chris fawcett

Perhaps the best feature of EarPeace is this: The kind of case you always have with you. Chris

EarPeace Once in a while, a product comes along that just works so well, you never need to worry about it again. I really recommend you put a set of these in your kit for working in noisy environments. I got caught out once filming the Krump Kings live, and lost a couple of dBs of hearing, permanently. These only block out the loud stuff, so you still hear speech, etc., and they come in a sexy anodized aluminum carrying case. They fit and remove instantly too, are skin coloured (3 colours), and at $15 including shipping (US) are way cheaper than new eardrums :) Don't get caught out too! Chris

Thanks, Pavel, Though if you want to see a real master operate the Tango, you should see Garrett, Jerry, or Ruben. I won't be posting any footage of my Tango shots until I have had more time in the rig, which I hope will be soon—it's definitely addictive. My first impression of using it was a sense of bewilderment at the sheer range of possibilities. You can place the camera anywhere on a 3 meter (10 ft) sphere, and point it just about any direction. The mini-me Steadicam on the end responds perfectly. Close your eyes, and boom, pan, tilt, and roll feel like they are happening on the master rig in your hands, though in addition, you now have crane as a possibility. This is daunting, compared to what we are used to operating ordinary Steadicam, until you think in terms of a shot. Once you have a camera track laid out in your imagination, the possibilities narrow, and rather quickly, you work out your rig co-ordination and footwork. I was impressed enough to seriously consider buying one, and I'm sure the finished product will tempt me more. Since it's an accessory, and consists of steam-punk technology, I am led to believe the price will tempt me too. Time will tell on that score, but I'm already planning my first test shot. Imagine following a couple into a car—sliding the Tango through one of the front windows—getting between them, and panning back and forth to their conversation. Cue Handsfree transporter: the car drives off.... I have to stop now. My only real problem is that there is apparently a South-American dance of the same name. I just received a Youtube subscription from a milonga in Buenos Aires—seriously! Chris

Hi William, If it's an Archer monitor, you can flip the image. Any monitor designed for Steadicam (or designed well) will have this function somewhere in the menu. Let us know! Chris

It's an interesting point, but if I had the choice, I probably wouldn't flip mine. Laying it flat hides half its profile within the CoG monitor bracket, reducing windage slightly. Chris

Titan Update: Still performing superbly in the field, 'Search & Lock' proving to be a useful mode of operation. It's now available with a large antenna array to boost range to 200 m (650 ft), if you need it. I'm getting along fine with 50 m +. Here's the updated pdf. There will be one on a rig at the Tiffen booth at NAB if anyone wants to come along to check it out. See you there, Chris

I agree 2000% Without wishing to appear unenthusiastic, I would agree 100%, with the small caveat that I put less attention into navigating the Handsfree than I do to walking. When hard-mounted, you just push the camera wherever you want to go, and the Segway follows. It's too easy, and it's making me a lazy f***. Chris

I guess Jacques Monge was busy that day ;)

It's cool, you can call me a 'wussie' to my face ;)

I've mentioned these points before, but I just received an email that makes me think it's time for a quick recap. If you want to reduce mass above the gimbal, there are 2 alternatives to sandwiching the Tx between a broadcast video camera and a battery. 1/ You can put the Tx on the back of the camera, but power the camera from the Steadicam sled. You'll need to make a special cable for this, or modify an existing one. The 4-pin XLR socket on the camera has a pin that retracts when the plug enters (you can see this pin in the picture below, at the 8 o'clock position). This disconnects the battery plate to prevent charging an onboard battery through the camera, and means that there will be no power available for the Tx. If you drill out part of the plastic on the corresponding XLR plug, the pin in the socket is no longer pushed in, so the plate stays 'live,' and the Tx gets power. You need to mark this as a special cable for use only in this circumstance. (Or for when you want to keep the D-Tap live for powering other accessories.) 2/ You can mount the Tx on a Steadicam battery plate as mentioned previously in this thread. If it is a 12V Steadicam, you can mount it anywhere. BUT, if it is a Steadicam that generates 24V by switching a pair of batteries from parallel to series, you must mount the Tx only on the 'A' battery plate (the 1st in the series to generate 24V). Mounting it on the 'B' plate can be disastrous. This is how you tell which plate is which: switch the Steadicam to 24V mode, and mount one single battery on the sled. If you mount it on the 'A' plate, the sled will receive power. One single battery will not power the sled when mounted on the 'B' plate. Never mount any accessory that draws power AND connects to the video signal on the 'B' plate. All the best, Chris

It would be like asking Eric to drive a Model T ;)

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'" Henry Ford

It's here when you need it, Job.

Hi, the new forum layout and functionality is great, thanks. Good job! I miss one thing: the default "Open in New Window" setting for embedded links. All the best, Chris

Good plan. Great, I'll let you know if I have a chance to tweak it too. All the best, Chris

Hi Hervé, It's great to hear such a reassuring report from the field. Thanks! Do you use the signal to noise ratio trade-off (SNRTrdoff in the menu)? Mine is set to Level 1, but I haven't experimented with other levels yet. Nice pic! Chris P.S. The Titan also transmits Horizon. I forgot to include that in the list, since that's not the kind of information I want to send to a director :)

When I were a lad, we had to draw the pictures by hand, 24 of 'em a second. None of this fancy technology stuff.

