pepsidude32
Member
My friend was able to sign out two HVX200 [200a maybe?] cameras from his college and here's my experience with shooting on them for the past three days.
Where it all begins
I've long held a passion for film. I decided it was time to stop making crappy videos for school or stupid videos to throw on my youtube account and enter a few contests. Even if it was just for experience. So I found myself a handy website, which catalogs most of the known video contests that are floating around the internet [http://onlinevideocontests.com if you were wondering] and begin to generate ideas for the ones that seemed they would be fun to do.
My friend Aaron and I chose one to do [http://contests.luthiersociety.com/unsponsored/whats-your-fix], drew up some ideas, and contemplated how we were going to film it. Aaron told me he would see about getting a few cameras from school and we decided to start filming the next day [deadline was soon].
What's in the bag?
I was shocked when Aaron showed up on my doorstep holding an Panasonic HVX-200. So far in what had been a very short lived and horribly executed filming career, luck was never on my side. Much to my surprise not only was he able to get one camera for us to shoot with, he got TWO! For the next few hours I was both excited and delirious. Just the idea of shooting a project in 1080i and watching something I made in full HD was amazing.
After the initial excitement died down, we began to draw up a plan on how we wanted everything to go. We took our written script, or incomplete shot list, and two cameras that we had no idea how to use, and prepared ourselves for the shoot of a lifetime. It was only after we knew what we wanted to do that I decided to take a look at the cameras again, and realized that we wouldn't be able to shoot in HD unless we had P2 cards or a firestore unit. So I decided it was time to make some phone calls.
I looked up just about any production company and film/photography store within 200 miles of my house and called every one I could, asking if anyone had a P2 card or a firestore. Of the number we actually got through to, one had a P2 card, and one had a firestore, but neither would be able to rent to us. Depressed but not discouraged, Aaron and I steadied our minds on the idea that we would be shooting in Standard Definition and to miniDV tape. I went home for the night eager to start shooting.
The next morning, Aaron calls me to inform me that he decided to look through the bags that the cameras were given to him in and noticed there was a FS-100 that we could use to shoot HD video with. Already set in my mind that we would be shooting in standard def and to tape, I was excited all over again. 1080i here we come! [On this issue, my advice to anyone is to always look over the equipment you are going to be using because sometimes they may contain surprises!!]
~~
Day 1
Having never used an HVX-200 or an FS-100, we didn't do the smartest thing ever. In retrospect, it would have helped to familiarize ourselves with the equipment beforehand and do some tests, but we didn't. OOOOPS! So we shot about 24gb of footage onto the 160gb Firestore and when we went to import the footage we couldn't get it to play. We eventually downloaded a DVCPRO50 HD video codec and get the video to show up, but it was extremely disproportioned. Needless to say, I was very dissapointed because we wasted an entire day filming stuff we couldn't use. After 10 hours of trying to find a way to convert the video to something we could use, we discovered that recording onto the firstore in Quicktime format meant it wasn't readable on Windows...haha. Ooops again.
~~
Day 2 and 3
Since we'd already ruined a perfectly good shooting day by not being familiar with the equipment, and we didn't have a lot of time left to enter the contest, we decided to shoot to something that felt a little more at home, miniDV. Over the next two days we shot everything we needed and it turned out great, importing went flawlessly and editing was a blast.
Next time we shoot with the HVX200 we'll make sure to do some test shots and see if our computers can actually read the files we will be recording to! Shooting in HD for this contest would have been nice but there is always next time! It turned out better than I expected and I really enjoyed shooting with these cameras, but if I get the choice to purchase a pro-sumer camera along the lines of the HVX I'll probably go with the Canon XH-A1 since it can shoot HD to tape and seems more compatible in the long run. After using both cameras to shoot video I prefer the Canon almost all the way across the board, although they are both decent, the HVX isn't very user friendly.
That was my experience with shooting, I left some stuff out because it's already getting kind of long, if you'd like to check out the video and leave me some feedback, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u47TFnGP8Q
If you have any questions about my shooting expereince throw them at me, i'll be happy to answer.
