Long Form Review "not so good"

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

david, discounting the quality of advice given is not a personal attack.

Referring to a person is a personal attack.

Referring to a piece of advice as incorrect isn't a personal attack

I think there's a difference between the two.

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Douglas Villalba

I am almost sure that FW cable got loose since I had the FS-100 in my belt clip.

exactly my point, thank you... that ranting about the quality of focus products was not relevant to this thread.

get a long firewire cable, make some half-loops at the ends, and use some big rubber bands as a strain relief.

the max file size is indeed because of the fat32 format of the hdd, which has to happen in order to make it mac-compatible.

i think that there is a new o.s. update for the fs-100? do that, then run enuf of a recording test to span the 2-gig file size limit, perhaps while recording some music for the audio... the object is to see if there are any continuity issues with the audio, at the file break points.

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

exactly my point, thank you... that ranting about the quality of focus products was not relevant to this thread.

I disagree, I started this thread about the HVX200 in long form, run & gun. The camera focusing mechanism stinks specially for run & gun. It is one of the limitations of this camera.
All cameras have limitations, this one is not meant for fast focusing or pulling focus. It is just not made for that.
My Sony FX1 does better at focusing, but it doesn't do 24P or vari frame or DVCPRO HD.
I bought the camera for TV commercials, Music Videos, etc. I plan on using it at weddings only for special effects while I use the Sonys HDV for the bulk of the shoot. No camera can do it all.

[Pete Tews]

. . . . . .

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Douglas Villalba

I disagree, I started this thread about the HVX200 in long form, run & gun. The camera focusing mechanism stinks specially for run & gun. It is one of the limitations of this camera.

i said "focus products" because a company named focus makes the fs-100 that you also referred to in your initial post... "focus products" has nothing to do with the focusing capability of the camera.

thanks for the feedback on the focusing limitations of the camera, but i daresay that focusing is going to be problematic on most all 1/3" hd video cameras.

most importantly, none of 'em have real crt viewfinders that have enuf resolution to do accurate focusing with, afaik... so even if your focus ring worked like a pro lens focus ring does, you don't have an accurate method of determining what the correct manual focus really is.

so i'd imagine that you'll have to be in manual focus mode, zoom all the way in to your subject, hit the autofocus button briefly, then hope that the backfocus on the lens is set correctly from the factory.

i shoot like that with the xl1s all the time, so it's not an issue for me.

[Douglas Villalba]

Well, If you don't succeed try again.

I had a couple of jobs this weekend so I went out to try the camera again.

This time I added the Glidecam 4000 Pro to the mix. I already know some of the limitations of the camera so I am only using it for what I bought it for.

On Friday and Saturday I had Dance Recitals so did some slow and fast motion shots of the dancers rehearsing. The camera shines at this so needless to say the footage looks very nice.
Saturday night I had to shoot another 2 HD camera wedding so I brought the HVX200 along with the Glidecam to help the 2 Sonys with the establishing shots.
Its only by comparing the abilities and disabilities under equal conditions of different cameras that can make a serious comparison. I don't have mush new to say but to re affirm that focusing this camera with out an external monitor is nearly impossible. The Sony LCD in comparison is as sharp as have seen and the auto focus is also very good.

If Sony can make lower cost cameras with good LCDs I am sure that Panasonic can do the same.

As far as the FS-100 I can say that it worked good as long as the battery lasted. I got about 30 minutes out of it once more. It would probably a good idea to get the longer lasting battery, but the price is kind of high. I am sure that someone would figure a different solution to the high price short life battery.

I know that someone is going to ask about the Glidecam HVX 200 combination. IT IS HEAVY and hard to use without practice. I am getting the Smooth Shooter but it was back order at the time that I put the order in. I think that without a vest system it is just to heavy to hand hold for more than a few seconds unless you are the ARNOLD TERMINATOR.

EDITED: I spoke to soon, after reviewing the footage the FS 100 has contant dropouts. Just like the ones you get from tape, not full frame dropout.

I may just return it. It is totally useless this way.

[Dean Harrington]

requires a shoulder mount like the dvrigpro if you are going to shot weddings or you may use, as I have, a marZpak. Unfortunately, the marZpak is no longer produced. While many of us commented that we wanted a removable lens on this camera when Panasonic was seeking advice before the production of this unit, I've heard nothing but praise for the lens.
I too think some type of off-spring of the HD100 and the HVX would be wonderful but ... you've got to work with the limitations of your cam and that means really knowing the how to use the gear in the best way. This cam is best mounted in some way, that's just the way it is!

[Sergio Perez]

Haven't been here for a while, but have to come in and defend Robert lane. He's one of the most helpful persons on this board. He's one of the few that actually owns and operates this camera regularly, and has contributed immensely with workflow suggestions and test that he had done personally.

Attacking him the way you did is a big no no.

[Peter Jefferson]

well moving back to topic re firestore units.. ive had nothign but issues withthem and its NOT the cable. its also not the operator, considering im supposed to making a profit by selling these to other pros. For me to sell something i test it first so i can educate my potential buyers on the pros and cons and give them a basic tute as to how to use the thing..

