William Demeritt

I've got a CW-3, works great, cost effective, external antennas give great range. Once psf is solved, it'll be even better.

What price are you asking?

I must say, we have a strange relationship with fellow members here. Anytime someone has a sub-par experience company, lots of people seem to rush to defend the company with stories of their success. Granted, perhaps we can do without the melodrama of "a story of a FAILED PRODUCT" etc, but I don't think it's particularly constructive that anytime someone has an issue with a larger company (Cinetronic, Teradek, etc), the flurry of replies cite the responder's positive experience. I can't imagine it really helps the aggrieved to hear numerous stories of everyone's positive experience in the wake of sharing a negative experience. Mike has already replied, and if they make good for Tim, I'd love hear about it from Tim himself.

Tim: Can you give any details on how/when it broke? How were you using it, etc? Just curious, I'm sorry this happened to you!

Does someone at GPI want to chime in? Says serial number 320, maybe check with the owner to make sure it's legit?

Hmm, I may have a faulty monitor then. Not sure, it's happened twice and cooling off the monitor fixed it both times. This picture probably doesn't illustrate the "problem" well enough. It didn't prevent me from working, but it did make me nervous. Do you mean that fancy "x-port" has that function?

I've bought a bunch of stuff from Alan, and he's also gotten me out of a bind a couple times. Seriously, his stuff is great quality and he's on TOP of his stuff! Thanks Alan! Keep up the great work!!!

Directions unclear; monitor is now on fire. Halp.

No, in all honesty, I've been thinking about it hard for the last few weeks but not doing much about it. This post was my attempt to get the fire lit under my ass to find it. I figured I'd cast a wide net, starting here.

Rumor has it that a CAD design for a GPI Gen 2 battery hanger paddle is floating around somewhere, and I was wondering if anyone had it? Since Dionics on the Gen 2 battery hanger paddle places the batteries too far to the right, I heard that someone made a CAD design for a new paddle that moves the batteries to the left a small distance (enough for dynamic balance to be easier to find on a sled without camera on top). Does anyone still have this CAD drawing, or better yet have the CAD file/drawing or a one-off from whenever someone maybe made a batch of them? Hit me up if you know what I'm talking about. Thanks!

Here were my thoughts which I shared with another operator recently: I bought a SmallHD DP7HB back in February to be a backup monitor, but it quickly became my primary monitor. It's lovely, works wonderful, but here's the honest feedback: I wish it was as bright as the Gen 2 Cinetronic, but it's not. The front panel of the Gen 2 is optically bonded, and the SmallHD isn't, so you get some glare issues pretty much always. Heavily overcast days, you may strain a bit to see the image, but it's not awful, and some monitor angle adjustment helps. I bought Nick Davidoff's recommended screen cover, and it helps, but it doesn't make it brighter. Glare is reduced, but ambient glare (overcast bright skies) still washes out the image a lot. I haven't tried using the SD input on the monitor, but they're in a very inopportune place AND they're only through a Hirose plug. I wish they'd had just a standard BNC composite input, but it doesn't. I think that Matthias Bieber with www.cam-jam.de is the only monitor yoke built specifically for the SmallHD, and I just ordered one (apparently he just redesigned it). I've been using my Gen 2 yoke with a few modifications, but got stick of it. If you order it, the battery plate and backing plate system comes with the monitor but not actually installed... so you get to install it. When I installed it using their screws, I felt like it didn't necessarily install as securely as I wanted. HOWEVER, I haven't had any issues with it, so I think it was just lack of confidence in my install. When the monitor gets hot, which happens, the image starts to degrade. The monitor has a built-in fan, which you can turn onto 3 settings (hi, med, low) or off. If the fan is set too low, and you're outside, it can overheat which causes the image degradation (imagine watching an HD image with transmission interruption, like bad signal on a rabbit ears TV). Weird coloration and "snow" starts to appear until it cools off. Best way to combat it was to power off the monitor when not in use. I haven't seen custom framelines, but I haven't looked very hard for them. Still running the Hirose connector. It performs pretty well for me. I have it on a coily cable with LEMO on the other end for powering from my PRO 8-pin LEMO, and I haven't had any disconnect or fidelity issues with it, even with the coil pulling at the plug.

Does the screen ever come up and turn blue, or does it simply stay with a black screen and no key light? If the screen stays black, but the keys don't light up, it might (for some reason) be going to the software upgrade standby screen. Normally, you get to that by pressing MENU and POWER at the same time. The screen turns on, stays black, and nothing else powers up. If you're simply pressing the power button, it may be reading input from the MENU button for some reason (other people have reported the keypad misbehaving with unintended input, etc). Do you have an alternative power method? If you have the battery backing plate, try powering it from just a battery and see if it comes on?

I like pneumatic wheels (or the soft rubber wheels, foam filled, etc), but they make the stand a LOT heavier. I've got hard rubber wheels on there right now, very happy with it.

I swapped out my wheels for the Ben Hur chariot wheels... No survivors.

