First Flash XDR Field Test with My XL H1

[Mark Job]

Hi Friends:
Wow ! I went out and shot a few scenes in standard full daylight around 2:00 PM @ Long GOP 100 Mb QT. I couldn't believe the results I got with my camera ! I had temporary loss of bladder control when I saw just how good the image looked playing back in Quicktime Player on my 24 inch iMAC screen ! It's like some technicians from Convergent Technologies secretly flew into Montreal last night and broke into my place and swapped out the Canon electronics in my camera for Viper electronics ! Dan Keaton I know you're behind this conspiracy ! ;-) ;-) I had to keep playing back the clips over and over again to convince myself I wasn't having audio and video hallucinations ! I may faint if I go try the 140 and 160 Mb Long GOP rates ! I know the Viper pictures were really pretty amazing (Most of them), but the real test is seeing what image quality the XDR produces when connected to a Canon HDV camcorder. I'm not expecting to see Viper quality images coming out of my H1, although the HDV image quality of the H1 is impeccable - but this is something else altogether. The Sony encoding engine in the XDR is really, really efficient.

The solid aluminium machined mount Dan Keaton designed for mounting the XDR to the H1 is also pretty amazing. Dan is to be congratulated for his design concept. The XDR box is big and it ballances perfectly on the rear of the H1. The Anton Bauer Elipse battery system works well powering the XDR.

Now if you folks at CD turn on timelapse, then I will be in production Heaven !

Mark

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Mark,

We are thrilled that you are happy.

The current firmware has a Beta version of our MPG and M2V code.

We will be releasing an interim firmware release to improve the MPG and M2V code.

Then our next major release will have Time Lapse plus a lot of other new features (which shall remain secret!)

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Mark,

We are thrilled that you are happy.

The current firmware has a Beta version of our MPG and M2V code.

We will be releasing an intrim firmware release to improve the MPG and M2V code.

Then our next major release will have Time Lapse plus a lot of other new features (which shall remain secret!)

...Hey Dan ! Do tell ! Timelapse will be so sweet. Can I get the timelapse feature before the end of September, while we're still in production ? I would be glad to beta test that out for you folks at CD. If you folks bring out Raid 0 striping of 2 or 4 cards at a time for ultra high Long GOP or I Frame data rates, then I'll have to change another pair of pants ! ;-). Full uncompressed would be amazing for digital film production.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Mark,

We have been working on Timelapse for some time now.

Our interim release has to come first.

Our testing, in house, before we make each new release is very time-consuming. Once we have the code ready, it takes a least a solid week for us to put the code through the formal testing.

While it is not that far away, I doubt if it will be ready by the end of September.

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Mark,

We have been working on Timelapse for some time now.

Our interim release has to come first.

Our testing, in house, before we make each new release is very time-consuming. Once we have the code ready, it takes a least a solid week for us to put the code through the formal testing.

While it is not that far away, I doubt if it will be ready by the end of September.

...Darn ! we could really use the ability to shoot natively in 1920 x 1080 in an MXF format to import directly into Avid MC without going the Time Machine & DSLR route this month. Although this is an accepted professional route to go now for timelapse in the industry, I consider being able to use the same lens and production camera to shoot *matching* resolution timelapse to be the ideal solution for our production needs.