Now the units i was using were first release models. I cant be sure they were pre-release models, but either way, the issues i had was low battery life (and this was with the upgrade kit) incessant powering off on standby. Inability to shoot instantaneously (as in point shoot stop... point shoot stop within a 7 second interval) and this was the DVX model...
I always thought it had an timeslip record function, but that never worked properly for me. The unit kept rebooting itself..

With the HDV update, pretty much the same thing happened.. and this was wit a DIFFERENT unit... however the issue here was not only what the standard DV unit had, but also Gop issues and audio sync issues. Again this could have been a glitch oin the early models, but since then, even though i still sold the units, most people ive sold them to have returned them. The ones who DIDNT return them were the guys who ran their cams and FS4's through line power, not battery.

Either way, to this day, and the current cost of HDD's i still believe firestores are overpriced and underdeveloped. The only one i havent had issues with was the rebranded JVC FS4, which is running the same HDV codecs as the HDV upgrade for the FS4 pro (from memory). I dont know why or how, but ive never had a problem with that model..

For a unit like this, at this price, there SHOULD be an option to choose the file system (ntfs) over fat32. Not everyone uses a Mac. Good luck syncing a 3 hour stage show when all your files are split @ 2gb points especially when shooting DVCPRoHD 1080i.. isnt that like 1gb a minute or something.. hmm.. 2 minute clips...thrown across a 3 hour timeline... joy oh joy...
If THAT is considered efficient media management, then theres something SERIOUSLY WRONG with that line of thought...

Now if this camera were to ever be released with a HW H.264 encoder, then maybe it will cut it for long form, or better yet, maybe a Firestore type uinit with an inbuilt converter which converts a live DVCPRohD Stream from the cams firewire output, and convert to H.264 on the fly, but then we'd still have those power issues and drive latencies.

Maybe its Pal models.. who knows... who cares, but until somethign is done about the long form workflow with this unit, then its pretty futile even considering it.
I so wished i could do a smooth upgrade and grab myself a couple of HVX's... hell ive got thousands of dollars worth of accessories here, but even with this im seriosuly consideirng jumping ship. I love the codec, i love the camera, i love everythign about what it can do and what ive seen done with it so far, but when it comes to the bottom line, this wow factor still doesnt cut the cheese as the amount of work required to manage and process this media in this codec takes up too much time, which most clients wouldnt be happy to pay for.

[Betsy Moore]

Has anyone been recording this camera directly into their laptop/desktop? I want so desperately to talk myself into getting this camera but I just can't stop every 8 minutes to reload the card when I'm shooting an emotional dialogue scene.

[Barry Green]

Lots of us are doing that. Look for many posts from Robert Lane describing his setup. And I've been beta-testing Serious Magic's DVC Rack, a program that will let you capture live to the computer on the PC platform, and it includes a monitor emulator, waveform, vectorscope, frame grabber, all sorts of tools. Looks very, very good!

[Dean Harrington]

Has Serious Magic made an HD codec for DV Rack? I thought the monitor was only for HDV?

[Denis Danatzko]

I assisted as extra cam on a church discussion group last night. My observations are unrelated to the technical functions of the camera and more to the physical characteristics. Therefore, they are not pertinent to everyone, but I offer them as observations to potential buyers.

1) as most other things in this world, it doesn't accommodate left-handedness. This makes for slower adjustments and sometimes-uncomfortable body contortions. (I know this isn't unique to the HVX, and I don't expect a separate "left-handed" version to be marketed).

2) when on a tripod, some remote focus & iris control is almost mandatory, especially with the camera high on a tripod. (tho I'm only 5'7", so many things are a "reach" for me).

3) also when on a tripod, an external monitor is as necessary as remote focus & iris control. (particularly if you're "vertically challenged", as I am).

4) as mentioned in a prior post, the menu control buttons can be difficult to manipulate, again, particularly so when the operator is of short physical stature. (I recommend keeping that IR remote control handy for such adjustments).

Just my 2 cents.

[Barry Green]

Originally Posted by Dean Harrington

Has Serious Magic made an HD codec for DV Rack? I thought the monitor was only for HDV?

The DVC Rack powerpak plug-in isn't on the market yet, but it is in beta-test and it works very well. It supports full 720/60p and 1080/60i DVCPRO-HD even on my Pentium M 760 laptop. Should be a stellar performer on the Macbook Pro I expect to get after the New Zealand tour.

They do have an HDV PowerPak but this is something different, this is specifically for HVX/DVCPRO-HD; they are currently calling it DVC Rack.

[Douglas Villalba]

Updating my original post:

I previously said that the battery life of the FS 100 was about 30 minutes. In all fairness to the Firestore if you capture continuously it may give you the 90 minutes that they claim. In another test that I did with a full battery and a little over an hour left on the FS100 HDD, I ran out of HDD space and still had 2 line s on the battery.

As far as drop out in the same test I added the supplied carbon to the firewire cable and updated the firmware and I didn't get any dropouts. That doesn't guaranty that I won't get any if the environment changes (static from wireless signals etc) but I didn't get any dropout during the test.

I am also able to record to the FS100 while having the P2 card in. I had to change the function setting FA to Tapeless from Sync.