William Demeritt

Just completed a 3 day commercial, and I wore my Vibram FF Spyridon LS the whole time. Gotta say, interior or exterior, I really appreciated the control and dexterity. Hardwood floors didn't make me concerned if someone just spilled water on it, outside walking over terrain was easy, etc. I just ordered a couple pairs of the Injinji low profile socks that work with the VFF shoes, but otherwise I really appreciated working in my Vibrams. Weather permitting, I'll probably keep wearing them.

Thomas,

It's one of those arguments that I don't like getting in the middle of: does video village need to see the HD version? Does the director? Does the DP? We used to rely on "the image is just for framing, don't judge the image for light or color values" approach, but in the days of digital/HD, I find that argument quickly disregarded. I've even gotten apprehensive looks when directors/DP's discover they're watching a 720p version from the camera instead of the 1080 (which, on a 19" monitor, makes NO difference).

Digital transmission over VHF/UHF is an interesting choice, I'm eager to see what the range is and technology behind it. If it's straight up digital compression to make it SD, I'd think the range is superb but the latency might be a frame or two (compression adds delay).

Looking forward to seeing more, but alas, looks like it isn't an ATSC tuner, so at least the studios will be happy that we're not broadcasting into neighboring televisions.

Just looking at that image, it says "HD compatible", but also VHF/UHF. Looks like it'll be a Modulus 5000 competitor: onboard downconverter, still transmits SD. Might be wrong, but just based on that image, that's what I'm thinking.

I created a blog as somewhere to write my ramblings and ruminations so I can purge them from my head rather than pondering them ad nauseam. If you are in a reading mood, or want to argue with me or tell me how bad my ideas are, feel free:

http://wbd3.wordpress.com/

I don't have a lot of posts so far, but I hope to continue adding to the pile.

Highly recommend everyone take a look at this book I'm currently reading: "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall.

http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-Greatest/dp/0307279189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347376785&sr=8-1&keywords=born+to+run

I know a few other people have mentioned that if they could operate barefoot, they would. I did Steadicam last weekend in my Vibrams, and like I posted before, I really liked it (Rob's just happy to hear my feet finally woke up... the rest of me is struggling of course). Apparently, 5 Fingers were first invented for sailing so deckhands could have much stronger grip on the deck with their feet, but still feel barefoot and maintain dexterity. As someone frequently paranoid of spilled bottled water or slipping on painted concrete in studios, I found the Vibrams incredible "grippy".

I transcribed a bit of the most compelling chapter of the book, but I'd really recommend you buy the book to get the rest. Here's a short snippet:

Lost in all the fireworks between Ted and Caballo was an important point: running shoes may be the most destructive force to ever hit the human foot. Barefoot Ted, in his own weird way, was becoming the Neil Armstrong of twenty-first-century distance running, an ace test pilot whose small steps could have tremendous benefit for the rest of mankind. If that seems like excessive stature to load on Barefoot Ted’s shoulders, consider these words by Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University:

“A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are actually caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to overpronate, give us knee problems. Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented by Nike, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and had much lower incidence of knee injuries.”

And the cost of those injuries? Fatal disease in epidemic proportions. “Humans really are obligatorily required to do aerobic exercise in order to stay healthy, and I think that has deep roots in our evolutionary history,” Dr. Lieberman said. “If there’s any magic bullet to make hu- man beings healthy, it’s to run.”

Magic bullet? The last time a scientist with Dr. Lieberman’s credentials used that term, he’d just created penicillin. Dr. Lieberman knew it, and meant it. If running shoes never exis- ted, he was saying, more people would be running. If more people ran, fewer would be dying of degenerative heart disease, sudden cardiac arrest, hypertension, blocked arteries, dia- betes, and most other deadly ailments of the Western world.

That’s a staggering amount of guilt to lay at Nike’s feet. But the most remarkable part? Nike already knew it.

In April 2001, two Nike reps were watching the Stanford University track team practice. Part of a Nike rep’s job is getting feedback from its sponsored runners about which shoes they prefer, but that was proving difficult at the moment because the Stanford runners all seemed to prefer ... nothing.

“Vin, what’s up with the barefooting?” they called to Stanford head coach Vin Lananna. “Didn’t we send you enough shoes?”

Coach Lananna walked over to explain. “I can’t prove this,” he explained, “but I believe when my runners train barefoot, they run faster and suffer fewer injuries.”

