.... would you fancy meeting for a coffee and chat; sorry, meaningful industry discussion.

It would be interesting to put faces to some of the people who contribute to the lively and often valuable debates on DVinfo.

Hi George.

I'm set to visit on Wednesday.

:)

Hi George where will it be held. steve
HOME (http://www.capture-ur-moments.com)

Steve. It's at Earls Court, google BVE - Broadcast Video Expo - to register for free.

Claire, if you PM me I'll send you my mobile number. May not get back to you for a couple of days though as I'll be out of the country tomorrow.

Ok thank you i may attend thanks

Hi - I'm there Wednesday

Hi Ian.

I'm leaving right now for a couple of days and I may not be able to get online, but if you'd PM me I'll get back to you before Wednesday with my mobile number.

Just to let u know that myself and Pete James are also there on Wednesday! Shall we all wear a dvinfo flashing badge :)
(my mobby number is on my fxfilms website if u did want to text for a coffee meet)

To those I met at the event, many thanks for taking the risk of meeting me face to face. It's good to know that there are real people out there who are not voicing their opinions behind a screen of virtual anonymity.

To those I met at the event, many thanks for taking the risk of meeting me face to face. It's good to know that there are real people out there who are not voicing their opinions behind a screen of virtual anonymity.I was there on Tuesday so met nobody & thus have preserved my anonymity:-) It was my first visit to BVE & I was very impressed both with the exhibition & the seminars. The highlight for me apart from handling some great kit & seeing stuff I could only aspire to purchasing was a presentation on sound by Dame Evelyn Glennie - Official Website (http://www.evelyn.co.uk/) the percussionist which all those of you who attended on Wednesday will have missed.

I 'was' there wednesday. Damn. Wish I hadn't played with that Canon XF300.

Ah. So it was you hogging the stand on Wednesday Dave.

Did you check out the slugged response on the zoom ring? Probably just a bit of setup required. Though I think you can use only the rocker OR the ring but not both (it seems to me). No doubt someone will tell me.

:)

Ah, got caught by Claire huh?

Yes, the servo zoom was not the best, I much prefer the manual / direct ring. But, did you check out that LCD? Focus assist and focus indicator below the main picture etc? Have to admit I was a little bit smitten!

I managed to stick a card in and grab some footage. I also took along my 5D2 to grab some comparison footage and the XF300 (actually the 305) looked pretty useful, although I was a little disappointed by the white balance on the XF305 at the show. It had a definite pink/magenta cast to it, but I can't discount someone playing with the color balance at a show - people seem to love tweaking things and then leaving them.

I also took the time to get a card stuck in the AF101 and do another comparison shot there. The white balance was spot on between the 5D2 and the AF101. They had the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 mounted on the AF101 and the guy guarding it said they were shooting at ISO200 whereas the 5D2 was at ISO1250 (I had the 24-70 f2.8 zoom mounted). Even so, I was disappointed to see how much noise there was from the AF101 at only ISO200 compared to the 5D2 at ISO1250.

I've pretty much discounted the AF101 from my search now.

Wow Dave it really sounds you went to town (well Earls Court).

I was more concerned about ergonomics and the general feel, as I did a little homework on the specs before visiting. I was attracted by the 4:2:2 colour space and 50mb/s initially. But as my delivery is to DVD I don't really think it's going to give me a principal step up.

So, it was you who screwed up the WB - darn :)

I was attracted by the 4:2:2 colour space and 50mb/s initially. But as my delivery is to DVD I don't really think it's going to give me a principal step up.

Agreed, ergonomics and 4:2:2 was a big deal for me too... so I had to go play with it. We are starting to get asked for Blu-ray a little more now so delivering in 1080p is becoming a big deal and I'm not willing to ship fuzzy footage and charge for HD.

So, it was you who screwed up the WB - darn :)

Ooops ;)

We are starting to get asked for Blu-ray a little more now so delivering in 1080p is becoming a big deal and I'm not willing to ship fuzzy footage and charge for HD.

Blu Ray was developed as an Interlaced format. Not sure why you want to deliver in 1080p? Not unless you are moving into the digital-mastering-for-movies industry (30-40mb/s). There is often much discussion about the benefits of one over the other but I'll leave it to other people to support their preferences.

I deliver Blu Ray at 24mb/s (27mb/s combined) via Sony Z5 and Sony NX5 encoded to MPEG-2 at a max setting of 30mb/s, although H.264 will give some effeciency in the delievery viz file size to running time. The results are excellent. I wouldn't describe the Blu Ray results produced at about 24-30mb/s as "fuzzy" far from it. But I'm not privy to your workflow or encoding.

If at all moving to XDCAM (or other 35mb/s cameras and 4:2:2) would provide a marginal improvement, but little in the way of a cost-benefit for clients able to see the difference.

I still like the look of the EX3 but think I'll hold off looking at the 305 again (I wasn't convinced) until after NAB 2011 as manufacturers have a habit of sneeking in something for NAB.

:)

BVE Earls Court London - February 2011 on Vimeo

This is our video blog of the BVE at Earls Court, its a little tongue in cheek at places, appologies in advance!! Richard and Myself had a fun time making it so hope you enjoy!

Best
Pete

Pete, thanks a lot for that. My wife who couldn't attend appreciated having a look at the show that I was raving about to her:-)

BTW She would like to know what microphone you were using as it's very good at capturing your voice while excluding background noise (unless you went into the studio & did overdubs :-)

I deliver Blu Ray at 24mb/s (27mb/s combined) via Sony Z5 and Sony NX5 encoded to MPEG-2 at a max setting of 30mb/s, although H.264 will give some effeciency in the delievery viz file size to running time. The results are excellent. I wouldn't describe the Blu Ray results produced at about 24-30mb/s as "fuzzy" far from it.

Not sure if there has been some miss communication here. I wasn't saying Blu-ray was fuzzy. I was saying I wasn't willing to ship footage from my older cameras on Blu-ray, because the footage from them was not up to the task. That's why everything is being / has been replaced.