notes

PLL tubes, ballasts and holders

Why the Canon HV20 is a poor choice for car mounts

The bottom line is that the HV20's single CMOS imager has a rolling shutter (i.e. it doesn't read one entire frame at a time - instead it reads the top line first, then the second line, then the third etc etc). This produces nasty artefacts when the camera is vibrated. The resulting images look a little like jelly.

Not all wide-angle adapters produce barrel distortion. Aspheric adapters are particularly distortion free. The "Bolex Aspheron" (or some-such name) is apparently "the best wide-angle adapter" available. But you have to make your own housing for it and it costs about £420.Tom Hardwick over on dvinfo.net knows lots about aspheric lenses. Wittner-Kinotechnik in Germany sell aspheric adapters

There are loads of threads on dvinfo.net about wideangle adapters

Tests and thoughts about de-interlacing footage using Premiere Pro and aviSynth

I've made quite a few notes over on this thread on DVinfo.net. The main observations are:

Using PICs

PICs (programmable integrated circuits) to have timers etc so it would be possible to make a decent time-lapse controller using a PIC but it would take a lot of effort to programme. Advantages: low cost, lost power consumption. Disadvantages: would take ages to develop, would only work with a camera that I'd hacked, would only control one camera, can't be network-attached, can't control camera settings etc

Using a laptop

gPhoto

Runs on Linux, supports loads of cameras, is scriptable

Forums

Misc notes

• Only the Xena 2k supports a LUT

New computer monitors

• Eizo at NativeDigital

Calibrations and Profiling

Reviews

A list of some of the consumables I buy repeatedly:

• Datawrite Titanium 16x Printable DVD+R in 100 cakebox (£17.98 from eBuyer)
• Panasonic AY-DVM63PQ DV tapes (£2.51 inc VAT each from First4Media or £2.23 for 50+ or £2.17 for 100+ including VAT)
• MusiFlex mic cable
• Ink for Epson R265

• Serious Magic DV Rack HD (Serious Magic was bought by Adobe and DV Rack will be included with Premiere Pro CS3 and re-badged "OnLocation". Not sure if OnLocation will support DVCProHD - here's a thread on The Cow).
• Cineform Aspect / Prospect HD
• RayLight
• Ingest as uncompressed onto AJA HD card.

Links to friends and colleagues: