1st impressions on 700 & 100
 

After a 15 hour day on blazing hot sun... did not feel much up to doing stuff today. the camera did well in the 105 + degree heat (unless thats the audio issue - more later).

1st thought is that it is cool to shoot on the HDSC cards - but also a bit of a pain - I was having to swap (the JVC rep only had 4 gig cards) often, then dump on to laptop then as I am paranoid copy onto firewire drive. Then this AM had to copy onto backup raid and clear the laptop... all this copying & deleting made me a bit nervous - especially in the field. Granted if we owned the set-up I would have 16 or 32 gig cards and be done with it, but still all the hard-drives scare me.

2nd thought - I really only looked at bits of footage as I was moving them - but there is noise in it - strange - even in the blazing sun... will have to look more / harder. Also some SERIOUS purple fringing. And the few shots I tried on full auto tended to blow out.

3rd - low light sucks - and Auto focus did not lock on unless it was pretty bright.

4th - audio seemed noisy, and then ch. 2 cut out twice - have to figure out if this is my gear or the camera. Also the earpiece thingy gets in the way when wearing proper headphones - can that be removed?

What I loved - was the size and ergonomics, and the card thing I could get used to. If only Sony would put a EX3 in this shape with cheap media, or Panny made the 300 with cheap media. I know - can't be done - chip heat this or compete with product such and such...

Thats all for now... Monday will check out the rest.

I have the HM100. I have also noticed purple fringing. Anyway to minimize this?

2nd update
 

had time to play with the footage... love the workflow to get into FCPro.

Still find the camera a bit noisy. Also the loaner from JVC had the 17X FUJI not the 14X Canon - seems like they really should put the best possible glass on a loaner / test camera.

The mic that comes on the 700 is useless...

I REALLY want to love this camera.. but I just cant seem to. I have the same problem with the Sony (for other reasons)...

One good note... a fwe days after the shoot one of the cast said that they accidentally bumped the table with the 100 on it which fell to the concrete floor... they were in a panic but did not say anything - and it seemed to work fine. (the audio issue was on the 700 and was the audio pack - not the camera).

I haven't seen any footage from the Canon 14x that looked any better to me than the Fujinon 17x. Last I heard the FUjinon 17x was an upgrade from the Canon 14x according to JVC. We are discounting the Fujinon 16x that should never had seen the light of day of course. I have heard of a few early adopters of the HM700 getting the Fujinon 16x which is a real shame.

Stock mics on all cameras are generally good only to hold toilet paper in the bathroom after you lose the old holder in the trash can. Stock mics can also be given as gifts to people you hate for the holidays. I feel stock mics are to make you appreciate a Sennheizer or Rode when you break down and drop $300-$500 for a decent entry level mic.

I have seen a fair amount of noise on peoples HM100/700 footage that is NOT present in my older HD110. Weird. I wonder if the default AGC or Gain is somehow on and needs to be turned off or dialed down. Your sure there was no gain applied? Like someone had the LOW GAIN at +4 or +9? But yes, the footage I've seen on the internet, they often looked like they were gained up. No idea if they where or not.

purple fringing? Close your aperture a couple stops or change your lighting contrast ratio, or plan on getting a good lens from Fujinon or Canon. $10,000 and up for either brand. Usually only obvious in high contrast situations at longer telephoto ranges with wider (nearly full open) apertures. IF your using the HM100, well you can't swap lenses obviously, avoid full zooms with wide apertures with sharp bright subject on stark black backgrounds. (ie singer with a microphone with a spotlight and dark background)
Regardless thats where most of the purple/green fringing is coming into play with any lens. Even top quality 35mm lenses have that to a small degree.

well maybe a little of this was humorous and maybe a couple of things to try or watch out for. OK, back to more coffeeeeeeeeeee

noise... I wonder if the shooting 1080p/i has anything to do with noise. Maybe try 720p 35mbs same settings and see what happens. Just a wild shot in the dark. I'm just always mistrustfull of built in upsampling and cross conversions....

