Robert Starling SOC

Hi Afton, you might want to check yesterday's article on CNET.com about the TomTom shipping from the factory loaded with viruses. I think you're Mac but FYI !!! From CNET: "Satellite navigation company TomTom has admitted that it shipped two viruses on a number of its devices. According to the company, a "small number" of TomTom GO 910 satellite navigation devices were shipped last year with malicious software preinstalled." http://news.com.com/TomTom+shipped+viruses..._3-6154198.html Robert

Does your DSR-11 have an input selector switch on the front like our DSR-45 or maybe it's imbeded in the menu system? It seems like every time I go back into our suite to try to do something with DV and the deck is not seeing the signal it's that switch. Just a long shot.

Has anyone been to HD Expo? I was thinking of flying over for the day. Is it worth it time wise? Thanks!

Hi Brad, I don't know about the particular sender you are referring to or the frequency used by the BFD. However, here is a link to a series of postings I wrote on RF that will give you some insight into the typical characteristics of each set or band of the spectrum. http://www.steadicamforum.com/forums/index...ic=3882&hl=

Unfortunately Dan and others this is not all that new. In my former days toying around with War Chalking I was amazed at how many open or easily opened WiFi networks are out there. Using a freeware program called Mac Stumbler it is easy to find hundreds if not thousands of open WiFi systems. You can set it up to work with a GPS and simply drive down the street connected to your laptop while it tracks and maps all WiFi signals by name and location. I think there is a Palm version of that now too. If you don't mind installing a Linux partition on your Mac laptop (or Parallels Virtualization on Mac/Intels) you can download a free Packet Sniffer that will within a few minutes depending on the activity of the system, sniff out any non-encrypted password and a few Packet Sniffers that will go beyond that. PC users have hundreds of options for these freeware programs. Most people leave their laptop wireless on all the time and I've found upwards of 40 accessible laptops on airplanes in-flight. It doesn't take much to exploit that if it were something someone wanted to do. For me it was always more like an easter egg hunt for RF, for some people it's malicious. Turn your wireless off if you're not using it, plus it saves battery power. On your Mac be sure to turn off Sharing. The other vulnerability is in your home wireless system. You've all heard this before: Please set a password; any password. The default passwords of commercially available wireless systems are well known and I doubt 1 out of 10 people ever change or use them. It is all too easy and smart for your neighbor to use YOUR wireless and traceable IP address to download and serve all their pirated music or porn or whatever, while keeping their own system IP "clean".

We have the Monorail now that pretty much spans The Strip from Tropicana/NY NY to the Convention Center, so you're not quite as locked to taxis and walking as you used to be. Don't overlook the various timeshare properties on and off the strip; they have condo rentals that are not tied to sales presentations and almost all of them have tour vans that make hourly runs down to Las Vegas Blvd. The great thing about the timeshare units is you have a kitchen, living room and two bedrooms and lot's more space. Hilton Grand Vacations has a property next to the convention center. Some of the timeshare companies are Hilton, Marriott, Westgate Resorts, Consolidated Resorts. The Alladin, Treasure Island, NY NY and Monte Carlo are good values. Treasure Island just did a major renovation of all their rooms with super comfy beds. The Excalibur just refurnished all their guest rooms so you'd probably find very good value and comfort there. Hark Rock is a locals favorite and loaded with eye candy as is the Palms and Rio; off Strip but nice properties. The Westin Casuarina is tucked about a block off The Strip on Flamingo and can have good rates too. I think there is a Marriott Residence Inn on Convention Center Drive that is fairly decent. The ultimate convenience for the show is the Renaissance if you've got the budget. Properties I would avoid would be The Riviera, Imperial Palace, The Frontier, Sahara, Tropicana, Hooters, Bally's, Flamingo; all tired and worn out properties. The Stratosphere is overdue for renovation so as a local, I don't recommend it. If you want to find places like Holiday Inn Express etc. you can look along a street that parallels Las Vegas Blvd called Dean Martin Blvd a/k/a Industrial Blvd before they changed the name. *Industrial, Paradise and Koval roads all parallel The Strip and are favorites among locals and taxi drivers to move from one end of the strip to the other and avoiding the traffic snarl on LVB. Email or call me if you have any questions or need more specific information. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone.

