Anyone Using Fuji disks for their XDCAM-HD?

[Tim Allison]

Fuji disks are cheaper than the Sony disks. In our experience, Fuji Betacam tape was just as good as Sony Betacam tape. Is the same true of the XDCAM 23 GB disks?

[Mike Watson]

Saw them at NAB last year, and was thrilled. Swiped my card, never heard from them. Months later, visited their website, left my contact information, never heard from them. Called the 1-800 number, someone took my information, never got a call back. I can't find a distributor that carries them. At this point, I'll stick with the Sony disks until someone starts responding to inquiries.

[Simon Wyndham]

Don't forget that you can also get TDK discs cheaper than the Sony's. All discs from all these manufacturers have to meet Sony's standards so there should be no issues of quality from any of them.

[Tip McPartland]

I was on a shoot (with Nate Weaver, hi bro!) and had been using Sony, but mid-shoot was brought a TDK and popped it in. Once it spooled up, the camera vibrated noticably. I was using a Sachtler 18 and the pan arm was vibrating as badly as the handlebars on my old 3-cylinder Kawasaki 750, and that's a lot. I freaked out and requested to swap in a Sony disc, then no more vibration.

My concern was that the evidently out-of-round or imbalanced disc could cause dropouts. But even if this wasn't the case, my other concern was that with the camera vibrating, the picture would be soft -- almost certainly true. But I would've hated to attempt convincing the director that it wasn't operator sloppiness.

So only Sony discs for me, but I've noticed a very mild vibration even with them, after having my eyes open to the possibility. This begs the question, is it possible that even the reduced vibration of the better discs could soften focus ever so slightly? If so, this is a powerful argument for solid state media.

Enquiring minds want to know, at least this one anyway.

Tip

[Simon Wyndham]

I think you just got unlucky with the TDK disc. This probably could have happened with both makes of disc, but yours just happened to be TDK.

I have never had any noticeable vibration from the discs when running other than when they first spin up. Just wondering if there might be something deeper going on with your camera. Something misaligned perhaps?

[Peter Newsom]

I have had that strong vibration thing happen with my camera in the past. I was using Sony disks. I had the camera serviced and checked, and while the report came back stating no fault found, I can't remember it happening since.

I am still using the same disks that were in service at the time, so I don't think that it is disk related.

[Alister Chapman]

I've been using TDK disks for around a year and never had problems with them, likewise Sony disks.

[Tip McPartland]

Well, true, I have used other TDK discs without any issue, but it that ever happens to you with a given brand (TDK), and never with another (Sony), you'll probably react like I did.

By the way, nothing wrong with the camera, many successful shoots including quite a few with a knowledgable member of this forum, and it's rock solid.

My theoretical speculation that ANY vibration, even from a nearly perfectly balanced rotating mass might soften a picture stands.

One might say that if the amplitude of the vibrations is less than the pitch of the CCD or CMOS elements that it wouldn't matter, as any relative motion between sensor and image would not jump a detail or edge from one pixel to the next.

But even with very low amplitude vibrations, when edges or details within the image being captured happen to fall VERY near pixel boundaries, vibration could shift that image detail from one set of pixels to adjacent ones, and the image would soften.

Just speculation, but I think reasonable speculation.

Tip

[Paul Gale]

I agree Tip - but I guess the other factor is how much those vibrations get absobed by the chassis of the camera? I would guess most if not all will?

Can you ever feel any vibration at all near the lens? I would think it's so small that you couldn't physically feel it?

[Tip McPartland]

Thanks for the support on this, potentially an unpopular stance on the XDCAM disc camera forum.

My lens (Fuji 3.3x13) is soooooooooo heavy, and then I have a matte box clamped to it that is in turn supported by rods, that I doubt if there's any way that there's a lot of motion at the end of the lens, which, yes, is where it would do the most harm.

I think barring a defective disc like the one TDK I had, the engineering is sufficient to eliminate any real-world problem, which by the way could also occur on any tape based camera.

Basically, if there's any noise or whir, whether from tape or disc, that noise reflects some measure of vibration.

Tip

[Greg Boston]

Knowing a bit about how the camera's constructed, I'd say it's probably a non issue. Remember, the VDR unit is well protected from external shock and vibration and that dampening effect should go both ways. But if you still have that disc, it might be an interesting experiment if res charts were available.

-gb-

[Tip McPartland]

Hey Greg,

That was on a shoot with Nate, and the guy who hired us took that disc because it did have some footage on it, so no easy way to test it. Nate wasn't worried about it at the time, and I never heard anything about it from the dude who hired us, so perhaps it held up okay.

Maybe Nate is still in touch with him and could get it, but it seems unlikely as it was a while ago.

They had purchased Sony discs, however I "gave" them my box of TDK discs as spares if needed. They mistakenly ended up using my TDKs to reload all the cameras rather than their Sonys.

Only the one given to me had the vibration, or at least nobody else got paranoid. Anyway, they used up my box and after the shoot reimbursed me with a stack of Sony discs. Which, under the circumstances, was just fine!

Hope all is great with you.

Tip

[Hornady Setiawan]

hi all,
i've used about 15 Fuji discs now with my F350 without any problems.
Used using car mounts on rocky road, everything is OK.