We shot 1080 24P. 100% sure no gain... low was set to 0 and the toggle was always in that position. Also as far as closing down the lens - we were in SCREAMING So Cal light so we were pretty much all the way - or close to it...

Anyway - like I said I REALLY want to love this guy, but just can't seem to commit.

Yep.
 

Harry, first off, you were lucky getting the 17:1 Fuji. The Canon 14:1 is a much inferior lens (besides the stupid plastic BF ring - what were they thinking off???). I have found the 17:1 to be about the best lens overall for the JVC (and I have several 13:1 Fuji's as well).

I also really wanted to like this cam (I purchased two to test!). JVC was kind enough to offer me a loaner "for a couple of weeks", but that's not even close to the time I need to fully test a camera in a digital film environment.

Basically, the camera (at any combination of settings) is way too noisy for serious studio film or network TV production (in its current build state). Even after very extensive tweak and test, tweak and test, tweak and test I was never able to fully eliminate the noise.

Going to film and seeing my tests on a 60' screen really brings it all home. You can have really rich blacks with noise, or muddy looking blacks with noise (less noise, because the mud masks the noise). Highlights in the 90 to 95 IRE range also show too much noise.

I have since sold both 700's and am sticking with my hand picked 200B's (which can also be noisy - there is definitely a variance factor in these cams, getting a good one is the real key. That's why I purchased two 700's, the variance factor :)

Funny that the 100 series never seemed to have this problem wide spread.

Our cameraman did a side by side with the JVC 700 and the Panny 300 and seeing the same frame A / B on a big monitor was painful with all the noise on the 700 that just is not part of the equation on the 300.... if only P2 card$ = $DHC...

Enzo - where in Rome? I spent much time in Porto Ercole - Monte Argentario...

I assume JVC is now using CCDs that read-out a full line at once rather than a line in two halves. If so, this requires a chip operate twice as fast -- which means much high power consumption. This would be expected to be create noise. Should be worse in a smaller chips in the HM100.

Of course, this is one of the advantages of CMOS.

Changing the subject- when are you planing on releasing your book Steve? I am interested!

I somehow feel sort of glad I didn't sell my HD110 with DTE drive and get a HM700. I haven't used a 200 series much but I hear they where noisier over all. I didn't notice much noise while useing a 200 and 250 with JVC monitors, but I only used it for a few horus.

I get virtually no noise without gain in everything I shoot with my HD110. It shouldn't be so, but I have always heard rumors that the 200 series was noisier than the 100 series. So maybe someone with more experience can way in as to video noise between the lines. Or maybe you are seeing something I'm not.

Now in a bar with only bar lights (no fresnels or even softies) with gain up past +9 it's a different story, but we were talking about non gained footage.

I did like the Panasonic HPX-500 though when I worked with it. I liked it a lot actually. So much so that I thought some day when I move beyond 1/3 chips I would move into a 2/3 Panasonic.

So how is working with Panasonic's HPX-300 with 100mbs and 50mbs AVC-Intra HD?

I was usually based out of Cinecittà, and got an apartment in the centro storico of Rome. As you probably know, the movie industry is pretty much dead in Italy these days. A far cry from 25 years ago when I was the DP on two spaghetti westerns being shot at the same time on adjacent lots. I loved working in that two perf pulldown Techniscope format.

Ah, Porto Ercole. One the real gems of Tuscany. You were lucky to hang there. Bella Italia!

A/B comparisons are always painful when the bad cam is yours :(

Recently, one of the big rental houses here in Hollywood invited four DPs (two organic film DPs and two digital film DPs, of which I was one), for a weekend of shooting digital (they made it very clear that this was not to be a shootout, and we could not say much about the results).

It was very interesting because we each lit our own "set", asked actor friends to come down (free catered lunch :), shot our own and each others sets with the different cams, watched the editing process for each type of system, and than the next day, saw the results (after a film transfer) at one of the better local screening rooms.

