You say that some americans use PAL, would I be able to use a NTSC camera here in Europe??
Or would it just be alot of trouble with it?

Hold up there, there's a big difference between the 2. Pal is higher resolution and lower frame rate. The reason some americans shoot on PAL is because of the lower frame rates, some film transfer places prefer the PAL to transfer to film(but not all). If your in Europe then shoot PAL, its the standard there. If you buy a NTSC camera for Europe your material is NTSC, which won't play on PAL equipment(your TV, your VCR etc.) PAL is the standard in Europe and there really is no good reason to shoot NTSC there. Your just gonna cause yourself grief. If you want to show your NTSC material on TV there your going to have to convert it to PAL anyways, so why not just shoot on PAL.


Hope this helps,
Mark

Just so you know, PAL is 625 lines a frame at 25 frames per second. While NTSC is 525 at 29.97 per second.

Here's a cool page on the standards and how they convert the two.
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV/conversion.html

Ok, i understand what ur saying here...think I will stick with trying to get a good PAL camera.
When talking about getting a good PAL camera....Im looking for a used or maybe a little broken Sony VX1000 or 2000 in PAL.
ANy help would to...Ive been looking on ebay, but Ive found no VX2000e(PAL).
Anyone have one for sale or could get one??

Also intrested in a Canon XM-1

I don't think you can really construct optics like that (but I would never say never). You would have to add some form off matte to focus the original optics on an then add new optics beyond that matte. The matte being the new focal plane. I think this actually requires three lenses. The original, one to focus on the matte and one that has real focus rings (this is exactly the principle of the mini35).

Such a device could be made,however, there would be a number of disadvantages. First, the overall focus range would be very limited, certainly not from infinity to closeup, but rather a dioptric correction...much like eyeglass lenses. Second, in order to maintain the overall lens light collecting ability (F number), the device would have to be substantially larger, in diameter, than the basic lens. These two problems really make this kind of device impractical.

Anyone know a good place that will host my site? I want to put video on there and Geocities won't let me. If anyone knows...tell me please. Thanks and see ya.
Ben

How much video? I could maybe put it on my VX2000 Companion site.

I chose the VX2K over the PD150 because I just didn't want a B&W viewfinder and the XLR and mike setup were questionable in my mind.

I plan to put either a sennheiser k6 with a ME66 shotgun or an Audio technica 835. This isn't written in stone yet but indicates my direction.

I'll either get the Beach Tec 4 (passive)or 6 (with the phantom). The controls are right up front and the jacks and switches are out of the way.

I looked at the audio technica shock mounts.

I'm trying to figure a better way of mounting the mike. Something like the Videosmith mini rover.

The mighty wondercam with belly bar certainly has possibilities too.

Better than the mighty wondercam is the VariZoom VZ-LSP shoulder brace with drop-down ab support. Check it out at http://www.varizoom.com/pages/lsp.htm -- it was invented by Peter Lisand. The wondercam is just a knock-off of this design.

The 58 mm filter threads are a bit spongey. The UV filtre threads but certainly not the way I would want. Anyone else notice this on their cam??

So I just got my shiny new Vx2000. Wow. Everyone here knows how great this thing is so I probably don't need to go into it...

However I do need some advice on shotting a stage production. The stage is rather large and there is some movement that goes on that I will be following. I am set up with a tripod on the "balcony" centered on the stage. I have a direct audio feed coming off the board. (Very Nice).

My problem comes in getting the damm faces exposed correctly. I have no clue which settings to use; Backlight, spotlight, AEs, AEa...manual shutter, manual exposure?

Does anyone have any tips? In getting everything to look decent. Obviously I don't care if I lose some exposure of the satge or some lighting details, I would just like people to be able to see the actors when they watch the tape.

Thanks for your help!

P.S. thanks for the really great forum!

Howdy from Texas,

With an XL1, I shoot theater in Manual mode, with the shutter speed locked at 1/60 and constantly riding exposure. The big challenge is to keep the iris open as much as possible to separate black costumes (stockings, etc.) from a black backdrop, without overexposing faces. The zebra pattern in the viewfinder comes in handy for this purpose.

My suggestion is to take your camera to full dress & tech rehearsals, where the costumes and stage lighting will be exactly as a performance night, and experiment and tweak to your satisfaction at a leisurely pace allowing you to concentrate on exposure. Make some notes, and you'll be set for opening night. Hope this helps,

Thanks for the info. I went to the first nights performance without tweaking settings, the second night I got it a little better. I had the shutter speed higher, and still had to ride the gain the entire night. I wish the camera had a system to make the gain changes mroe gradual. Oh well, I realize that that's not technically feasible, but it would be neat nonetheless.

Thanks again for your reply!