I have a patent pending on a "motorized stage" that will move the actors past us, thus obviating the need to rise from a chair. It will revolutionize Steadicam, and render Lisigav a thing of the past.

Hi Job, Pity you didn't make it! All the best, chris

Good point, Robert, But remember that some of the guys that pulled off those legendary shots then went into their machine shops and invented the motorized stage ;) Chris

Hi All, Thanks to Camalot (a local facilities company), I gave the Titan another ad hoc test yesterday with DoP Mick van Rossum. Mick was keen to buy a Camwave, but was interested in the Titan, so we ran them alongside each other with a variety of HD-SDI signals, including one from a RED. At this stage, I should say it is hardly a fair comparison. The Camwave is obviously intended for supplying a director with a picture on a hand-held monitor, and given its limitations, it did very well. The test was carried out in an industrial area, so the reduced range of the unit as compared to the city centre conditions (and indoors at the IBC exhibition hall) I experienced previously (in excess of 100m (300ft)) may be due to interference or lack of fortuitous reflections. Reliable working range outdoors among loading and unloading vehicles was about 50m (165ft) for the Titan, and about 30m (100ft) for the Camwave. Indoors, through partition walls, and around operating test equipment and milling people, the Titan consistently had the edge on the Camwave, though the difference was less pronounced. When the signals dropped, the unit scanning fewer channels would pick up first. When each unit was locked to one channel, the Titan recovered around twice as quickly as the Camwave. With the Camwave, the image seemed to compress more as the range increased, though this is only a guess at what I was witnessing on the monitor. The Titan had the same uncompressed look up to its limits. To my eye, there was no latency, though a resident Camalot tech claimed that the Camwave had a 2-frame latency, as opposed to 1 frame on the Titan. A passing AC chipped in that this was, after all, twice as much delay, and he would not want to pull focus via the Camwave. I can offer no comment on that opinion—I include it only for your consideration. The selfsame AC then rigged up a Scorpio and placed the receiver directly on top of the antennae of both units to check for possible interference. There was none. The tech then mentioned that they had "gone through" a number of Camwaves which had apparently burnt out on them. However, given that this is a rental company, it is no surprise that they "go through" units. Has anyone else heard anything about the Camwave's reliability? I think it was Thomas that requested I try the Titan mounted low and horizontal. The results were not what I had expected. At a range of about 15m (50ft), I turned 360s with the Titan at shoulder height, while Mick measured about a 10% loss of signal as the Tx passed behind my torso. When in low-mode position, the signal dropped about 5%, and a further 5% passing behind my legs, adding up to about the same—so no great disadvantage in mounting the unit below, depending on circumstances, and other obstacles, obviously. When I swiveled the unit to the horizontal, there was no further loss of signal when passing behind my leg, presumably because a leg bone cannot fully eclipse a horizontal antenna. The result, in this impromptu test, suggests there may be benefits to mounting the Tx low, in circumstances where you are going to get yourself and your vest (and the camera? the arm?) between it and the Rx. Previously with the Titan, I had noticed that if you are working a particular area, it is a good idea to seek out the strongest channel, and to lock the units to it so that if you have a signal drop, recovery is almost instantaneous when you are within range again. Obviously you need the luxury of time to do this. I suggested to Jacques that he might include a "Search & Lock" function, where the system scans the available channels (like I said previously, you can limit this number in a variety of ways from 32 down to a handful) for the strongest one, then locks Tx and Rx to that channel. A few days later, I received a software update with this strategy enabled. In this mode, a single button press restarts the process, which when scanning 7 channels, takes about 5 seconds. This proved in the test to be a solid operating procedure. When dealing with Transvideo, I appreciate that my suggestions as a customer are treated seriously, and I know that if I come up against a limitation with the product in the future, I will be assisted in overcoming it. The next software update will include linking the Rx and Tx menus so that either can control the parameters of the other. Beyond that, is Rx-based SDI to composite downconversion, so you can (as Jens suggested) use an SD RF transmitter to rebroadcast the signal for hand-held TV tuners. Unlike the Camwave, the Titan also transmits composite video, two channels of analogue (or SDI) audio, timecode, Cooke lens data, tally, RS232. The choice between the two is really one of functionality. The Titan is a cable cutter. That's about it. If anyone has any other exotic test requests, I'll be happy to try them. And Mick? He called Transvideo on the spot to place his order. Chris

Thanks Fabrizio! I agree, Brad. Never tripping on your laces is a plus too. Chris

And it's 2-perf, so at least the film's not rushin' :)

This!

Hi All, If any of you have a stage that can be updated to accept motors, I urge you to do it. Garrett and Jerry told me repeatedly how useful it was to trim on the fly, but I thought it wasn't my style. I would just balance the rig, pick it up and fly—no fancy stuff necessary. I was a purist—well, what bollocks. After only 6 months with a motorized stage I find my fingers constantly on the buttons, trimming for headroom, managing tilts, dutching, adjusting for the film moving in the magazine. I'm continually updating the presets to move into that final frame, to anticipate the film position at the beginning, middle, and end of the roll. You know what? It's expletively and sublimely wonderful; intuitive, and supremely useful. If any of you are hovering on making the decision, please do yourselves a favor and motorize your stage now. I get a 5% cut by the way (don't be silly, of course I don't). Fly trimmed, Chris