Working with these cam individually is a lot different than working with these cams simultaneously, and I have to say, I learned a lot from the experience.

The cams were:

Panavision Genesis
Arri D-21
RED One

One of the DPs brought a Sony EX3, and I brought a 700 (to add to the mix).

Each system has its strengths and weaknesses when viewed from the perspective of captured camera image (all in Super 35, except for the EX3 and 700, which were in 16:9 capture format), though editing, and finally seeing it on a big screen.

It was a win-win situation overall. We learned from the A/B comparisons, the rental house now has a better grasp on what to recommend for specific projects to be shot on digital.

Split block
 

Ciao Steve, how have you been?

I believe that the block is still a split block, different processor, and bigger fan, but basically the same setup as the original HD 100. It's really a brilliant solution to the heat problem (the split block).

Hd 100
 

You may be on to something :)

I have a HD 100 that I hand picked out of the 30 or so one of the TV venues I work for purchased, and then took it down to JVC to have it tweaked and do the "A" upgrade.

They had it for about a month, and really, really tweaked it. I used it on a Steadicam Pro II at the 2006 AMPAS awards show and everybody was really pleased with the footage.

It's still the sharpest (with a 17:1 Fuji), least generated noise JVC HD cam I own.

Harry, although I did not purchase a 100 as well, I did borrow one from a local large retail store for a week. It was one of their floor models, so that was even better as i had a cam that had wear and tear on it (akin to many hours of field use).

I really liked the form factor a lot, and the SDHC factor. And really disliked the overall plasticky look and feel, and the non ergonomic, non human sense controls. It's also noisy.

This is not a cheap camera (by today's HD cam offerings), so I would have expected more than what I was seeing.

By comparison, here is some footage I shot of Dead Weather at the Mayan concert last month with a much, much less expensive cam (but you have to guess what cam :)

They allowed the audience to take photos and shoot video as long as it was not with a "pro type camera". I had just shot a TV Press Junket with Jack White (and Jimmy Page) a few weeks before, so we were at the venue as Jack White's guests.

This footage (on my wife's YouTube Channel, she is an on-camera entertainment reporter) was shot under the very worse of circumstances (I was surround by a couple of hundred pushing screaming fans), and with pretty much no ambient light, and that light was primarily blue, and you know how video loves that blue :)

I shot on full auto and used the capture program that came with the camera, and then used the "YouTube" upload option within the program. The program compressed the clips from 250 to 750 MB MP4 files to WMV files about 5% as large as the original.

Now, I know the 100 would have done a better job (even at full auto, which I never use), but it's up to you viewers to decide if it would have been thousands of dollars worth of better.

YouTube - stacilayne's Channel

Just wanted to add, the 4:3 stuff shot at the Wiltern the night before was shot with a another camera.

As soon as I finish my 100/700 review for Broadcast Engineering -- I'll be able to finish it.

Thank you for asking.

The review has to be finished by the end of the month.

PS: FYI -- TV Asahi's new program called “Ride the Highway of the world” (Translated Name) is now the first TV Show in Japan entirely shoot with the Canon 5D MK II. Things are changing fast in the Broadcast world.

Having come from an ex1 this is an extremely poor camera in my humble opinion. The design and layout is at best, flawed. The supplied mic can be bettered at a pound shop!, the zoom control is rendered unusable due to the inability to control it precisely.

The lcd screen is dreadful and of very poor quality.Dreadful implementation of zoom from lcd screen...The inbuilt mic seems to wobble when touched(may just be my camera!) the lens hood filter is a joke and really flimsy. Battery life could be far better.

Ok, the pluses! um.......it takes sd cards and can record at 35mb in the xdcam format.
It produces better pictures than my Sony FX1 under the right lighting conditions.It's small.
This could actually be a negative!

This is a toy compared to the EX1- those comparing any likeness need not bother...save up and buy the real thing. Seriously expensive for what it is. If you are reading this JVC, Get your act together and at least fix some of the issues re-usability through a firmware upgrade!

I am amazed at some of the positive online reviews of this camera by people in the industry we trust. Maybe they used a different camera to the one I am holding!

John De Rienzo

The JVC hm 100
 

Well to me its all been positive as i am making money and satisfying clients, The quality of video is great of course I wish the zoom controls were better and the other iris controls.
But all and all its making me money and keeping my clients happy

Doug

Same here Doug. I've had mine for a week and a half and the camera has already paid for itself. IMO, it's not accurate to even compare the HM 100 to the Sony EX1. I mean the EX1 is twice as much money. Every camera has its short comings. It's what you do with the camera that matters. If you can't get pretty HD video with this camera then it is not the camera's fault. While I really don't like the fact there isn't a iris ring, I got used to the button and toggle wheel. It's not a show stopper unless you let it be.

All in all great results for just over $3,000. Mine was an open box from BH and in perfect condition.
Cheers.

[QUOTE=Enzo Giobbé;1373418]I was usually based out of Cinecittà, and got an apartment in the centro storico of Rome. As you probably know, the movie industry is pretty much dead in Italy these days. A far cry from 25 years ago when I was the DP on two spaghetti westerns being shot at the same time on adjacent lots. I loved working in that two perf pulldown Techniscope format.

True - and so sad...



A/B comparisons are always painful when the bad cam is yours :(

LOL - also true & sad... luckily it was a loaner...


It was very interesting because we each lit our own "set", asked actor friends to come down (free catered lunch :), shot our own and each others sets with the different cams, watched the editing process for each type of system, and than the next day, saw the results (after a film transfer) at one of the better local screening rooms.

NOW that sounds like a great test / fun experience! Also sounds liek a great shootout... but I guess that was not allowed... I won't ask for details... but please feel free to give us some....

Harry - it has been my experience with the JVC 101E that at f16 it is noticeably soft and noisy (that was the crappy 16x stock Fuji). The combination of small pixel sites and a small appertures really doesn't mix well. Although Enzo seems to think the 700 may be worse than the 100 series, it didn't seem too bad in the shots Tim whipped off as a test. Mind you, I haven't really looked at them that critically. Disappointing if the camera is noisy cause the form factor is so much better than the Sony EX series.


Does the 700 have autofocus or are you talking about the 100 here?

re: auto focus...

on the 700 I meant the focus assist / edge peaking feature - had to be bright & pretty high contrast to work

on the 100 I meant actual auto focus...

sorry for the confusion...

and yes the form factor is SOOOO much better than the EX3

No form factor can make up for noisy footage. I watched footage shot with EX1 and you can't even compare with HM700- honestly my old HD100 produced better quality then Hm700. Interestingly enough my HM100 produces less grainy picture then 700! I don't know what the hype is, but 700 is a complete dud as far as picture quality goes.

Noise Reduction?
 

I know... its such a bummer. Did anyone hear read (link plz) about new noise reduction on 700's?

sorry found the link -

Guys I just went back and had a look at Tim's footage of the geese on my Avid (the 1080i60 version) and I'm struggling to see the noise you guys are talking about. Where I would have expected to see it (in the blue sky and in the blacks) I'm really not seeing much at all.

On the other hand when I look at images shot on the GY-HD250 and captured with the nanoflash on Convergent Designs site I see a lot of noise and the image looks radically soft (buffalo1)

Convergent Design, experts in HDMI, SD, HD, and HDV

I'm assuming this was shot with the lens stopped too far down, but I'm really not seeing how that affects the noise floor unless heat is a factor here (clearly by the heatwave you can see it's hot). This of course assumes the 250 has much the same block as the 700...

What gives? Any ideas?

Noise
 

Harry, the noise has been slightly reduced, but it's still there.

Funny, when I first borrowed a 700 from one of the big retail houses in LA, I noticed the noise right off, so I called JVC here and asked them about that issue. The answer was "We have not heard of that problem".