Faster and fewer injuries? Coming from anyone else, the Nike guys would have politely uh-huhed and ignored it, but this was one coach whose ideas they took seriously. Like Joe Vi- gil, Lananna was rarely mentioned without the word “visionary” or “innovator” popping up. In just ten years at Stanford, Lananna’s track and cross-country teams had won five NCAA team championships and twenty-two individual titles, and Lananna himself had been named NCAA

Cross Country Coach of the Year. Lananna had already sent three runners to the Olympics and was busy grooming more with his Nike-sponsored “Farm Team,” a post-college club for the best of the very best. Needless to say, the Nike reps were a little chagrined to hear that Lananna felt the best shoes Nike had to offer were worse than no shoes at all.

“We’ve shielded our feet from their natural position by providing more and more support,” Lananna insisted. That’s why he made sure his runners always did part of their workouts in bare feet on the track’s infield. “I know as a shoe company, it’s not the greatest thing to have a sponsored team not use your product, but people went thousands of years without shoes. I think you try to do all these corrective things with shoes and you overcompensate. You fix things that don’t need fixing. If you strengthen the foot by going barefoot, I think you reduce the risk of Achilles and knee and plantar fascia problems.”

“Risk” isn’t quite the right term; it’s more like “dead certainty.” Every year, anywhere from 65 to 80 percent of all runners suffer an injury. That’s nearly every runner, every single year. No matter who you are, no matter how much you run, your odds of getting hurt are the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, fast or slow, pudgy or ripped as a racehorse, your feet are still in the danger zone.

Maybe you’ll beat the odds if you stretch like a swami? Nope. In a 1993 study of Dutch athletes published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, one group of runners was taught how to warm up and stretch while a second group received no “injury prevention” coaching. Their injury rates? Identical. Stretching came out even worse in a follow-up study performed the following year at the University of Hawaii; it found that runners who stretched were 33 percent more likely to get hurt.

Lucky for us, though, we live in a golden age of technology. Running-shoe companies have had a quarter century to perfect their designs, so logically, the injury rate must be in free fall by now. After all, Adidas has come up with a $250 shoe with a microprocessor in the sole that instantly adjusts cushioning for every stride. Asics spent three million dollars and eight years—three more than it took the Manhattan Project to create the first atomic bomb—to in- vent the awe-inspiring Kinsei, a shoe that boasts “multi-angled forefoot gel pods,” a “midfoot thrust enhancer,” and an “infinitely adaptable heel component that isolates and absorbs im- pact to reduce pronation and aid in forward propulsion.” That’s big bucks for sneaks you’ll have to toss in the garbage in ninety days, but at least you’ll never limp again.

Right?

Sorry.

“Since the first real studies were done in the late ’70’s, Achilles complaints have actually

increased by about 10 percent, while plantar fasciitis has remained the same,” says Dr. Stephen Pribut, a running-injury specialist and past president of the American Academy of

Podiatric Sports Medicine. “The technological advancements over the past thirty years have been amazing,” adds Dr. Irene Davis, the director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. “We’ve seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don’t seem to defeat the ailments.”

In fact, there’s no evidence that running shoes are any help at all in injury prevention. In a 2008 research paper for the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr. Craig Richards, a re- searcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia, revealed that there are no evid- ence-based studies—not one—that demonstrate that running shoes make you less prone to injury.

Look at Page 24 of the Scout manual, should be titled "Advanced Techniques - Dynamic Balance". They have a diagram middle of the page in a block describing what you're trying to achieve with dynamic balance. If you read through this section again, it will help you understand the fundamentals of dynamic balance. From here, you can decide which technique works for you.

I snipped the diagram in question, you should see it attached to this post.

Figure 1 (top most) illustrates Eric's philosophy, because with his XCS sled, he keeps the batteries, lower electronics housing and monitor coplanar. The CG of all 3 (the three "+" on the figure) are on the same plane, so the CG of the camera (the "+" inside the camera) goes right over the dead center of the post. His technique makes it so the CG's at the bottom are perfectly balanced, guaranteeing that any time you place ANY camera over the dead center of the post and fine tune the position, you achieve dynamic balance.

Figure 2 (middle figure) illustrates Jerry's philosophy (and I would dare say the overall Tiffen approach), because with the majority of the Tiffen sleds, the monitor sits higher than the batteries. With the monitor clamping options and the telescoping monitor arms, you can go anywhere from slightly above the batteries to HIGH above the batteries. You can see this indicated by the "+" of the monitor being higher than the "+" of the batteries and the "+" of the post base (lower electronics housing, lower section, whatever you have down there). Since the monitor CG will pretty much always be "above" the batteries, your camera CG will always sit a bit further back. Your Scout (and the Flyer) were probably the closest to having Monitor, Batteries and centerpost CG (negligible) on the same plane.

Figure 3 (bottom figure) is "absurd", as the diagram says, but proves the point: as the monitor rises up from the plane of the batteries CG and centerpost CG, the camera must move back. Camera moves further back, and the batteries must move towards the centerpost CG (or the monitor needs to go further out).