OK, I'll play the devil's advocate for a brief moment and ask "Why do we NEED to know how fast you can go to low mode?" Anyone who's worn a rig for longer than a few gigs knows exactly what it takes to get into low mode... and if you don't, then you need to learn (or do a few hip-hop music videos... all day low mode... booty booty booty). However, if we're on top of things, we should be standing next to the DP and Director and overhear the tell-tale signs of a low mode shot coming... and once confirmation happens, we're walking to our rig (or radio to the assistant) to flip to low mode. If low mode is a "well, maaaaaybe low mode, but how long will it take?" is the mood, I generally determine the DP's hopes for low mode (as quickly as possible) and answer: "Cool, low mode coming up, 60 seconds." Anyway, I just think the proud race of low mode speed does us the disservice of hustling hard without planning or thinking. When they determine a change in lighting, the calls start going out and things happen quickly. Perhaps a lighting change is postponed as "unnecessary". However, we don't see the juicers saying "I can get a Kino on a beaver board in there in 90 seconds". The gaffer may offer it, but things happen in other departments "as quickly as they can". What is necessary is done as quickly, and safely, as possible. We obviously shouldn't drag our feet, and if our low mode swap takes 15 minutes, then we're doing something wrong. Everyone moves "as quickly as possible", but why do we let ourselves get thrown under the bus because "2 minutes to swap to low mode" is somehow an eternity and intolerable. Looks could go in and do touch-ups in the amount of time we need for low mode (if you can find where they're sleeping). Lighting would appreciate that 2 minutes. Everyone would. Fast, safe, cheap, right. Pick 3. I'm all for speedy swap to low mode, and everyone should have a low mode swap speed they're proud of. However, I just caution against the "I can do low mode in 30 seconds ALL THE TIME" attitude, even if you have it down to that speed. Just my opinion. Suck it, Baldwin.

I have the grips install a pair of PanaGravityBoots to some truss over video village, so if they don't have image flip in camera, or image flip from DIT, or a 180 degree VESA mount on the monitors... then they get to hang upside down and think about maaaaaaybe renting stuff that doesn't come from Craigslist or their son's friend who owns a camera.

Afton: I agree, that would have been the solution if this were still a design phase. However, as a software solution that doesn't require a massive recall, this should work well. Depends on the nature of the touch keys: if they're simply capacitive, then they might read a droplet sitting on the button as persistent input. Of course, a potential solution to this: apply a later of Rain-X on your monitor keys and water droplets won't sit there unless you're perfectly tabled and motionless. I agree, a switch would work great. However, as a software solution, pressing two buttons simultaneously for 3 seconds works better than the nothing Gen 2 owners have now.

I don't believe so. I think Chris is addressing the PsF issue first, but the false input on buttons could be fixed by adding a "screen lock" which requires holding brightness up and down together for 3 seconds before you can control the menu. Something like that.

I would agree with the sentiments about running with a weighted vest. If you were you add a few pounds per week to the vest, you might see some gains, but you're exponentially increasing the chances of damaging your hips, knees, lower back, etc. I own this vest for hiking: http://www.amazon.com/ZFOsports%C2%AE-60LBS-ADJUSTABLE-WEIGHTED-VEST/dp/B001876XYG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1407088940&sr=8-2 Treadmill could train consistency of a weighted stride, but Steadicam is hardly a consistent stride or walk. I like hiking because the incline is natural, and the walking pace/terrain varied. Otherwise, you could just pick a path around your neighborhood and walk with the vest on. I've done the Rose Bowl loop a couple times with the vest, definitely a tough walk. Strange thing: for all of the hiking, jogging and weighted vest walking I've done, nothing has given such clear gains as weight training. Squats, deadlifts, lots of compound exercises, and it prepares you for Steadicam quite nicely!

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to Alan Rencher and his company/website Blackout Media. Yesterday, I was working on a music video with a RED Epic, and decided I'd had enough with my lack of run/stop. I knew Alan had built a complete run/stop device that wouldn't require the Epic owner or rental house bring the RED sync cable, so I texted him if he had one in stock. Alan brought the cable to me on set, I hooked it up and worked brilliantly. The device was $300, but considering how many LEMO connectors are on this thing, and how well built it was, I would gladly spend that money again. I'll probably print out a small business card with the GPIO settings for the Epic and stick it with the cable (or a sticker to go on the box). Otherwise, works great, nice and compact. Great work Alan, very happy with the cable! https://squareup.com/market/alan-rencher

I believe it has been dropped. I chatted with the guys at Cinegear, and apparently an early design/engineering decision accidentally precluded this feature. They seemed to think for a while they could implement it, but the delays were because they were discovering they'd accidentally locked themselves out of enabling that feature through software.

Sold. Thanks!

The website does say 12v regulated, but someone could probably make you a regulator in line with the power lines from the AB plate to the monitor.

Brett, I just ordered the ones for the AC7, and it fit perfectly.

I ordered two, got them, already got one on my dp7 in time for an all day exterior spot. Worked great! I did find some angles still required a change of monitor degree, but the protector worked great at cutting glare while keeping brightness. I was happy with it.