Now, JVC has always been great. Easy to call someone up and get answers (and they do return calls promptly if they are on another line), but in this case, it's as if the right hand was not talking to the left hand, so I had to go a little higher up and talked to JVC Japan.

They were well aware of the noise problem, and perplexed by it as well. The engineer I talked to said it was somewhat the same problem that plagued the 200 series and was addressed in the 200B hardware upgrade, but the 700 was proving to be much more difficult. As they made one change, it also affected some of the other camera operations.

The two 700's I bought were shipped to me from Japan, and were the new hardware A models. One had the A production firmware, the other had a beta firmware. While the noise was not near as bad as the borrowed 700 I had originally tested, it was still there, and very noticeable on a screening room screen (but was pretty much gone on a 65" LCD monitor, that showed excessive noise on the original 700 I tested).

I think they will eventually get it all sorted out.

Not a hootout, but...
 

[QUOTE=Harry Pallenberg;1381734NOW that sounds like a great test / fun experience! Also sounds liek a great shootout... but I guess that was not allowed... I won't ask for details... but please feel free to give us some....[/QUOTE]

Harry, I can't say much, but I can say that it certainly evened out some of my biases.

You have to look at those two days as both testing camera SYSTEMS and the individual cameras themselves.

While I have worked with all three camera extensively, my bias has lately been toward the RED, mainly because of the price to performance aspect.

If you were to look at the results from a systems standpoint, all three camera faired very well. The Genesis is the oldest design, but has great support and a full compliment of excellent optics and ancillary gear. I go way back with Panavision (the original Panaflex and R200).

The Arri is the newest design, also has great support and a full compliment of excellent optics and ancillary gear. Arri is a very dedicated company that will, and does, give you great personal support. Like the Panavision, I go way back with the Arri line, starting with a 2B when I was a kid and up through the various 35 BL's I owned (but not academy 16 or S16mm, the Eclair NPR was my choice there).

The RED is always "newest" (but a slightly older initial design than the D-21) because they stay on top of the firmware/software upgrades. I love the RED, but it has had its share of teething problems. The RED also has great support, new add-ons announced almost weekly, and a philosophy not shared by either Panavision or Arri. When you buy a RED, it's like joining a family. Since the RED accepts various lenses, you have a great choice of optics as well.

Which one is best is an individual choice. What I consider best, may not be what you consider best (and yes, all four of us agreed that one camera was just slightly better overall image wise).

Now as to the cameras that were brought in (the Sony EX3 and my JVC 700). The Sony was really a huge surprise (image wise). Very, very nice image, but it's plagued by very poor ergonomics and some of the controls could be better thought out. Sony calls it a "Semi Shoulder" cam, but since I lack a semi shoulder to hold it, it's strictly a tripod cam.

The 700 has the best control layout and is the most ergonomic camera of them all, If you have to go handheld, nothing works as well as the JVC shoulder cam line, nothing. Everybody agreed that the 700 was the best price to image quality camera, and if it were not for the noise factor, would have gotten the nod over the Sony.

But let's face it, neither the Sony or JVC is in the same class as the "big boys", nor do I think that they were ever meant to be.

JVC and Sony should just get it over with and have a child- The EX-700...

Sony EX image in the JVC form factor. But then again that would pretty much annihilate sales of the rest of Sony's shoulder mounted line.

RED day 3
 

Justin, great idea! And yes you are right, Sony is very market savvy about not having one camera line "bump" into the other (and that will be their ultimate undoing, re: Walkman).

It's all a moot point anyway. By this time next year we will all be shooting the RED Scarlet :)

We can only HOPE!!!

Hey enzo, just pure image quality wise, which is better in your opinion: hm700 (without noise problem) or ex3?

Better...
 

Hands down, the EX3.

Everybody at the weekend camera fest we had was pretty impressed with this "prosumer looking" camera that could.

While it's more pricey that the HM700 (overall and media wise), in this case, the extra money does equate to better image quality.

