Thomas English

Transvideo Hermes and Pegasus for sale BG/L (PAL european) perfect for use on the canatrans or other european/asian UHF transmitters. Not good for the modulus due to mismatching frequency incrementations between USA and europe. VERY GOOD CONDITION! NOT A SCRATCH IN SIGHT offers considered Thomas English +44 (0) 7970 025 389 email - studio*at*dustfx.com

I managed to tune the household TV into my modulus! No problems!!!!!!! SO... my theory is that because the channel increments are different they are obviously hitting different spots and my transvideo is picking up a slight sideband. The transvideo being a very high quality reciever is obviously very narrow band tuner. Hence it s just missing the spot! Anybody want to buy a Hermes and a Pegasus? european models ? What tuners do people recomend? I want something to fit in the back of my portabrace panasonic 7in setup Cheers Thomas

Every piece of literature I read before buying this modulus said that it could take a Pal or NTSC signal.

Thanks Emery, I suppose against my stronger will that you could be right Eric, they are not playing ball. Is there however a point in the channel selection upwards where the main band whithin the increments match up nicely? (even if briefly) or am I clutching at straws? Thanks a lot for your time in answering what may be considered a fairly obvious and trivial set of questions. The modulus seems such a perfect snap on Transimitng solution (short of spending/affording the canatrans) I really want it to work rather than my super sketchy cobbled together 2.4 ghz system. At least with 2.4 ghz... It does not give a damn what its carrying, it will just modulate it as is or near abouts. NTSC in NTSC out PAL in PAL out . If I got a NTSC incremented Hermes reciever I would not be able to decode a PAL sent signal over a modulus. . . . .

Emery, Whilst different countries operate different channels. They do all transmit at the same increments or bands don t they? Am I getting a side band on my reciever?

I have a Marell and it does not seem to do this at all. Send it back to them and I am sure they will sort it fast in my experience. I reckon it s a component that starts acting differently as it warms up. Thomas

Thanks... But I have sat there and scanned every single channel on my reciever! I get some weird purple signal on the channel above the one set on the modulus. A scrambled purple signal that turns off when I turn the modulus off. (I am transmiting bars off the SD out of a sony 750)

The Hermes is a Pal unit. I am putting a Pal signal into the modulus. I thought the modulus could take both pal and NTSC signals and transmit them as such. Am I very much mistaken? http://www.zotzdigital.com/item.php?pid=1514&cid=399

I have an american made/bought modulus 3000 and european transvideo hermes reciever . I can t seem to get an image up! I can pick up lots of TV on the hermes so thats all fine. Is there a range of frequencies t he modulus does NOT transmit on? Is there an offset between the channels on the modulus and the hermes? thanks!

Does that mean you have made a AB to Pag plate? enabling me to use AB batteries on my rigs pag mounts? This is something that would be very useful to me

Thankyou very much Jeff, I found your decision making proccess and eventual choices very informative. May I ask a small question? I was looking at the Chroiziel topstage mostly because it would fit so nicely with my Chroiziel tilt head. When you say you had to tap four safety screws in as a safety catch was this due to using non-Chroiziel dovetails or were you unhappy with the saftety catch that exists on the Chroiziel topstage ? 4 minutes to go into low mode! Cool! I am going to work on that. thanks for your time.

Whether or not you are also covered by the production companies insurance. You ought to have your own public liability insurance as standard as well as insurance cover for the kit you are hiring. You can get around not having insurance for the kit your hiring if you get the prod. company to hire it direct. Most people in the UK have insurance for up to 200 000 or somethings worth of hired in kit at any one time. You are covered by the production companies insurance in the UK under employers liability insurance so long as you get them to confirm in an email that you are being employed by them and that they have "employers liability insurance", it is the law for any employer to have this insurance. In cases of "negligence" your insurer and the prod. companies insurer will fight it out to see who will pay.

I agree and am humbled by the philosophy you have put forward. It is very apt for drama and features. The delicate world of rendering a story. When it come s to promo s however..... every so often..... you are one giggling jiving roller coaster... those moments, I do really genuinely treasure. I suppose though with thought and context, these moments are well within the boundaries of the afore mentioned steadicam philosophy.

