HVX Questions from a noob

[TBSHVX]

i'm a little new to the whole HD Scene . Have a few questions.
If I am on location shooting for long periods of time , what is the best means of storage? Should I get a firestore,
and not bother getting a P2 card? or do I need one no matter what. Then how easily can I transfer from the firestorage
or P2 card to a mac book pro laptop with an external plugged into it, then transfer the stuff from the external to a mac
pro desktop computer?

Is there anything else I should know about filming in 1080/24p as far as settings? Will I have to shoot in advanced
24p, or is it recomended to do so?

When I am editing I would like to send in a copy of the film on a dvd for viewing at a festival, and then an HD version for exibition
use, should I down grade the quality while editing, if so how do I do that. and will I be able to pump it back up
to high deffinition, or will I have to re edit the footage. If I dont downgrade how would I burn the project to dvd,
what kind of software might I need, and will it work in a dvd player?

Does the camera actually shoot in ture wide screen with the factory lense? I know there is no interchangeable lenses
on this camera, but if it does not shoot in true wide screen is there an adapter I can get to put a wide angle lense on
the camera, and if I am shooting a film to be played on large scale screens should I use this lense the entire shoot?
is that what most hollywood cinematographers do? Where can I look at some adapter lenses if they exist for this camera? What are good quality adaptable lenses. Thanks


J

[Rush]

Hi J,

Long term recording at 720p24pn: Swap 4GB cards every 11 minutes, Swap 8GB card every 22 minutes, record direct to Firestore, record direct to laptop or desktop connected to external storage.

I would keep your footage at full res all the way to mpeg2 creation stage for the DVD. Just an opinion. It has given me great results with my 720p footage. Only downconvert for the final distro. As far as HD mastering, you can rent a DVCPROHD deck and do it yourself via FW400 port, or put the whole thing on a portable HDD and take it to a company to dub it for you from a DVCPROHD file to tape.

The HVX is a true 16:9 acquisition camera. You don't need anything to make it 16:9. You can add adapters to widen the lens (wide adapter), or narrow it (telephoto converter). Learn the camera's lens very well before buying add on adapters.

You can add a 35mm adapter to use photographic or 35mm lenses, and get extremely shallow depth of field akin to 35mm film. Since that dramatically changes the image you may have to use it the entire movie. There are many forums on DVXuser discussing just those 35mm adapters. :)

[jpsheets]

Hi Rush,
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but could you explain a little more about HD mastering? What's the difference between using a DVCPROHD deck vs. hooking up my G-tech drive to my G5 and FCP and mastering a DVD?

thanks!
JP

[Rush]

Hi jp, well in relation to what J was asking about, he wanted to submit a full HD version of his footage to a film fest. So that would mean either submitting a full res quicktime file on a HDD, or a DVCPROHD tape. I don't think the festival would accept a HDD, so he has to get that footage on the tape then. A DVD wouldn't carry the full resolution of HD, but instead a downsampled version. For distro to people, it's a fine method, but for display in a theater or festival, you want the highest quality = DVCPROHD tape.

[TBSHVX]

hmm How much would that cost to have a 90 minute film transfered to a dvcprohd tape? Where could I do Something like that? And is that a fairly generic exibition format? what does it play in a vcr?