HVX Interval Recording

H

Haakon

Veteran
Is it possible to dub interval/timelapse footage shot with the HVX to tape in-camera? I am not finding a way to do this successfully; the clips are always red (unselectable) regardless of which playback mode the camera is set to.
 
Works fine for me... shot in 720/60p, video cam mode, turned off, slid the switch to "tape", went to "dub" mode, the clip comes up just fine...
 
Well, I've tried just about every playback mode I can think of this morning, and unfortunately nothing works - all of the timelapse clips are red and unplayable. Strangely, they play back just fine if you switch to "P2" mode, but once you flip over to "dub," they're unavailable. If anyone else has worked with this at all and has any ideas, please let me know... it's quite frustrating.
 
Interesting... I first recorded some quick interval clips in 1080/30P, 720/30P, and 480/30P. Then I flipped to tape, entered dub mode, went into the Dubbing Setup menu and selected "Format Select 1080i/30P" and the 1080/30P clip was then available for dubbing (tried and worked). Next, changed Format Select to 720/30P and the 720p interval clip was ready for dubbing and worked.

So far, so good... but the 480/30P clips (interval and normal live action) would NOT come up for dubbing to tape (for that matter, there's no options to select 480 in the Dubbing Setup menu)...

Haakon, any chance your interval work was done at 480? And more generally to Barry or others, how do you dub to tape DVCPRO 50 material?
 
You can't do the in-camera dub from DV or DVCPRO or DVCPRO50, you can only do the in-camera downconvert/dub to tape from DVCPRO-HD material.
 
Ah, interesting. The interval stuff was absolutely shot in 720, but I wasn't aware that the dub mode had its OWN "playback" setting. I was approaching it the same way that Barry's first post seemed to indicate - just make sure the camera is set to the mode you shot the tapes in before you flip the switch (that's how you do it for viewing clips while in P2 mode, after all). Apparently you have to do it in a different place when you're dubbing, though? Confusing as hell, but I'm sure that will fix it. :-) I'm not at home right now but I'll give it a try when I get back. Thanks Jim and Barry for helping out.

If Jan's listening, please get rid of this playback mode nonsense for an "A" version... if the camera can detect the mode of the clip, it should certainly be able to compensate for playback. I also wasn't aware that one couldn't dub DVCPRO50 material from the cards to the tape... that's unfortunate (and another unecessary limitation) in my eyes as well.
 
Haakon said:
Apparently you have to do it in a different place when you're dubbing, though?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry I didn't mention that explicitly... yes, it's yet another area to change mode...

Haakon said:
If Jan's listening, please get rid of this playback mode nonsense for an "A" version...
Click to expand...

I don't see an "A" in my future, or yours, we'll both be too busy painting the town "Red"... :)

Regards,
 
Jim Arthurs said:
I'm sorry I didn't mention that explicitly... yes, it's yet another area to change mode...
Click to expand...
No, you were very explicit. :) I was just sort of thinking out loud because I didn't have the camera in front of me. I think it's strange all of the back and forth you have to do to get clips to play correctly in-camera. What I think would really help Panasonic is to take advantage of being able to fix these kinds of quirks via firmware upgrades like the still world does (and as Red has been very vocal about persuing) to keep their cameras current and so customers feel secure in their investments. While physical things like the sensor obviously can't be changed, my guess is there are a lot of modifications that were made between the "100," "100A," and "100B" models of the DVX series that could have been taken care of via a flash update. Might be time to start taking the customer input and addressing some of the issues.

Jim Arthurs said:
I don't see an "A" in my future, or yours, we'll both be too busy painting the town "Red"... :)
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Indeed, though Red is still a few months away and it's certainly not going to destroy the HVX market. The Varicam market, maybe - but that's a different discussion. ;-) At this point I know the HVX inside and out, but there are still little things like this that pop up now and again that just sort of baffle me. For those who can't afford Red, the HVX is arguably the next best thing, and if Panasonic is going to continue to support it (and assumingly make some kind of improvement to the camera as time goes by), it would be good to focus attention on things like this. But you're right, I won't be losing sleep over the matter. :-P
 
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Yes, I agree that the HVX market is safe, and for the most part, it's a good camera.

