3 camera HVX200 setup

Pluimer

Pluimer

Active member
I'm going to be setting up a 3 cam shoot with HVX's for MTV. We want to record all the cameras in 1080 or 720 straight onto hard drives for easier multicam editing in FCP. I'm new to the HVX world and want to see what's up before I dive in with the project.

My questions:

- Is there a thread about this already so I don't muck up the board?
- CAN we do it?
- Do we need 3 seperate computers to take each camera's footage?
- Will the timecode sync everything up properly?
- What else does a noob like me need to know?

Any advice/warnings would be appreciated. We're taking our ideas to the production guys next week. Thanks!
 
1. Yes, lots of discussion on multiple camera setups.

2. Yes, it can be done. Mostly.

3. Yes, each camera would have its footage captured on its own computer.

4. Yes - ish. You can sync the timecode between cameras, but it won't usually be 100% frame accurate. What I've found is that when you toggle between camera mode and VCR mode you lose a couple of frames of sync. So it'll be almost frame accurate but not necessarily 100% frame accurate.
 
Barry I've been wondering about the correct way to jam a HVX, can you give a quick tutorial on the way to set the TC using the FW port I think I read?
 
Well, I looked at other multi-cam threads and it seems that syncing up the TC seems to be a major issue. Would slating the cameras and just syncing to that point in post be a good work around?

I'm thinking about just getting three firestore drives instead of lugging computers into the studio each time. Of course, we'll only be shooting in 5 minute chunks so maybe swapping p2s wouldn't be that big of a deal. I just don't want to have to be running back and forth emptying cards and checking things while I could be dealing with more important things on set.

Also, will sync drift be that much of an issue if we shoot in 5 minute chunks and reslate after each cut?

Thanks again.

Also, if there's a thread that hits these questions, I searched but didn't find it. Could someone link it here, please?
 
Well if you use the cards instead of running video out of firewire, you could run one camera as the main Timecode camera, and run the firewire from that out to a hub, and then run two outputs of the hub to the other cameras, hardline syncing them, so there will be very small, if any, drifting of sync. If you use 4GB cards for each camera, which would give you more than 4 minutes in 720p (not sure of how long, if you shoot in 720/24pN then you'll get 20 minutes per card, but if it's for TV broadcast you wouldn't want 24pN since you wouldn't broadcast in it.)

But using two 4GB cards for each camera (one in camera while the other is offloading), you'll be able to shoot while the other cards are being offloaded, and since you can use firewire timecode this way, everything would be in about perfect sync.
 
Firewire sync helps you start them off in sync, but it doesn't continuously jam the timecode. It just starts off the TC PRESET so they're all the same. I don't know that drift is an issue, but toggling modes from camera to MCR (or turning off, or changing batteries) does seem to introduce some sync drift.

Slating is a backup way to go, yes. You could use the timecode sync to get everyone within a couple of frames of each other, and then use the slates to fine-tune it.

You won't have to re-sync every time, no. It appears to be very solid once you start it running; it's really just the toggling of modes or changing batteries or powering down that seems to introduce frame drift.
 
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