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I ordered, recieved, and watched the Birns and Sawyer Master series of Filmmaking Panasonic DVX-100: Tips, Tricks and Basic Operation DVD, then I called the people I bought it from and asked to return it for a refund. The title is decieving. They say "Master Series of Filmmaking", and "Basic" in the title. Basic is closer to the truth, any filmmaker looking for master level instruction will not find it here. And while Nancy Schreiber is on the DVD, she's only there for about 20 minutes of the hour, first talking about the pre-production decision to use the DVX-100 on November, then basically going around the camera pointing out where all the little buttons and switches are - nothing really informative beyond what can be gleened from the first few pages of the owners manual. The picture quality is quite good and it's in widescreen format, but the image looks more like a Varicam than a DVX-100. While Nancy is going over the camera for you, you can hear office phones ringing in the background. It seems like kind of an impromptu shoot, not a very professional production. The later segments are done by a gentleman who just goes through a walkthrough of the cameras menus, occasionally stopping to explain why a particular feature it there, but just as often not getting into any nitty gritty of real-world useages, or even techniques. I downloaded the menu walkthrough document from dvxuser.com and it was at least as informative if not more so. If you are new to videography, and just got your DVX100 out of the box and you have no idea even where to begin, this video might occasionally offer something you could appreciate. However, if you have ever used a pro or semi pro camera before, and can read and follow along with the manual that comes with the camera. You don't need this DVD unless you just like to look at Nancy Schreiber. The tail end of the video is a brief history of Birns and Sawyer, and serves almost like an infomercial for the company. In my opinion NOT worth the price they are asking. Caveat Emptor.