If I recall the technique for static balancing taught at the Lake Arrowhead workshop, after the sled is set to be bottom heavy (not insanely, but mostly) students are told to:

1. Place the monitor where you need it for the shot.

2. Find the camera's fore/aft CG (set the built camera on an iris rod, find the CG by balancing it until it's nearly balanced on the rod).

3. Place the camera on the camera stage with that CG right over the "back of the centerpost" (already setting the camera CG further back from the center of the centerpost for the reasons described above).

4. Move batteries in/out, depending on what you want for pan inertia.

5. Dial the camera position on the stage, either with rough adjust or fine adjust, to create static balance.

From there, you can adjust the drop time, revisit the static balance, and move on to dynamic balance (if you're into that sort of thing, you dirty man).

It's best to understand the fundamentals of the 4 weights on a pendulum/scale system and how they interact with each other. When you realize your sled is basically an intimidating, electronically wired version of that exact system, you'll understand what might be screwing up instead of reaching for a manual or textbook to look fo answers.

Some thoughts:

- Why do it Tiffen's way?: Because you have a Tiffen sled, and you can place your monitor in a variety of positions that might benefit you as an operator. Going full length on a 4-stage Ultra 2 to achieve super low mode, but staring WAAAAY up at your monitor that is coplanar to your batteries is a bad idea. You can bring the monitor down, closer to your eyes and that huge crack in the sidewalk you can't see when looking up. When the monitor leaves the plane of batteries and centerpost base CG, you'll have to use another technique for finding db. I'm inclined to think, though, that the 90 degree test would work on a Tiffen sled without a camera, but you'd have to place the batteries appropriately to counterbalance the monitor's 2 axis of placement (extension on monitor arms, position on centerpost) and not to set your pan inertia. Do that, and then place the camera's CG over the center of the centerpost, and I'd think you're in dynamic balance.

- Why do it Eric's way?: With Eric's method, or the "90 degree test", you set up your sled once and you're dynamically balanced for all cameras, all setups anywhere. Arri Alexa, Red Epic, Arri LT; all are dynamically balanced so long as you place the CG right over the centerpost like in figure 1 of the diagram. Of course, the drawback is that if you move your monitor, or aren't flying with the same batteries on your sled every day, then you have to do the 90 degree test every time there's a change. HD monitors that tilt at the yoke and not at the spuds that effectively run through the monitor CG will bone you every time you tilt the monitor. Keeping the monitor CG coplanar will confine your monitor placement options.

Hopefully some of this will be meaningful and helpful to you Chris. In the mean time: make love not war, and here's a funny photo:

Thomas: I'd be willing to bet that those are built custom. I think you need some high-gain flat panel antennas (they are unidirectional, so the gain is significantly higher than omni antennas) build into, like you said, a T-bar. Wire them all out into a 4-5 cable "bundle, and run the bundle over to the inputs.

Well, they did the same low-cost solution to keeping the RP-SMA connectors from spinning: a bit of glue on the inside. If those wear out or crack (due to someone screwing down the antennas way too hard, which I'm sure happens daily), then it'll just spin inside the case until eventually it pulls the connector off the board.

http://www.moonblinkwifi.com/cat_515585.cfm Just as an example.

Look for RP-SMA connectors on those antennas, or make the cables to go from those antennas to the Recon, and you're in good shape. Of course, you're just increasing the sensitivity on the receiver end. You still have the same antennas and amount of broadcast amplitude on the transmitter end.

I'm reading "Born to Run" right now; really fantastic read, loving it so far.

Well, I guess I won't be beta testing one anytime soon then, huh?

I just completed my first day of steadi with my Vibrams Spyridon 5 Fingers shoes, gotta say I really liked it. Traction, feedback, comfort were all great. Also, with the thinner sole, I could step on c-stand bases and stretch my feet over the rod, normally something I have to do with my shoes off.

My feet felt strange at the end of the day, but not exhausted. More like "awake". If you're up for the experience, I recommend you try it out.

I'll drink to that! All of that! Glad you're doing good, Amando! Keep livin' it up!

Wow, Papert's got some sick dance moves in this video!

If someone let me open up their Recon, I'd be happy to look at the SMA bulkhead connectors and think about easy ways to secure them so they don't "spin". My first thought is epoxy: two dabs on either side of the bottom of the connector to secure the bulkhead to the device. Moreso, maybe someone makes a solid plate to go over the connectors, creating a mechanical stabilizer for all of the plugs?

I liked those antennas because they're not the wobbly "fingers" style. You set them where you want them, and they stay there.

Awesome! I cannot wait to see how it handles other frame rates, etc, but otherwise, very impressive!

William, I was thinking about the additional boom range they have managed to implement on the Atlas.

True, good point. I'd be curious to hear the same.