Life in England ain t that bleak! It rains but it s not bleak. Phil - "There's no point in having a union to support an industry that doesn't exist." - Why are you even bothering to post if your perception of the industry is that it does nt exist in the UK, there is plenty going on just a lot of fools chasing the same work. The sparks thankgod still have a strong union whithin our industry, and thank god to them for the shear number of times they have started pulling the plug. If it was not for them we would be doing 15hr days as standard. "If it was any good, I wouldn't be in it, and;" We are discussing an industry that involves everyone as a whole and for the good of the whole, not their personal preferences, making an argument involving personal prejudices is not contructive. What I would say, not having unions in the UK has made for a very sketchy but creative way of working where nothing is impossible and can often be done at the last minute. I am sure though that there would be a middle more pleasant ground. I wish you the best of luck, whilst almost all DoP s I work for in england prefer to operate because its what we are used to (and been forced into) that is simply what we are used to, If we had been brought up another way we would almost certainly prefer that. It free s the mind to only think about lighting! not having producers force you to operate to save money. So yeah good luck!

apparently doing a carnet doing it legitimately takes around 3 months and u have to bounce paperwork regarding serial numbers etc to the embassy on the understanding you have a work visa of sorts. If your going in a bit moodier, make sure you have "hired" all your kit from another comapany... i.e. MK-V and its not your kit! What they are worried about in Brazil is your going to sell it. Import tax is sky high hence the cost of laptops/ipods over there. Do what you can to convince them it s not going to be sold. But apparently customs don t speak such good english... maybe getting letters from the production company in portuges? My mates been there 8 times with loads of cameras and the hollywood lite rig i sold him ages ago and never had a propblem. Maybe he s lucky. Good luck Thomas

for the movie tube find "camera filters" in the UK. Contact movietube direct and ask them in the country of your choice. I have a friend who hire s his PS techniks mini35 if SKARDA is unavailable I will have a package available for the movie tube with zeiss superspeeds in the very near future. The Hard FI promo should be out now. I think you can download it to mobile phones as well. I will post when I know. Having way too much fun on holiday at the moment. By the time you have hired a movie tube and superspeeds you could have hired a varicam... different horses for courses but its just a thought. Cheers Thomas

Howard at mk-v stocks them too. I recieved mine the next day. It did not cost must. at least half that maybe less... $70.. it was lat year so I can t remember.

wow.... zero in 20 years Eric, I just bought some gyros. Mainly because I did a nintendo spot (for america so you may see it soon) and it was on a ferry in greece and it was very very windy with slow slow creeping shots. I did it without gyro s but I really wanted some. So i bought some, mostly so I would not feel I was missing out on not having something. I think it is a once in a blue moon thing but maybe I will use them more now that I have them. I think as a newbie you should completely forget about gyros. Contentrate on static balance, operating neutrally balanced, work out dynamic balance etc etc. I also practise a lot with my rig completely out of balance! muscling my way about. Also off course you should practise in the wind! blustery wind. I have lots of blustery wind in brighton if you need some. I will start a shop on ebay.

looks cool as anything... so I wonder if they going to make anything for the new video ipod? I was looking at that moments ago and was thoroughly impressed. All you would need is the hardware to encode whatever blasted format the video is held in. Could make a real nice combination. Although I don t think the video Ipods codecs support the best of quality video. It looks as though this setup will record really good video, mpeg2, so its not afraid of full resolution streams and I am sure the mpeg4 will be maliable. ... The menu system could be very convenient. It might also be a pig with the two bits of hardware working together. brilliant thomas

The Infamous Progear arm..... well, I used one for a year and just upgraded to a master arm. You will find plenty here about progear customer service which is absolutely beyond crap. So inconceivably bad you could never fathom the levels of dishonesty rubbish etc etc... The arm itself. Well it works! at its mid point (where the springs balance) it works very very well. slow shots and running shots at this midpoint are incredibly smooth. I certainly cannot replicate those shots with my master. lifting or pushing away from this midpoint is something else. Where the master is isoelastic (no lift) the pro arm needs 2lbs lift ... the 3a/efp (i am guessing) need 5lbs .. the progear needs maybe 10lbs.. its a lot off lift and can be hard work. The reliability... well its a lot of metal... quite heavy but strong I assume. Bits do just fall off it though but they are easily fixed. Ive heard of other problems that are much more serious and with such crap customer service this would be a major issue. It will carry between anything and anything.. but whatever don t pay too much money for one! because its not worth it for the hassle. you can get a used 3a or better still a rig engineering. thomas

HAVE A LOT OF FUN!

Yup, I use Marell all the time and would stake my own everything on them not letting you down. They always answere the phone and they are always good at sorting you out. They make all my cables at last minute notice and its absolutely great. The bubble, I have.... its great. You can get it with a VDA in it too, 2 blank and one with bubble.

Would there be a way of sorting this shot out with advanced notice? I did a "crane walk off" type shot a little while ago... but instead of a crane a load of chippies built this mad steep wooden freestanding staircase. there was big joists in the top of the warehouse and I wore a rockclimbing harness and had a couple of people feed the rope out as I ran down these stairs. they unclipped me at the bottom to continue the shot. it was though with the aaton 35mm. I wonder if something like this could be organised with regular stairs. I guess so much depends on the location. thomas

you should look at Rob van Gelder s one its brilliant and not expensive.

If Charles has a mac then It s probably someone elses computer that has both addresses in their address book and is emailing viruses to randomn addresse s in the book and labeling them as coming from someone else in the book (i.e. Charles). I also have access to a lot of viagra it seems!