I find that the more difficult the lighting, the more I want either a relatively large video monitor right beside me or I want my portable waveform monitor.

When college is in session, I shoot 2 hours per week for an acting for television class. For normal days, I use a large monitor in the studio to set up the camera. For the days when we go on location, I really depend on the waveform monitor (runs off a NP-1B battery) to set the exposure spot-on.

If I don't have one of those methods, then I depend on the 100 or 70% Zebra, whichever one will work best on the scene.

I don't think anyone makes a direct hairpiece for the 2000 but you might contact Light Wave and ask them. The do one for the Canon GL1.

Expect to pay about $150. But they work very well.

You can sort of make one by placing a foam wind screen over the microphone and then wrapping it in fake, dense fur. I did that until I found the Light Wave for my AT 835B and my PD-150 shotguns. It worked OK. Not great.

Hey, Im just wondering if anyone here got the VX2000e (PAL version)?
How is the image qaulity and are the setting any different from the NTSC version.

IM also lookinf for a used one VX1000e or VX2000e, Ive been looking on ebay, but would rather buy from someone here....

I bought an AT835 with a Beach Tec today. I also got the Sennheiser wireless UHF lav. I had tested the mic at the dealers shop which was quit noisy. When I got it home and ran the mic on manual it seemed pretty low so when i raised the gain I heard the dreaded hiss. It seems the beach attenuates enough of the signal that when I set the gain over 50% to compensate I get hiss. Boo hiss!

If I run the audio on autogain everything is fine.

Following my disappointing AT 8035 trials I set up the Sennheiser UHF lavalier. What a difference.I havre absolutely no complaints, the shotgun should sound so good.

Monday the AT goes back and the ME66 comes home with me.

make sure that when you have the AT 835 plugged into the beachtek ( if you are feeding both channels) that you have the other volume level ( the one mic is NOT plugged into) turned UP all the way ........... also it is BEST if running just 1 mic to have it fed to BOTH channels ...........

That's the way I set it up. Has anyone else had experience with the VX2K, Beach tec and AT mic. I know the ME66 is a whole lot brighter.

When I jacked the AT into the wireless transmitter and after setting the sensitivity @ 0db (up 10) I was able to keep the VX2K's audio at 50% and had no hiss at all. that means if i wanted to buy a mixer I'd be OK. I'll be OK if i just get an ME66 (I think)

I have the DXA-6 phantom powering an 835b. The other (right) channel is turned all the way up, and I shut off the AGC. I get beautiful sound quality. I have the beachtek turned to about 3/4 full on the left, active channel.

Almost forgot -- very important -- did you try BOTH settings on the ground switch? The factory default was aweful. I switched to the other setting and presto.

What kind of camera do you have Madeline? The AT had a very weak signal where as the Sennheiser is very strong.

I pulled the top off the beach Tec and cleaned the paint around the top cover inside lip. That'll give me a good shield all around.

Bryan,

I don't think I'd characterize the AT as having a 'very weak signal.' It is quite adequate to drive most preamps into saturation with moderate levels of sound.

Granted, the Sennheiser has a greater output as compared to the AT. But many of us use the AT every day with or without XLR to mini adapters with no problems whatsoever.

It is, BTW, a widely used ENG microphone.

I merely reported the facts as they apply to a VX2000 with a Beach Tec and an AT 835b. It broke my heart to spend an extra $300 canadian.

Don't judge everything by just one expierence.. AT makes what is in my opinion the best shotgun mic under $1000, the AT4071a. I do a lot of nature work and the 4071 can pick a bird song out at 60 yards. I sold one on ebay recently for $350 or so. It does require phantom power and that can raise the cost of your accesories (Beachtek has a model DXA-6 http://www.beachtek.com/ ) a whole bunch. Audio can make or break a project so go with the best your budget and afford.

Jeff

I'm running the vx2000

I don't see my comment as a slight on AT but rather on the audio preamp on the VX2000. Some may not be bothered with or even hear the hiss.

im also a fairly new owner of a VX2k and curious if i should use the manual white balance settings all the time balancing off of white paper. i had recently shot some airshow footageusing auto WB and when i viewed the footage at home all the colors were bright and loud looking if you know what i mean.i understand the exposure- iris settings and have had amazing footage shot using the zebra pattern well i woiuldnt go as far as amazing but better than my PC-110 which i used only in auto mode almost all the time due to the lack of manual controls etc.
has any one here used the studio 1 warming cards??if so are these useful for all around shooting such as outdoors and places using the existing light with no video lights set up etc. any info or links would be greatly appreciated.

thanks
matt

Posted in error.

bryan
thanks for the response but you didnt have to leave the cooment at the end of your post ! whats the deal?? ive read all of the links posted thru out this site and many others. i was basically asking if anyone here has used the studio 1 warming cards with the VX2k!
if im not mistaken u are pretty new to this camera too!