My post came off somewhat challenging upon re-reading it; not my intention. Sorry about that!

I'm trying to think of something the White Space HD device could do to differentiate the signal, but if it's ATSC, then it can be tuned by consumer televisions. Even a watermark gives too good of an image to wandering eyes (or wandering television sets), and distracts people monitoring the image legitimately.

Eric: the OTA HD devices might make it even easier for handheld director's monitor iPads or whatever, but the decoding time on those devices would probably add more delay than desirable. I think you're right, the studios would be very concerned about open OTA broadcast of their protected work.

I'm really eager to see this thing, though! So many questions!

Thomas, why would they? The grey canisters work in the Titan arm, and they still drastically increase the lift capability while maintaining the same standards for performance. What could they do to better it that hasn't been considered and probably shot down in the last decade?

I have a 4:3 monitor. If I upgrade now, does that mean I have to get a 16:9? Or am I not eligible until the 4:3 gen 2 is announced?

Looking forward to seeing pictures!

Very cool. Early quick question: is the gen 1 monitor yoke compatible with the gen 2 monitor? Or do you get any kind of deal for returning the gen 1 yoke towards a gen 2 yoke?

Which arm do you fly with?

How about a segway? Top speed is 12.5mph (so says the Internet), but the danger goes from running over the extras to you tripping at doing a face plant.

Grip Trix is too big to get through people. That was our first choice.

Put a cow catcher on the front, and you can get through lots of people! Take 2 might have fewer capable extras, though...

I would be inclined to say FULL SPEED running isn't right for a rickshaw: getting up to speed, keeping it in the right direction, wobbly wheels could mean problems. For full speed running, I'd probably request a Griptrix: hard mount, speed adaptable, very reliable at those speeds. Also, you won't burn up the grips pushing the rickshaw at full sprint for a shot and then needing to slow something that massive down by hand.

EDIT: Sidenote, your website is offline right now because it's hosted on .Mac, and they closed it down last month. Just FYI.

Sigh. We all pretty much saw this coming, didn't we...

Finding our way into a single technical aspect of the original topic that reveals people's personal approaches to equipment? Yea, I logged in, so I knew what I was getting into...

"Reduced life" meaning what, exactly? 120 cycles instead of 150? 180? How greatly reduced?

In my opinion, the manuals reflect the engineer's specifications tempered with legal department's "we gotta protect ourselves against the warranty". As you quoted, the Anton Bauer manual says "recommended operation" is 15-50 watts. The 8A fuse protects against an overdraw of 115W, so why is the recommended operating range less than 50% of the fault protection? Probably because when they first started making Dionics, they don't want people calling, saying "These batteries suck: I ran a 90 watt load every day, and the batteries only lasted 110-130 cycles."

Mark, as you said: "Dionic 90's can run over the recommended current draw before popping the thermal fuse, but they do not recommend it. The reason they don't recommend it is that it reduces the overall service life of the battery."

OK, duly noted. If it's my batteries, I'll probably be more conservative with what they power and how I configure my setup. If the rental house rents me a camera that sucks down 85 watts (14.4V means 5.902777... amps) and sends Dionic 90's, then I'll defer to how they rent their camera package. However, I don't think I'll be too worried when the battery with an 8A fuse and recommended load of 15-50 watts has to run an 85 watt camera at 5.9-7.0 amps.

Perhaps it's just my approach to gear, but recommended is a safety net, maximum is a MAXIMUM, and if we're operating with some wiggle room, I'm not incredibly worried. As far as I can tell, "recommended" here is strictly regarding service life. If we had evidence the "recommended load" was because of discharge characteristics changing, overheating as amperage increased, etc., perhaps we should be worried.

As long as they make it through my shoot, I'll do as the rental house or camera provider wants. In the mean time, I own Dionic HC's and I love them. I'd ask for them, but we don't always get what we want.

Christopher: I'll admit that I attempted an HD upgrade last summer before shelling out the cash for the HD Upper, HD lower junction boxes and HD centerpost. I'd feel embarrassed to say just how far I went to attempt it, feel free to ask privately... but I will say this: I learned the inside and out of the PRO2 sled VERY well, and if you have the bayonet "quick release" PRO2 sled, then you're going to have to do the HD upgrade through them.

Assuming you have the quick-release style, if you wanted to do your own upgrade, you'd have to:

- Rewire the upper and lower junction boxes with the 19-pin (?) LEMO cable

- buy a new centerpost cable from PRO or XCS.

- Change out the centerpost cable in your centerpost (might not be wide enough inside to comfortably fit the new cable)

The rewiring is so daunting, I just decided the costs to rewire everything would probably cost as much as doing the HD upgrade, if not more considering potential for failure.

I've tried. It's not worth it.