Clip Limit - workarounds or alternatives?

[Clive McLaughlin]

I recently bought a Sony a6000 which is mainly used on my Nebula 4000. The footage is so good though that during ceremony and speeches I'm tempted to put it somewhere as another wide/safety/alternate shot along with my Sony CX730s.

But of course, I'll only get a half hour of filming if its used as an unmanned camera.

I've not been overly on the ball lately in terms of tech and releases - but do I have any options.

Or are there any releases out there on a par with the a6000 but without limiting the clip length?

Any hacks?

Is the CX900 or AX100 comparable to the a6000? The price difference is mental though, just to be able to break through the 30minute mark.

Frustrating!

[Bruce Dempsey]

hdmi out to a atomos ninja2 or a hyperdeck by blackmagic and both of those will produce jaw dropping quality but you are looking at a grand when all is said and done. In this case you would not record internally
correct me if i am wrong but does the a6000 not also have a 30 minute idle limit where by it shuts its self off?
I just received an a5100 which is more or less the same unit with a few tweaks
I'll be using it alongside an ax100 live switched.
Just set the timer on your phone for 25 minutes ad go over to restart the recording is the cheapest

[David Payne]

you could use the play memories app if it's compatible with the a6000 to monitor your recording and then just restart it when it hits the limit. You can also change settings via the app. I'm considering it for a second a7s but don't like the idea of forgetting come 30 mins and not restarting for a while, also looking at your phone/tablet during a ceremony won't look too good!

[Bruce Dempsey]

That is an excellent point aboit using the app
the a5100 has the same sensor / focus system as tthe 6000 + the brains of the a7s as well it records xavc
a better vid cam methinks

[Clive McLaughlin]

These apps though - do they not require a wifi network in order to speak to each other? Not often available at churches and some venues.

So, are the video cameras on a par or not? Regardless of the price increase.

I assume the video cameras with no clip limit also have smaller sensors than the a5100, a6000, rx10 etc and therefore a different 'look' to the footage?

[Miklos Nemeth]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dempsey

hdmi out to a atomos ninja2
correct me if i am wrong but does the a6000 not also have a 30 minute idle limit where by it shuts its self off?
I just received an a5100 which is more or less the same unit with a few tweaks
Just set the timer on your phone for 25 minutes ad go over to restart the recording is the cheapest

A5100: it is heavily overheating. I've never been able to record a video longer than 16 minutes, and subsequently 5-minute takes. The only option is Ninja Star, Ninja (original) or Ninja 2; Blackmagick's battery life is catastrophic. The A5100 is a perfect combo with Atomos: excellent image quality, low light performance, brilliant AF-C, face tracking (Canons cannot come even close) from the Sony + unlimited recording time from Atomos.
The internal codec of Sony is excellent - especially the A5100 (50mbps 60fps XAVC-S) - but, because of overheating, the A5100 can be used only with Atomos for longer takes. Because of the 30-minute theoretical limitation, this should be anyway a problem for unmanned camera capturing. Atomos is a must for longish videos taken with any still image cameras (European GH4 included) anyway.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Clive McLaughlin

These apps though - do they not require a wifi network in order to speak to each other? Not often available at churches and some venues.

Just bring your own WiFi with a Huawei E533x (MiFi) or similar.

[Jeremy Lee]

Clive, what have you liked the most about the a6000? I am looking at this camera and wondering how it handles iso.

[Bruce Dempsey]

I've ordered a brand new and very cheap gizmo pvr tv box thingy called the zidoo-x9 which supposedly records hdmi in (we'll see about that) H.265 codec and arrives Friday with luck.
this new codec will be upon us soon and finally we can stop the crazy race to the biggest file size possible by demanding more and more bitrate to get better and better pictures
H.265 will produce wonderously small file sizes for at least as good visuals. or so I'm lead to believe. We're talking more or less comperable visuals at 100mb H265 as opposed to 1gb h264 so my current archive of around 20tb could have been stored on a single 2tb disc amazing no?
maybe this toy can do the job or maybe I'm dreaming again but we'll see in a few days

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by Clive McLaughlin

These apps though - do they not require a wifi network in order to speak to each other? Not often available at churches and some venues....

The camera generates an ad hoc network, app to camera control does not have anything to do with the networks in the vicinity. You only need an external network if you want to upload camera files.

At least that's how it works with my various Panasonic cameras (which don't have the shot length limit issue) and my Sony HDR-MV1 which also doesn't have the shot length issue.

Fran

[Miklos Nemeth]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dempsey

zidoo-x9 which supposedly records hdmi in (we'll see about that) H.265 codec ...100mb H265 as opposed to 1gb h264

Hi Bruce, This Zidoo X9 has only 8G internal memory: Zidoo X9 Quad Core MSTAR 9180 HDMI IN/OUT Record PVR 4K USB 3.0 KODI Android STB | eBay and this is really small to use as a generic recording gear for videographers.
I was thinking of giving a try to AVerMedia ExtremeCap U3 and Elgato HD60. Both require a powerful i7 computer, though, to actually record the captured video.
Just to save space FFMPEG could be used to convert h264 files to h265, but the FFMpeg encoder doesn't promise ten times more efficient compression while keeping the original quaility. I am very much interested in your experments.
Thank You, Miklos

[Michael Bradshaw]

Clive, I've never used the a6000 but i use the playmemories app with an ipad for my a7s when I use it as a static cam. It's also great being able to change settings remotely and even change the shot if you are using a powered emount zoom.

In the camera settings you just turn on the wireless and it sets up a network from the camera and your phone/ ipad can connect.

I haven't used it for a while but I know that the android app had some issues with the latest version of android os. It works fine on ios but I expect they will fix it at some point.

[Bruce Dempsey]

Hello Miklos
As I read the specs, the x9 will record to a sdhc mini card up to 32gb as well a usb3 stick no size limit.
This is very recent tech and using the newest codec H.265
I too have gone through the process of considering all sorts of capture devices including the elgato, maxwell and yaan, intensity shuttle and pro cards but all of those require a full size computer on site and I want to keep it small and very portable.
My set up is 3 cameras ax100 a5100 cx550v all feeding a new cerevo livewedge hdmi switcher / streaming device and the hdmi output recorded by the x9 and I have all this on one tripod
using ffmpeg to encode xvac-s hd files from the ax100 to H.265 result for me in a 90% reduction in file size and similar visual quality when viewed full screen on a 39" seiki 4k-uhd tv/monitor

[David Payne]

Originally Posted by Clive McLaughlin

These apps though - do they not require a wifi network in order to speak to each other? Not often available at churches and some venues.

Nope. The camera creates the wifi, the phone talks to it, no need to be at home or logged onto a public wifi.

The overheating thing is a bit of a killer for the a5100.. Thats a shame

[Bruce Dempsey]

received the zidoo x9 and have it recording the output from the livewedge switcher which is receiving hdmi video from an ax100
I recorded a short bit on the camera in xavc-s hd while also recording on the zidoo x9 and frankly considering the camera clip is 700 mb and the zidoo clip a measly 70mb the clips are similar enough. The h.265 appears more saturated and there are horizontal line issues but good enough for many purposes other than cinema
Top one is from the 100 dollar recorder, screengrab bottom is from the cam