The diagram is now posted with Garrett's reply in a new thread: http://www.steadicamforum.com/forums/index...?showtopic=4482

The following diagram was requested by another Forum member in my original creaking arm thread. I am posting it here with permission of the Senior Engineer at Tiffen.

Thank you Jamie, this thread seems to be closed now but to answer your question; in addition to the quick responses from Jerry and Garrett, the Senior Engineer at Tiffen had sent me an illustrated color cut-away diagram of the spring mounting assembly complete with arrows "drop of lube here" at 7:38 a.m. PST this morning. That's about as good as it gets in my book! I can't really think of ANY other product I own in my home or business where you would get such a high level response. Thanks again to everyone!

Perfect... the Teflon spray did the trick... back to "Steadi-Stealth Mode" again. Thank you! Robert

Hi Bryan: How ironic, mine died this weekend so I bought a Pocket Pro HDM2 Digital MM from Home Depot last night for $29.95. It's about 1/4" thick maybe a tad longer than a deck of cards with a vinyl case around it. Auto ranging up to 450 volts AC or DC. Found them locked in a display in the electrical department. While looking for the meter I ran across a cool little Weller battery powered soldering pen with 900 watts output. My old butane pen version (700w) had long since died. I figure I can always get AA batteries and can't check butane in baggage... $14.95 in the hardware department.

I have a G50 arm about three months old and it started to creak this weekend. With the help of my wife who was able to put her ears near the arm, it's coming from the bone / arm section closest to the gimbal as I boom downward and also a tiny bit when I boom up. The join section closest to the post. It sounds and resonates like the spring to me; sort of like an old screen door. It's not like a long continuous creak, more incremental if that makes any sense. Like whatever it is is "giving" in tiny steps as the spring or arm moves. I can feel whatever it is physically when I touch the spring and a little on the arm. It is definitely NOT subtle booming down and would ruin audio. I'm hesitant to focus on identifying it as the spring since I'm not very mechanical; that's just what it sounds like to my ears. Searching an earlier post for "creak" there were some references to CorrosionX, T-9 and others mostly related to corrosion on the G50 bolts. Would this be something I would spray or drip in tiny amounts in that general area on the arm? There's no corrosion on anything and the arm has not been subjected to any moisture or particularly dusty work. I do live in the desert though (Las Vegas) and our humidity is sometimes only 3-6% so it's not uncommon for things to dry up quickly. Thanks in advance!

Contact Peter Abraham at www.thesteadicamworkshops.com, Peter will likely know of a used or demo rig around someplace. Peter is the hands-down expert on Flyers. Also, for a while Tiffen had severa demo units for sale on their web site. Contact Peter first. Don't forget to budget for taking a workshop; it's one of the most important things you can do as a new operator. There is a week-long workshop by Steadicam in late March, followed by one of Peter's two day Flyer workshops. There's also another week-long workshop held by the Steadicam Operators Association in May.

Hi Kip: You might want to consider a second dovetail plate as well so if you need to go both ways your conversion time is quicker. Peter Abraham recommended that to me and it's been a great time saver. I'm flying Sony XDcam on my Clipper for the next week so I'll try to email you some close-up shots of the low-mode set up.

Are you using the AJA box now? I had my first and hopefully last experience with the AJA yesterday on a Varicam shoot. It was intermittent right out of the box and then died completely. I ended up with a 9"Panasonic HD LCD on battery gaff taped and hardwired to my monitor bracket. What a mess!

Hi Eric, it was a try-at-your own risk Unix hack I found on one of the unofficial Apple blog sites. I'll try to find it again and post a link to it for those who are comfortable in Unix. I just tried searching for it again but there's so many posts about 802.11n and Apple since yesterday that it's buried now. My Treo phone isn't supposed to support the older WiFi SD cards from Palm but it can and does.

