The good news is you have delirium

A while back, I blogged about the Steadicam Merlin, and how I was having some difficulty getting it to balance properly.

As advised, I bought an extra middle weight, but I didn’t find it to make any difference. I gave up on it. At least for the short term. I’m convinced it can be done, and I will try to crack the code again in the new year.

One person I know who has unlocked the mystery is Dan (aka jerkmony), a fellow shooter I’m friends with on Twitter. Check out his Flickr profile for pictures of how he balanced his Merlin. Maybe if he comes to Windsor, he could balance mine. I think I see a side business for him.

Going to a tapeless workflow is great, but it does require some planning.

P2 media is very expensive, so many people opt for an external drive to give them the storage capacity they need. The Firestore drives from Focus Enhancements give you more bang for the buck than P2 cards, but they are cumbersome and do not hold a charge for much more than an hour. And while more cost-efficient than P2 media, they are still expensive compared to your everyday (Maxtor, Western Digital) external drive.

So after careful deliberation, here is the workflow I have decided to use.

Footage captured to my P2 cards will be offloaded to a Windows-based (ick, I know) laptop through the PCMCIA slot, and then from the laptop to an external Maxtor drive via USB or firewire. Due to the unpredictability of hard drives, I feel it is necessary to make an additional backup, at least in documentary-type shooting circumstances. If it’s something easy to re-shoot, than you can make the call whether one or two backups are required. Just remember, once you’ve deleted that data from the P2 card, it’s gone, so use extreme caution. (Looking to the future, when hard drives are replaced by flash drives, the need to make redundant backups will be a thing of the past and we’ll all be able to rest much easier knowing that our data is safe.)

Of course, you need to have power for the laptop and the drive, but I have thought of that too. At wedding receptions, this should not be a problem, as every hall I’ve ever been to has a sufficient number of outlets. When power is not available, I plan to use a portable, rechargeable power source, or even a cigarette lighter adapter in the car. Not to mention that there is also the laptop’s battery.

One other thing of note, if you offload from the camera directly to an external drive, you create a partition. You may only have a maximum of 16 partitions. So even though you may have a 500 GB drive, if you are offloading 8 GB cards, you’ll max out the drive at 128 GB (8GB x 16 offloads=128GB). But fear not, because if you use a larger card, like the 32 GB, you’ll be able to utilize the entire drive (32GB x 16 offloads=512GB). I will be offloading to the laptop first, then to the external drive. The data will just drag and drop over to the drive like any other data, so I won’t have to worry about partitions.

I have done mock tests dumping from the camera to the laptop and the drive, and, this is important, making sure the footage transfers properly into Final Cut Pro, and so far, no problems.

With all the time and money I just saved you, I think it would be real swell of you to buy me some extra P2 media. Or at least some ice cream.

Back in late January, I decided that this would be the year I would switch over to high definition. I’ve already purchased a new 8-core Mac Pro computer, and now it’s time to choose a new camera.

I currently shoot with the Panasonic DVX100A. The HD version of this camera would be the Panasonic HVX200, and if I had to buy a camera today, that’s what it would be. But just as the DVX100 was upgraded to the DVX100A and eventually to the DVX100B, I have a feeling that the HVX200 will be upgraded very shortly.

The NAB Show is an annual event that showcases all the latest technology used by media content creators. Companies often choose to announce new products at this event, and I have a feeling Panasonic will upgrade the HVX200 to an HVX200A. I have no evidence of this, but given the life cycle of the DVX100 cameras, I just think it’s due. Many on the DVXuser forum feel the same.

So that’s the camera I’ve been waiting for, but…

I was talking to another video professional in Windsor last week and he informed me that Red will be announcing a new camera as well. And he was right. It’s called the Red Scarlet. There is very little information available about this camera, other than the fact that it’s made by Red, which actually is pretty exciting in itself.

Why?

Because Red is a new company and the only camera that they have produced, the Red One, is a state-of-the-art revolutionary camera. Many Hollywood directors have one or are getting one. Now, with this camera being priced at about $18,000 (body only, lenses are extra), it’s not for everyone. But the buzz around the Red Scarlet camera is that it will be very similar to the Red One, but smaller, with a few less options, and almost certainly under $10,000. There is virtually no other information available, but it has been confirmed that they will release all the details at the upcoming NAB Show.

Which one will I buy?

The HVX200 has been out for a couple years and everyone knows what it can do. It’s a fantastic camera, and a proven winner. I know that any upgrades Panasonic can make to it would just make it that much more attractive. With the Red Scarlet, we know very little, but the potential is very high. Therefore, until I have all the facts about both cameras, I will not be partial to either one.

The NAB Show runs from April 11-17, so it’s now only days away. I can’t wait to see what Panasonic and Red release at the event.

I will certainly post updates on this topic and of course mention which camera I decided to purchase.