Lawrence Karman

Contact Mohawk/CDT. 800 422-9961 in Chicago. Item # M82046 or SOCX#521-4. This is a 6' Fiber flexible adapter that hooks to the Sony fiber connector. Was $605.00. The truck may have one. Check first. Good luck.

Writing off the cost of a monitor on which you review and or edit any shot footage (wink,wink) or research footage is perfectly reasonable. I would not hesitate to write off at least a percentage of the cost, if not the whole amount. And truthfully you would use it for at least some of this activity. The write off would most likely come in the form of depreciation taken off over 7 years. This may add additional accounting expenses as there are more forms to be filled out. As I have always understood it you can attempt to deduct anything. The question is if you set off a "red flag" in the computer review of your return and or if you are one of the very few percentage-wise that are audited every year and the IRS disallows the deduction what happens. Most likely is you will have to pay any tax that you avoided with interest and maybe a small penalty. The real problem is when you don't declare income. That is when you could subject yourself to more serious penalties and, depending on the amount, a new roomate named Bubba. Go for it. Just keep the remote away from your wife. Please consult an acounting professional for more accurate advise, etc.....

I'm currently on a show with one Cantrans and one Modulus 3000. We are using the same receivers and CIT fin antennae for each. All I can say is that at times each image is equally as good or as crappy as the other. Sometimes one breaks up a little more than the other, sometimes one is better than the other. Not sure it's woth the extra $ or weight. I will say that I am a casual observer and have not fiddled with the different power settings on the Cantrans. Perhaps Larry could comment on the effect of various output wattages.

Oh God, Michael was a friend. I'm in shock after reading your post.

I am guilty of working on a WB show till the wee hours of this morning and am sort of alive. I heard nothing of this and I hope to God it is not true. But considering the amount of hours we work it would not surprise me if it did. Anyway, how would the upm know about something that had occured that evening?

I forgot to mention that on my last movie, a camera assistant while carrying my rig out of the truck, took a dive off the lift gate when the stairs colapsed under him. Fortunately for him the rig broke his fall. Sent the rig back to GPI, the donkey box needed some fixin, but the centerpost checked out perfectly fine. I'm not sure the old one would have faired as well. (And great service by George who fixed it while the driver waited)

I've had it for almost a year now. Love it! Much more rigid than the old one, even at full extension. My only complaint is that the tolerance is so tight that if I tighten my Gorelock low mode docking ring as much as I would like to (or used to on the old post), it deforms the outer tube enough to make extending the post difficult if not impossible. I leave it just snug, which is not really a problem as the ring sits up on the extension locking collar when in use anyway and can't slide up.

Try this link: http://www.transvideointl.com/pdf/Mounting.pdf Mounting bracket, bottom left on the page.

Technically Ron that is still a UHF transmitter, somewhere just below channel 14 on an analog receiver. Really low power though. The good news is Charles may still be able to monitor your work from his porch. Was the Coherent setup the diversity receiever with matched transmitter?

I've had flat screen LCD teleprompters mounted on the rig. 6" and up to 11". Check with the supplier to find out the power connector. Usually 12v with a 4 pin XLR on the end. I have made up a cable to supply power directly from the sled (Auxiliary output on the PRO). On a video camera you might be able to power it off the Hirose connector on the camera, but it may blow the fuse. Otherwise you will be dragging a power cable and a BNC to feed it. If you are running Triax or fiber you can get prompter feed out of the camera. Best way I had it mounted was with some industrial velcro on top of a flat rubber lens shade. Also the supplier usually has some (heavy) bracket that will mount to a handle on top of the camera.

Got my thumb pinched in the PRO arm last night. After a running shot a grip tried to lift the rig off my arm post to help me by carrying it back to my stand. My gymbal hand was somewhere on the arm and crunch. He's lifting and I'm screaming at him to let go. 5 seconds of this before relief. Blood, flap of skin dangling, a quick band aid application and on to take 3. Mental note to keep all soft, fleshy appendages away from the moving parts of the arm for the rest of my working life.

I did a series on that same lot last year, used a Modulus 3000 and never had a complaint. In fact we had 2 of them going and the Shield next door did as well. I know the news and a soap opera broadcasts out of there, but I can't believe using an attenuator would not have solved your problem. Come to think of it I got some wierd interference on my BFD in some specific areas of the stages.We thougfht it might be realted to the sound deptartment's wireless radios. Maybe it was the studio's TV broadcast. F sound!

Anyone have a Preston DM2 motor (the smaller one) they would be willing to trade for a larger, more powerful DM1 motor? Lawrence

Check this web site for a chart on converting the numbers on the screen to actual footage distance. While I have never used this camera this chart may make it easier to set your motor. www.flickerfactory.com/egp/morestuff/dvx100focus.htm

I'm not an engineer, but I just don't understand why there is additional stress on the arm block because it is pointing straight forward with a back mounted vest instead of pointing left or right with the traditional vest. As I recall with my old PRO vest the ends of those screws became deformed or flattened to the point where I could not extract them from the vest socket block. Perhaps the screws on the back mounted vest are a higher grade than the ones used by PRO and the steel is harder than the Titanium and digging in. Perhaps Brant or Jerry or Tom could comment on this. I did get a call from another operator a few days ago who said the Titanium block on his PRO arm split in half. That's three I personally know about and he said there was a fourth. Make you nervous?

There are 6 of those AAAA cells inside of a 9V battery. It's not too hard to rip those open to gain acess to them.

Hey Claus, did you do it Don Juan or walking backwards?

Word, nice shot indeed. Have to agree there's a cut in there.

It is a sad, sad day in the proud history of the camera department when free parking wins out over babes. :(

I traded in my Htytron 50s directly with AB and if I remember correctly I got a $100 credit for each battery I sent back.

Could you not loop out of the monitor into your transmitter (TB6 has a video loop through)?My on-board recorder plays back into my monitor. Come to think of it this would be a good way to transmit framelines as well (sadly,on screen level too) I could control the playback with a remote from the the directors monitor.

If you feel the need for speed then Wolf Seeburg Video in maruna Del Rey stocks them.

I've been flying a Millenium XL these past couple of weeks and have been experiencing a dark picture when in interiors. The video guy was also complaining about a dark transmitted picture. Also I always seem to run my TB6 monitor at or near peak brightness and contrast for the best picture. Anywhere near the middle range is just too dark and flat to be usable. This prompted a call to Greg Bubb, the maker of the TB6. He felt that my sled, a PRO, had video distribution that was triple terminated and this would contribute to the dark picture. Greg suggested that I get one of those small video DA bricks (coincidentally the same one that Peter was offering to Charles). Well I got one and it made absolutely no difference. Of course the only place I could put it in line was directly out of the camera before the video input went into the sled. Yesterday with too much time on my hands I started fooling around with the switched on the video tap and found a gain switch which gave me a much brighter picture. Wahoo! Pehaps sun spot activity could be to blame for your DV cam problems. Or Al Queda.

Now that is good thinking, Greg. Good luck!

Well I was lucky enough the other day to finally meet the desperate guy who took the crappy offer of low scale to operate Steadicam on "The Clubhouse". His name is John Hankhammer. Next year when we are all offered HBO rate to operate Steadicam he will be one of the people you can thank for that. How little confidence in your operating abilities do you have, John, that you were afraid to say no to that offer? Did you really think you would never get offered another job again if you, like others here said no? You said you need the job. Well guess what. I've hardly worked in the past few months, but I said no and a few weeks later got another job offer at a much.much better rate. And what kind of agent do you have that would advise you to take this job? Low rate minus 10%? Come on. I know you monitor this board and I would love to see your response.