The potential improvements to an "A" model should surely take away some of the clutter and hopefully make it more "modeless" when moving from format to playback, etc. It's VERY fair to mention it has one thing going for it over the RED, it exists and makes us money today.

Over the last five or six years I've considered myself a VFX/CGI guy first. With the HVX I find myself going out on more shoots, and actively pursuing shoots just to keep a crew together and working, whether it's FX related or not. From a timelapse gig in the desert, or green screen shoot in a studio, it's a nice little package at about the right price range for what it brings to the table.
 
Just to comment on HVX and Timelapes. I've been doing a lot of HD timelapes experiments with my HVX. It's great. But I want to mention that I record to an FS-100, works great, love it. It allows for more precise control of timelapse, giving you timelapse settings not avialable natively on the HVX-200. FYI.

I love the great image quality the HVX gives to timelapse projects!
 
Haakon said:
Can you expand on that?
Click to expand...

I know one thing that Ben can do with his FS-100 that I can't is record interval shots in 24p. For some reason on P2s, you can't record any interval or stop motion stuff in 24p, only 30 and 60. The FS-100 will also record sound which the in camera P2 modes won't.
 
You have more options for setting up the timelapse on the FS-100 than you have on the HVX-200, and as stated, can do it in ANY format the HVX-200 can shoot.

On the FS-100, go to Record > Time Lapse > then set your time. You simply set the amount of time between each frame recorded in the clip. A clip being everything recorded from the time you hit the Record button on the FS-100 (the HVX provides the video feed only in this set up) to the time you hit the stop button. You can record anywhere from a minmum of 1 frame to a maximum of 24 hours between each frame. So you can actually set it to record one frame every 24 hours, every 6 hours, every 3 minutes and 4 frames, or even every 1 hour, 7 minutes, 14 seconds, and 5 frames. That's what I mean that you can do time lapse with it the HVX won't natively do.

Setting one frame of time relies on the format settings you have configured to record at. In DVCPRO-HD 24fps, one frame will equal one 24th of a second. It's that easy. I leave the HVX-200 turned on providing the live video feed with all the DVCPRO metadata, and let the FS-100 do all the work from the live feed. Yes, it records all the metadata AND SOUND associated with the clip. So if you're HVX is set to 1080p24, you get that, but in time lapse, with the corresponding metadata. Yep, every frame it records has that single frame of sound with it!

When you ingest the clip and play it back, it's just those frames. For example, I did 1 frame every 1 second in 720p24. When I play it back in it's native 720p24 Sequence in FCP, it is fast motion, of course. But each frame is only 1 of every second of time. So I record one full minute of this, I have compressed one full minute of real time into 60 frames of my Timeline playing at 24fps.

I will, if the fates don't mess with me, have a video tutorial finished and out on the FS-100 workflow with the HVX200 and FCP 5.1.2 next week. It'll cover all these obscure topics. You'll know when it's out, trust me!

Here's where you can find my 1 frame per second experiment, with the sound, recorded 720p24. File is 25.9MB-
http://www.wolfdigitalmedia.net/video/LawnMow.mov
 
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It also does still frame captures, the function is called SNAP. It's like having the still image button from the DVX on the HVX, and it also works in all formats.
 
Barry_Green said:
You can't do the in-camera dub from DV or DVCPRO or DVCPRO50, you can only do the in-camera downconvert/dub to tape from DVCPRO-HD material.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to end up with 4:3 intervalometer material on DV tape?

Thanks
 
Not in-camera, no. You could record it in-camera to the cards, then import those files off the card and export them back out to tape.
 
Thanks for the info.

I do a lot of broadcast magazine work and I hand over tapes at the end of the day. It sure would be nice to be able to transfer 4:3 from the cards or the firestore in the field without a computer and NLE being involved. I could give the client some interesting shots and get some rental from this nice camcorder that's mostly sitting around waiting for the broadcasters to go HD.
 
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