Robert, any idea when Tiffen will anounce this new product in the public ? It looked to me as if they were taking orders from dealers but I don't know. It's an "open camera" show and there were a lot of people taking photos and video of it so it's no secret at this point. The whole company seems pretty excited about it as did the dealers types who stopped by.

Hi Charles, I've been running the 802.11n wireless protocol from my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro for a few weeks now and frankly I can't tell very much difference if any. I've never timed it on a large file transfer or multi-file transfer though. The new "n" protocol supposed touts MIMO (multi-file input / multi-file output) ability. Where I have seen a huge diffference is the signal sensitivity. Sitting side-by-side with my PowerBook G4 1.67 on the desk, the C2D MacBook Pro can see NINE other wireless networks close by where the PB only see's three of them. The only thing I really don't care for on the MacBook Pro is it's missing a PCMCIA slot which requires me to bring along a FW card reader for photos.

Hi Chris, I traded my Flyer right after the workshop and bought a Clipper 2. Very pleased indeed, I didn't want to finance it so I bought the best I could afford at the moment. Now, it's just, practice, work, marketing and adding accessories as I can afford them. All the best!

Best news I heard today... from one MacAddict to another!

Hi Charles, I flew it for over an hour yesterday and again today for closer to two hours in the Tiffen booth doing demos of it and the Flyer. Both feel like you're wearing nothing and the new arm and vest kit is like wearing a slighly heavy jacket; there's no fatigue factor. Compared to holding the same camera on the stand-alone Merlin it's a perfect marriage of the two. Tomorrow it's back to reality with my Clipper 2 and a decked out Varicam...and making some money! I put it on a half dozen or so show attendees and none expressed any discomfort just the usual awkward feeling. It didn't help that the rig is set up goofy but they didn't know that either. One idea I thought of was to package this arm with the Flyer sled which would handle better than the Merlin, so today I tried "mating" the new arm to the Flyer. The post barely squeeked in a 1/4" on the Flyer but the little arm would not adjust to the weight. The Flyer was set up with a Canon XL1 and PowerCube. It might take a barebones DVX100 and a smaller battery but I don't know. All in all, it's a nice little product and sure to spawn a future wave of busloads of migrant Steadicam operators headed over the horizon to L.A.. ;-} BTW, "IT" does not really have a product name yet.

Hi Eric, it was a typical socket block pin about the size of a Sharpie marker pen or less, thumbscrews and threads all the same function of the Tiffen arms/socket blocks. I don't know the pricing or even how much the basic Merlin normally is. CES is a show for retailers and distributors so nothing is priced.

Hi Charles, it's dual sections but about 1/2 or 2/3 scale of a Flyer arm but it looks identical. The vest is a spar, bridge, block and pads with velcro, no clips or buckles. Rather than the Merlin I think this arm could be sold as a lower end Flyer arm for people who don't need to go up to 15 lbs, say someone with a DVX or HVX etc. In this photo the rig had been set up goofy because the little HD camera had the monitor on the left side, but I'm not normally goofy. In DJ it was interesting to flip the little LCD around camera front where you now have the monitor facing you and the camera looking back. I think they are considering a separate monitor option. Last but not least, no, this is not my normal hand position, I'm just holding the rig open for a photo so people can see it.

At CES today Tiffen introduced a new arm and vest designed by Garrett for the Steadicam Merlin. Yes I know it's not a "pro" rig and I'll likely get scolded or bannished for posting this. But it's news for someone out there. Basically it's a half sized version of the Flyer arm and vest that integrates into the handheld gimble of the Merlin. The whole thing weighs less than my G50 arm. I just want to say I saw it, I flew it, there were no NDA's and it's a real product that looks well made for the intended market. Which I would guess would be the wedding/event/indie crowd. I have photos as soon as I can get them out of this cell phone. I solemnly swear I did and do and will post them if allowed.

If you're considering a Flyer purchase you have to contact Peter Abraham at www.TheSteadicamWorkshops.com. Few people know more about the Flyer than Peter. Peter also teachs Flyer workshops all over the country (take one!) and he's a dealer, plus a genuinely good person. Did I forget to mention that you should contact Peter ??? Best of luck!