power consumption vs. PD 170

Z

zapmedia

Member
Hi All,

This is a great forum and very uselful to those of us brand new to the DVX. I run a midsized production company with Betacams, and Sony DVCams. We just picked up a DVX because one of our major network broadcast clients demanded we use it.

Here's my question: I get the feeling the DVX uses more power than the Sony DVCAm. I got one 10 hour battery (overpriced at $160) and 3 of the 4 hour batteries advertised here. Are these adequate for longer shoot days? How long can I expect these batteries to actually last in the field?

Our Sonys run all day on an 8 hour battery. As a matter of fact, we were discussing this in our studios here earlier and it came up that we have only changed the battery once on a shoot with the PD 170, and that was a 3 location shoot in NYC where we left the camera on in the bag by accident.

Your thoughs would be helpful, since we all know, no power, end of shoot!

Thanks!
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

the dvx is a power hog. its good to have 2 3500mah batteries at any shoot fully charged.
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

My 5400mah battery lasts at least 6-61/2 hours on a charge using the LCD side finder. Your "10 hour' battery (5400mah)and the others should do you just fine, even on long days.
Ken
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

use the 12v power as back up (probably you have planty old ones that not serv you any more on th beta canm , add 12 to 7.2 v adaptor regulator and you are on one old bp-90 5 amp will give you at least 9-10 hours of work
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

The Panasonic uses about 8 W, while Sony uses much less than that. To calculate your expected run time, first figure out how many WH is in your battery. Do not trust those marketing claims like "10 hour battery". Multiply mah rating by 7.2V to get the wh rating. For a 3500 mah 7.2V battery it is 25wh. Your camera uses 8W. Divide 25 by 8 = 3.1 hour run time.
HTH
Alex
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

Yeah its hard to pin exactly the hours you will get.. The way I tested our batteries Is I just hit the record button and left it on till it died (only stopping to change tapes every hour).
Now there are many factors that make that un-scientific, such as normally people wouldn't record straight for 4 hours, they would zoom, the gyros would be going etc. When I started selling them, I actually didnt give them an hour rating, but I got really sick of the emails asking how long they would last so I put it in there, with a big ass asterix.

Another thing is that the cells you get may not actually be 5400mah.. how they label them like that is they take a sample from the batch, measure the mah of a group and find out the average Mah, this can be a swing of 10% each way.  When we got our 2nd last batch of batteries made 3/4 of them hit 3600-3700, a few hit 3500 and some hit upto 3800. They where a little surprised when we said mark them 3500, as in thier experience most companies would of marked them 3700mah.
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

Jarred,

I got the two you sent me today! ;D

I'm charging them up right now!

Thanks! :D

Tim
 
Re: power consumption vs. PD 170

wow xpresspost kicks ass :)
 
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