so can't record slow/fast motion as fewer/more frames per second

That, and the complexities of physically writing to tape, means the PDX10 records a short full speed video clip of at least half a second each time it records anything (interval record mode).
You end up with a very large number of clippettes.

So you may need to posterise time/cut out frames in post, depending on what you want to do.

Regards,

Julian

Time Lapse works and is cool, but it gets a lot of frames on each lapse, as everybody mentions. If you have Adobe Premiere you con connect the camera via Firewire and use the time lapse capture utility in Premiere, which is much more versatile and you don't even need a tape. However you will have to carry the computer around to do it, which you can do if you have a laptop and power or if you are working indoors. For real portable time lapse, you have to either go manual and use the still picture function or deal with the extra frames in some way, which is really not so difficult.

Thanks guys. useful info as always.

"If you want grief free video uploading and editing, get an Apple."

If only that were true..

Tommy,

For more than two years now, when you get a Mac you get iMovie, which even though is not really oriented as a pro product, works amazingly well. Forget all the stupid free video, pics and audio, just stick to basic editing and you will get the same quality that you can get from Final Cut Pro, with of course less control, no uncompressed option, no scripting, no Premiere plug ins, etc

I don't intend to start a platform war here, PC's are very cool with Win XP and I have been led to believe that there is a similar tool to iMovie by Microsoft, although it does not work as promised all the time and the user interface is a little strange. Anyway, those problems will get ironed out. But I can tell you, if you buy a Mac it works for editing video right out of the box, and that has been the case for a long time now. Of course I understand most PC users are not aware of how well modern Macs and their unix-based OS works.

I am now learning FCP but even before that I used Premiere on macs with firewire and it all worked much better than on my friends's Wintel boxes. Firewire is built into the core OS and Apple actually invented the IEEE1394 standard, so it all runs very smoothly from the low level OS up to the application layer. Try it.

Its all good but I don't have any problems with my Wintel box but then I'm an IT guy who built his own PC.

I have tried Apple in the past (9600, G3, and G4) and that left a very bad taste in my mouth. The hardware is excellent but the lack of software on many fronts is somewhat disappointing.

I think its good to say that Apple or Wintel will both get the job done.

> Its all good but I don't have any problems with my Wintel box
> but then I'm an IT guy who built his own PC.

Oh it's great because when you have that level of know how you can custom taylor your system to a high degree and get much more performance for the money. You can't do that to the same level with Macs, at least not yet, and they are usually more expensive than a similar performance wintel box.

> I have tried Apple in the past (9600, G3, and G4) and that left
> a very bad taste in my mouth.

I can understand that too, especially with OS9, it was so bad. But now that the OS is Unix based it really has changed quite a lot. A few days ago I was amazed at how smoothly I could be editing something in FCP while at the same time compressing something to DivX in the background and downloading a software update.

But you are right, the software is of course restricted because of the smaller market share.

Now to get back to the topic: besides Premiere and the like, there are tons of time lapse capture utilities of the shareware kind for the Mac, and I am sure there are probably even more for the PC, so you don't need to by Premiere, FCP or Avid to do tapeless time lapse capture.

teehee.
".. I don't want to start a platform war here but..." BAN-BANG-- DUDDA-DUDDA-DUDDA.. KA-BOOM.. BANG etc..