Where it all begins
I've long held a passion for film. I decided it was time to stop making crappy videos for school or stupid videos to throw on my youtube account and enter a few contests. Even if it was just for experience. So I found myself a handy website, which catalogs most of the known video contests that are floating around the internet [http://onlinevideocontests.com if you were wondering] and begin to generate ideas for the ones that seemed they would be fun to do.
My friend Aaron and I chose one to do [http://contests.luthiersociety.com/unsponsored/whats-your-fix], drew up some ideas, and contemplated how we were going to film it. Aaron told me he would see about getting a few cameras from school and we decided to start filming the next day [deadline was soon].
What's in the bag?
I was shocked when Aaron showed up on my doorstep holding an Panasonic HVX-200. So far in what had been a very short lived and horribly executed filming career, luck was never on my side. Much to my surprise not only was he able to get one camera for us to shoot with, he got TWO! For the next few hours I was both excited and delirious. Just the idea of shooting a project in 1080i and watching something I made in full HD was amazing.
After the initial excitement died down, we began to draw up a plan on how we wanted everything to go. We took our written script, or incomplete shot list, and two cameras that we had no idea how to use, and prepared ourselves for the shoot of a lifetime. It was only after we knew what we wanted to do that I decided to take a look at the cameras again, and realized that we wouldn't be able to shoot in HD unless we had P2 cards or a firestore unit. So I decided it was time to make some phone calls.
I looked up just about any production company and film/photography store within 200 miles of my house and called every one I could, asking if anyone had a P2 card or a firestore. Of the number we actually got through to, one had a P2 card, and one had a firestore, but neither would be able to rent to us. Depressed but not discouraged, Aaron and I steadied our minds on the idea that we would be shooting in Standard Definition and to miniDV tape. I went home for the night eager to start shooting.
The next morning, Aaron calls me to inform me that he decided to look through the bags that the cameras were given to him in and noticed there was a FS-100 that we could use to shoot HD video with. Already set in my mind that we would be shooting in standard def and to tape, I was excited all over again. 1080i here we come! [On this issue, my advice to anyone is to always look over the equipment you are going to be using because sometimes they may contain surprises!!]
~~
Day 1
Having never used an HVX-200 or an FS-100, we didn't do the smartest thing ever. In retrospect, it would have helped to familiarize ourselves with the equipment beforehand and do some tests, but we didn't. OOOOPS! So we shot about 24gb of footage onto the 160gb Firestore and when we went to import the footage we couldn't get it to play. We eventually downloaded a DVCPRO50 HD video codec and get the video to show up, but it was extremely disproportioned. Needless to say, I was very dissapointed because we wasted an entire day filming stuff we couldn't use. After 10 hours of trying to find a way to convert the video to something we could use, we discovered that recording onto the firstore in Quicktime format meant it wasn't readable on Windows...haha. Ooops again.
~~
Day 2 and 3
Since we'd already ruined a perfectly good shooting day by not being familiar with the equipment, and we didn't have a lot of time left to enter the contest, we decided to shoot to something that felt a little more at home, miniDV. Over the next two days we shot everything we needed and it turned out great, importing went flawlessly and editing was a blast.
Next time we shoot with the HVX200 we'll make sure to do some test shots and see if our computers can actually read the files we will be recording to! Shooting in HD for this contest would have been nice but there is always next time! It turned out better than I expected and I really enjoyed shooting with these cameras, but if I get the choice to purchase a pro-sumer camera along the lines of the HVX I'll probably go with the Canon XH-A1 since it can shoot HD to tape and seems more compatible in the long run. After using both cameras to shoot video I prefer the Canon almost all the way across the board, although they are both decent, the HVX isn't very user friendly.
That was my experience with shooting, I left some stuff out because it's already getting kind of long, if you'd like to check out the video and leave me some feedback, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u47TFnGP8Q
If you have any questions about my shooting expereince throw them at me, i'll be happy to answer.