Hi-Def Virgin Needs Advice!

[A B Hancock]

I just reserved an EX-1 for a two-day rental out of Atlanta and I'm very excited about getting my hands on it! I'm currently shooting with a pair of PD170s and an HVX100a so this will be my first foray into high definition. I'm fully expecting to have my mind blown! :cheesy:

One thing I'd like to do is to see the images from this camera up on my 106" home theater screen. Will going component out of the EX-1 to my Denon receiver (or straight to the PJ) give me an HD picture? My projector is 720p.

I have Final Cut Pro 4.5 on a Power Mac G5 dual 2G 23" Cinema Display, four years old and never updated ("if it ain't broke don't touch it" is a way of life here in the NC mountains...the dark side of living in Mayberry RFD). Can I download my footage via firewire/i-Link onto my G5 as HD? Otherwise it's going to be a frustrating two days filling up those two 8G SXS cards with no place to dump my footage!

I was thinking of shooting everything in the highest quality settings (would 1080/24P be best?). Any tips on other settings? I'd rather be shooting than exploring camera settings while that expensive rental clock is ticking!

I will be shooting nature videos with this camera most of the time.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Stevet]

Enjoy!
It's going to be great.
As long as your monitor offers it, and it sounds like it does, component will offer 1080i and 720P.

If you can get access to an SDI to HDMI converter, the image will look even better. Also, with this setup you can check out 1080P (Of course with a monitor that offer 1080P).

The EX1 1080P on a monitor looks incredible.

Also, for a quick setting that will look better than the stock setting, click onto the profile button on the back and
select one of the profiles and change the settings to :

Matrix ON
-High Sat,
Level 3,

Gamma CINE4
Black -3
Black Gamma -2
Low Key SAT = 0

Detail ON
level = -10
Frequency = +5

This is a mixture of Doug Jensen's with a few changes.

[A B Hancock]

Thanks Stevet. My wife and I will be shooting with a PD170 for comparison. Our SD nature footage has always looked great (if I do say so myself) on samller screens but sucks big time on a big screen. I can't wait to see how the EX-1 holds up on our nine-foot screen!

[DC EX1]

Make sure to try a variety of resolutions... and try out the over/under crank feature (720P only w/o audio unfortunately) but could still be very cool with nature scenes... fast motion 1fps streams/day night time lapses etc to slow mo creatures moving around in their habitat... Just a thought, cheers and enjoy!

Also, side note, you'll need to upgrade to FCP Studio 2 6.0.2 and download XDcam Transfer software... w/o it, the footage won't unwrap from its imported mp4+ format and it's useless. That is unless you take a firewire drive to a local Apple store and "borrow" a macbook pro's sxs side port for the xdcam transfer...

[Stevet]

I'm not sure what the use would be in having the original audio played back when viewed in slo-mo. This is normal, right? It would be very strange to hear someone talking normal, but the visuals ending at twice the time later in slo-mo.

[A B Hancock]

Make sure to try a variety of resolutions... and try out the over/under crank feature (720P only w/o audio unfortunately) but could still be very cool with nature scenes... fast motion 1fps streams/day night time lapses etc to slow mo creatures moving around in their habitat... Just a thought, cheers and enjoy!

Also, side note, you'll need to upgrade to FCP Studio 2 6.0.2 and download XDcam Transfer software... w/o it, the footage won't unwrap from its imported mp4+ format and it's useless. That is unless you take a firewire drive to a local Apple store and "borrow" a macbook pro's sxs side port for the xdcam transfer...

Thanks, I can't wait to put this camera through its paces! As a matter of fact I'm investing in a new Mac Pro (2.8Ghz 8 core, 2G RAM). Ordering from B&H tomoroow. I'll have the new FCS version and will download the XDCAM download software but how do I get my footage into Final Cut Pro--via firewire or component? Does anyone have a step-by-step process they can share on how I do this?

Thanks for any suggestions. I'm enjoying this forum very much.