Sorry, the comments were mis directed. They were meant for someone else and on another forum.

Try using a piece of 1/4 or 1/2 CTB gel over your lens while doing a white balance to warm things up. VideoSmith sell a 3' square swatchbook with some interesting gels (the guerilla book). You can get free swatch books but not 3" x 3"

I did just buy the camera but most everthing we discuss is related to videograpgy as a whole. What works for one cam works for pretty well all.It wasn't you and I appologize for the mistake.
I get a little peeved at the same questions asked over and over again. Very often the answer lies within a short reach.

bryan thats quite ok! thanks for the info. i understand where you are coming from!

matt

Ive heard ppl having problems with this before, im not sure if it have been the cameras fault or that vx1000 just dosent work good with Win XP.
Have anyone tried it?
(Im talking about capturing footage ech.)
Or with Sony VX2000 for that matter....

To answer the question, we need to have some more details about your system. Motherboard, editing system, hardware and software, hard drive arrangement, video card, etc.

In general, it seems to take more than a year to get stable drivers for a new system from the editing system suppliers. Once in a while a manufacturer will work closely with the OS developer and the drivers work on day one. But not very frequently.

My rule of thumb is I don't upgrade operating systems until I absolutely have to. Even if I buy a new computer. So, for example, I replaced NT just about 1 year ago. Running Win 2000 Pro now with no problems. In my estimation, XP will be well supported in 2003.

Not that there are not plenty of people out there with systems that run OK under SP. But that chances are that many of them had problems with their systems.

buy a mac!!!!!!

Sure, just give me some money and I will

Macintosh is not necessarily the answer.

I bought 4 G4's for the local Community College. They only run the Apple-supplied software. iMove & Final Cut Pro 2 under OS 9.x. We have no foriegn software on them at all.

They crash very frequently and are very touchy about what is connected to the firewire port. And when. I did enjoy just plugging in a second drive and having it up and running in about 5 minutes.

Then we can talk about how very slow they are. Renders take forever. And even with academic pricing they were expensive.

It is very easy to purchase a reliable PC system (and the Mac's aren't all that bad, just not as perfect as the Mac maven's would have one believe). But most people go buy the computer and then look around for the editing system.

The editing system should be the first selection and then a computer to match its requirements.

i would say that every computer is bound to have problems sometime but for me i never once have had a firewire problem,crash or anything with my G4 867 running FCP 2 in 9.x.. then again ive never used a pc for any type of video / audio before either so as far as the stability of these systems i would have no idea.
mike it seems funny to me that you would have these problems with the colleges G4's im sure they are stacked full of ram etc??? also you said that the macs render slow. what type of NL system do you run yourself and what type of rendering on FCP do you consider slow all of it or just large composites/layers etc??? just curious i like to hear peoples opinions from both sides of the computer world though i will be mac diehard forever!

I have Adobe Premiere 6.0, 384MB RAM, only 500 Mhz, 80GB harddrive....im not sure about videocrad and and stuff, but everything has worked great with exporting, rendering and all that.
I was just wondering with the Sony VX1000 and XP.
I guess I will just wait and see, if it not work I'll hook my comp up with Win ME or 2000, what u guys things works best for editng/video.Which os for pc!?

I have both a real time Canopus DVRex and a non-realtime Canopus DVRex.

The realtime system is just that. No waiting.

The non-realtime system started out on a 400 Mhz PII with 256 Megs of memory. It was much faster than iMovie or FCP when rendering. Normally rendering took only 3-4 times the transition time to render. 10 X at the most.

The PII was much faster than the 700-odd Mhz G4s with 256 megs of RAM. These crashing G4s are not unique in the history of Macs. Quite a few people have admitted that their G4s also crash.

Now, on a P4 1.5 Mhz with 512 Megs of RAM, it is very fast.

I think that both iMovie and FCP render slowly compared to the Canopus products. They are closer to After Effects in their actions.

Still, my students like iMovie and FCP much more than the almost impossible Media 100 system and linear editing systems they replace.

Have VX2000. Using HP Pavillion PC that I upgraded to WinXP Pro.

I just installed or upgraded from Pinnacle Studio 7 to Pro-ONE/ with Premiere a few weeks ago.

Capture with VX2000 is great. I did not care for their DV Tools for capture so I tried out a product called Scenalyzer that I read about on another Post. It works much better, recognizes the VX2000, but I belive it still captures using the Driver support from the Pro-One Board. I can preview durrng capture via a window in the application. I have also succesfully captured direct to Premiere. Version 6.01.

