Anyone Know Of Portable Mini Motion Control Rig?

[Prodigi Pictures]

About 3 years ago I saw a company online that had developed a mini Motion Control Rig. I can't remember their name, but the product was like a 6 inch tall black cylinder that mounted on a tripod.

You could do simple motion control shots...pans, tilts and pan/tilt combos. I thought it was awesome and I want to buy one. I've done google searches for about a month to no avail...

...anyone remember this company? Anyone know of a website?

[Aaron Marshall]

Hey,

I found this:

Varizoom VZMC100 (http://www.fullcompass.com/product/254068.html)

It's pretty expensive though

[Prodigi Pictures]

That's actually much better than the one I saw several years ago, and it is about 7K less! Thank you for the link!

I'd still love to know what happened to the other company. Their device was incredibly attractive, and the computer was built into the device. You could mount it on top of your tripod, use an LCD to program the camera move and walk away. It was incredibly cool...it was also 10K and it didn't have the range of motion that this Varizoom device has.

I'd love to find someone who rents this device.

[Erik Olson]

I own the MC100 and it isn't a motion control head. It is better described as an x-y axis remote head for jib work. I'm not at the engineer level with the device, but I'm somewhat confident that it isn't fitted with "stepper" motors. You might be able to adapt this head to motion control work, but it isn't equipped for it off the shelf.

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[Aaron Marshall]

Thanks Overland, I was looking into this and you saved me a lot of headaches. Are you aware of any motion control device? I think I remembered a discussion on DVXuser about how they filmed parts of Baraka. The guy used a motion control head of some sort.

Any information will be a great help. Thanks!

[Prodigi Pictures]

Overland -

Thanks for the added info.

I wish I could find the company that made the product I saw 5 years ago. It was AMAZING. It was overpriced at 12K and it was way ahead of its time.

If someone owned one of their devices I'd rent it in a second. I can't remember the name of the company or the product...its been killing me for months because I really need a moco rig for my next project and I don't have the budget to rent a Hollywood one.

I know I can rig something together...but I'd prefer to use this (lost) product.

[Aaron Marshall]

Prodigi,

Sorry for the false lead earlier. I had good intentions.

Here is another product I found. It may be along the same lines as the other, but it says it has a 2000:1 gear ratio for barely noticable movement. The thing is, can it do it incrementally? If not, I wonder how hard it would be to set up something on this machine that could do it.

http://www.cameraturret.com/pt24.htm

I bet you could play with the joystick enough and time lapse to get some very smooth shots. I've adjusted a standard tripod head very meticulously and have gotten some decent time lapse.

What I'm wondering now is; how much is this sucker going to cost?

[Blaine]

I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for but you might find it here:

http://www.motioncontrol.com/motioncontrol/

[Prodigi Pictures]

I just found a link to a similar device in the cinematography forum. It isn't quite as robust as what the defunct company built...but its $100.00 instead of 14K.

This solution is close enough. I've already ordered one of these...I can't wait to try it out!

[Simon Höfer]

Prodigi, could you post the link please?

[Prodigi Pictures]

Here it is!

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=105477

[Prodigi Pictures]

The rig arrived today. I'm quite impressed. The head is well built. It can be assembled in about 3 minutes. The tripod isn't as stable as a cinema tripod but it is far better than most 20 dollar tripods.

There are already so many shots that can be accomplished with this baby. :love4:

I can't wait until moco software is available for this!