This was my first experience with the EX3 (it somehow passed under my radar, probably because of how it looks), but I think this would be a good choice for second camera to the RED (if you can't afford two REDs that is). It's that good, image-wise.

The rental house that sponsored the week-end fest has now added the EX3 to their rental catalog, and on my suggestion, made up a Steadicam package using the EX3 mated to a Flyer, which is an excellent match.

What I didn't like about the EX3 were the ergonomics, control layout, and non-standard connectors. It's also too short, too light, and has the VF in the wrong place for effective use on a gear head. But like the paddle shift on my F430 (hate that paddle shift), the end performance far outweighs the idiosyncrasies.

I'd just like to add to Enzo's comments concerning the EX-3's ergonomic characteristics. "Left-eyed videographers" considering the purchase of this camcorder should be aware of the fact that the lateral adjustment capability of the viewfinder is rather limited. I normally wear glasses when I shoot. I examined the EX-3 at a video trade show several months ago and found it virtually impossible to comfortably use my left eye for the viewfinder. The HM-700's viewfinder, on the other hand, has a much greater adjustment range and accommodates "left eyed shooting" very well.

I tried an EX-1 on a shoot once that someone else had brought.... I never saw the footage so I can't speak as to how it looked, but I was so turned off by size/shape/ergonimics of the EX1. I felt it was another Sony handy cam so I never took either the EX-1 or EX-3 seriously since I hated operating it so much. I think if Sony wanted to make a light shoulder mount, fully manual camera like the JVC I would have looked at it. But for the way I work, I couldn't really use the EX1/3 for much of how I work even if image quality was as good as the Red. Sony are you listening? Not everyone loves the handycam size and shape. It's not handy except for realty shows with short takes and medium to wide shots, otherwise it has to stay on a tripod anyway. Might as well have a should shaped version with removable lenses and come with a REAL manual lens in a comparably priced camera... Sony? The sounds of crickets is deafening... Nah. I would probably go with a Panasonic HPX-500 just out of spite at this point because of my realationship with Sony Pro gear. Damn those P2 cards are expensive though!

Every person's cam...
 

Just doesn't exist (and probably never will).

As far as ergonomics go, the JVC ProHD line is what works best for me as an event cam, and it's a very nice production cam as well. I like that the focus puller (working from the left side) can use the onboard LCD (flipped) with focus assist turned on (and tuned) to do a confidence check, and it also balances very well on a tripod or gear head, and has a long enough VF to boot.

The RED has had many color shift problems over its development life. RED has been able to address these problems pretty quickly as they crop up, but even with the latest units and software, the colors are very desaturated right out of the box. Not a problem except to a director that is used to working with say a F35 (which has the best image quality straight out of the box of any of the electronic cameras I have ever worked with).

The beauty of the RED is that you get a 4K cam for less than $20K. And, that's really all you get for that $20K. By the time you configure it as a real production cam, you're getting close to the $75K mark. Still a very reasonable price for the great image quality, but not exactly the $15K price point cam everybody bandies about.

The EX3 also has color shift problems, mostly that the grays are contaminated with a magenta cast. The one that was used in the tests we did had a gelly over the lens to bring the grays back in line. Bad ergonomics, great image.

The HM 700A (with the latest software) continues to have serious noise issues at 1920 x 1080/35Mbps when used as advertised (as a camera for shooting movies). But the image looks very nice on a 65" monitor, and there is no noise (to speak of) shooting native (1280 x 720/19Mbps) even when the image is projected on a 50' screen.

So it all boils down to what works for you, and what limitations you are willing to accept for the features you want.

"The HM 700A continues to have noise issues at 1920 x 1080/35Mbps when used as advertised (as a camera for making movies). But the image looks great on a 65" monitor, and there is no noise (to speak of) shooting native (1280 x 720/19Mbps) even when the image is projected on a 50' screen."
I was looking on my 40" TV at some footage shot with HM100 and 720 looks to me much better then 1080, at least to my eye.

It shouldn't be surprising that recording at the native chip size provides the best QUALITY picture.