So as far as compatability.......Sony works fine on a PC. Besides the normal configuration issues with setting IRQ's to get my capture card configured......I now have a sweet NLE system that does RT.

I have attended a few sessions on FCP. Looks like an awesome application. Too bad they only make a MAC version. I am too ingrained into PC's to switch for the sake of one application. In my humble opinion as a newbie to this board, Adobe makes a very fine product for which several manufactures have developed very powerful NLE capture cards for...PINNACLE SYETMS being the dominant player (I think).....Premiere is affordable...usable and easy to use. (Affordable as in most NLE systems provide it with their cards....Pinnacle and Canopus and possibly a few others).

Just my 2c worth.

Hey Wrangler,

Need some advice. I am doing a shoot....goverment stuff...in Puerto Rico in Mid August. Since I live in the PNW......and have not dealt a lot with humidity issues, are there any tips you can give me on how to ensure equipment relaibility ?

What to do or not do...in this invironment.

Thanks Much.

For Mike Rehmus, wasn't there a thread on this topic just recently on rec.video.production? I wonder if we could cull the relevant material from that discussion and bring it in here. But I'm on the road at the moment though.

Here are the last postings on the subject from rec.video.production

-----------------------------------

Is there a way to bypass the 1 hour moisture condensation shutdown? I'm
working on a marketing video and have to move from an air conditioned
office to a factory floor several times during the day and my camera
keeps shutting down for an hour while it "adjusts". I realize that
condensation is a problem, but when you work in the south where the
humidity can be 100% on a sunny day, having your camera shut down every
time it senses moisture can be a big problem
--------------

When you have to go out into the high humidity I suppose you
could use one of those plastic bags with a glass window that
they sell as a cheap alternative to an underwater housing.

--------------

Well as far as I can see, the only condensation is on the outside of the
lens, after I cleaned it off everything looked fine through the view
finder. Of course I have no idea about the situation with the
internals, but the tape looked fine as well, and there didn't seem to be
any noticeable build up on the heads. I was actually hoping someone
might know how to bypass the camera's automatic shutdown, if not I'll
have to find a way to switch to our Betacam gear.

----------------

Condensation is a big problem, and I face it here in the freezing North when
I take my PD150 from -30 and zero humidity to +25 and 40% humidity -- the
only real solution is to either avoid the switch (i.e. if I'm shooting
outdoors, and merely bring the camcorder indoors because I'm coming in
either leave the camcorder out in the cold, or bag it with silca gel & leave
it in the bag when I'm inside) or try and speed the aclimitization with
silca gel, a hot air blower (low temp hair dryer).

Humidity on the tape/transport/heads will cause a disaster when your tape
snarls around the drive mechanism -- Don't disable the shutdown, you need
it. On the other hand if it really is too sensitive, have it checked.

--------------
Mike's comments:

Be careful with high-heat sources around tape transports. These devices can fry hair and electromechanical camcorders with ease and rapidity.

Also be aware that electronics are susceptible to magnetic fields and that hair dryers are generators of high magnetic fields. They can, at times, either temporarily or permanently cause electronics to malfunction.

Is it me or does the de-interlace option require LOTS more light?
When I put the camera in the de-interlace mode, whether it's video or stills, it all seems very grainy (on the viewer) . What gives?

Linwood B.
lbmaestro@yahoo.com

When I used to live in Montana we had a method that worked pretty well. But the equipment wasn't owned my me. Five minutes before we would go into a building (going from dry cold to moist heat) we would start the camera recording. Get out of the van and get to the door and walk in backwards. If it was a Tuesday and a full moon we hoped on our left leg . . . just kidding. The walking in backwards prevented the camera from getting hit directly with the warm air. Walk in 10, 15 feet backwards and proceed to the edit suite. The camera is recording the whole time. After being inside 5 to 10 minutes we would stop recording and eject the tape. No problems. Back then everything was 3/4 u-matic. A much more durable and robust tape. I don't ever recall problems from this method, but I'm going back almost 20 years.

What about when the viewfinder gets fogged up? when I shoot indoors and put my eye up to the viewfinder, it will get fogged up sometimes. Should I get some anti-fog stuff to put on the viewfinder?

It's pretty humid over here right now but the camera is fine, I always have problems with the viewfinder. BTW, I'm shooting with an XL-1 and the viewfinder is bigger than the vx-2000.

V-I-D, ever have problems with your viewfinder fogging up?

The viewfinder may be a problem if it's the LCD screen, I don't think the anti-fog solution and the screen would get along well. It should be safe for a viewfinder though. Canon makes anti-fog eye pieces for some of their 35mm cameras. Cost may be a factor in not using them on the XL1.

As I think back, we also used that method when we switched from u-matic to Betacam and still no problem.

Jeff