However, as I read the JVC marketing material, I think JVC is claiming that the chips are always supplying 1280x720 to the H&V "adaptive" shifting logic so that all internal processing is done at 1920x1080p. If this is true -- the noise/quality should be the same no matter the recording frame-size.

This way of operating makes no sense to me. I would expect that when recording 720p, the chips are directly fed to the encoder as no H&V shifting are needed -- or wanted.

JVC marketing materials probably not correct
 

Steve I don't believe those JVC marketing materials are correct.

It is my understanding in conversations with JVC Japan (sometimes rocky because of the language differences, and it is a personal embarrassment to me when I cannot speak a language that is native to the person I am having the conversation with), when shooting native, there is no adaptive shifting of the image. When shooting native it's pretty much "straight wire".

I currently own an HPX500 (and an HVX200), but have been impressed with the JVC since I first saw it for ergonomic reasons... I shot for 20+ years with (and still own) a super16 Aaton, which is one of the best designed shoulder cameras ever - and the 700 is very similar - before that I owned Eclair NPRs (the tool that every ENG camera was designed after) and ACLs.

I, too, Enzo am an old dog (probably one of the few others on this site that has shot with an R200, or a Mitchell) and, having recently turned 65, am still shooting documentaries handheld - and I am really hoping for a lighter, better balanced camera with a better viewfinder - thus my renewed interest in the JVC...

I have been reading these posts with interest and am understandingly disappointed with this noise issue and the apparent CA... I'll keep checking till JVC gets it right though.

Old dogs???
 

Steve, in spite of me having worked with Mitchell BNC and BNCR's, as well as the R200, you do realize that I started my career at a very, very early age, right?

My early years:

At 3 months in the womb, received my very first Nikon F (mom wasn't too happy about that).

At 7 months gestation, I shot my first still photo layout for Vogue Italia (mom was even less happy about that!). Asked the models on the shoot if they wanted to be on a Vogue cover.

At 1 day old, ordered my first Arri IIB. Asked the the girls in the nursery with me if they wanted to be in movies.

At 2 years old, went to work for Cinemobile as their "in-house" Steadicam Op. I had to wear stilts that made me 6'3" tall and put cayenne pepper on my right hand so I would be a lefty. Asked the women on the shows I worked if they wanted to be stars.

At 5 years old, I was working as a full DP in Italy. Worked out pretty well for me except for when another DP on an adjacent lot asked his gaffer to "put a bambino up". Man, those light stands are really, really uncomfortable to sit on! But not a bad vantage point in the heyday of Italian movie mega cleavage. Asked the female stars in the movies I shot if they wanted to be even bigger stars.

So, while I have been around for a long time, I was also lucky in getting a very early start :)

And now for something completely different...

Ah, the S16 Aaton. The ultimate refinement of the Eclair design (a design that changed the way all cameras where designed from then on). I also owned one, and I still have one of the last French made NPRs (and my first Arri IIB too!), sometimes, nostalgia is hard to break away from.

We used an NPR, as well as the JVC, to shoot some scenes in the feature film "Parasomnia", directed by William Malone. I was the digital film DP, and my friend Christian Sebaldt, ASC, was the main (and film) DP on the show. The Parasomnia film trailer is here: Parasomnia Trailer (use the 720P option). Bet you can't tell which scenes were shot with what cameras :)

Which brings me to segue to your JVC concerns.

Steve, my issues with the noise is only as it relates to shooting feature films @ 35Mbps. On the very latest "A" series, the noise is just barley perceivable on a large screen TV. It's only when the footage is projected onto the big screen that the noise rears its ugly head. So if you are shooting docs with a limited big screen distrib, the 700 (or 200B) should work well for you. And remember, there is no noise when shooting native.

While JVC US is playing this 700 noise issue pretty close to the chest, I can tell you that JVC Japan is very concerned about it and are diligently working to find a solution to eliminate it entirely.

Old dogs indeed...