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Point is, Neal, that he wasn't used to doing it that way and so his entire rhythm was thrown off. The longer one has worked with a system, the harder it is to break. It's the same for operators I think.

 

Of course a great focus puller will nail it a large percentage of the time. But there were always moments on film jobs where you have to whisper "you're deep!" or "shallow!" or whatever. That was just part of the feedback between operator and AC. Now the AC's have a reference to check their work when the action stops and make sure it is correct. It's pretty radical to remove oneself entirely from the set and pull from a monitor but I have seen good focus pullers blow a couple of takes from alongside camera and move over to the engineering monitor to ensure success. I also have used greener AC's who are MORE successful pulling from the monitor; if they land soft while pulling conventionally, the operator often can't judge critical focus in the still dodgy EVF's and onboard monitors and the result is that they just sit on a soft frame. My first day shooting a pilot recently this exact thing happened, and since I was operating myself I didn't see it. Result: every take soft. The quick fix was to send him to the monitor, where sure enough he buzzed a few moving shots due to the reaction time but maintained sharps more consistently, which ultimately meant a higher success rate.

 

Along these lines, I've pulled my own focus as many of us have on telephoto shots where things are a bit unpredictable. Earlier this year an AC asked me to help give him a bunch of focus points on a car driving towards camera; he marked the Preston and away we went. Two takes, both soft as hell (he's normally pretty good, no clue what happened). I decided to give it a try myself. I'm not trying to brag but I hit almost all of it, just that typical little bit right at the end as the subject is about to land in a closeup. An operator pulling focus from the viewfinder or onboard is really no different than an AC doing it from a monitor...right?

 

I think it's just another one of these shifts in technique that digital has made possible, similar to operating conventionally from the onboard versus traditional viewfinder, which I discussed in a previous thread. Some AC's will never embrace it, others will rely on it; chances are that over time their reaction time will improve to the point where buzzes are all but indistinguishable.

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I got a balling out from #1 on the call sheet last week for quietly whispering to the 1st standing next to me during an emotional take to fix a soft moment on a tight shot. Maybe it's better they sit back at the monitor now. Still I don't know how they deal with any delay in transmission. I think the best way to do it is to have a monitor on set where the 1st can see the proximity of the point of focus to the camera and often they lay marks that can be seen from a 90 degree angle to the camera and the actors.. But I leave this to the professionals.

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Thank you Tomas, I´m trying to make up my mind if I should go with Boxx or Transvideo.

 

Jordan, I´m on a show right now with the Alexa and the only option I found for the monitor out was framerate (24, 25, 30), not resolution. Maybe in a later firmware...

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Hey Mike,

Happy new year to all.

Im using the Boxx for setups like this in Australia. I only use the Boxx for the hdsdi transmission, for full telemetry control and tallies i add another unit to it called "Airpaint".

Built by some VERY helpful guys in LA this system is great!! The techs are very happy, they get full camera control with no latency and all the functions they want! The guys also modified my rcp so i can use the call system for tallies so no ccu is required and the tallies work perfectly with every Sony camera. Check them out - skydreams.tv

Both systems work really well together, im using them on my steadicam for live jobs like Australia's Got Talent, the jobs where lip sync is important so the zero latency of the Boxx is great, dosent matter how tight i shoot singers etc, its closer to perfect than any other link setup we have used.

 

No i dont work for either company, but am happy to talk them up because both systems work really well and they're customer service is excellent!!

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Hey Mike,

Happy new year to all.

Im using the Boxx for setups like this in Australia. I only use the Boxx for the hdsdi transmission, for full telemetry control and tallies i add another unit to it called "Airpaint".

Built by some VERY helpful guys in LA this system is great!! The techs are very happy, they get full camera control with no latency and all the functions they want! The guys also modified my rcp so i can use the call system for tallies so no ccu is required and the tallies work perfectly with every Sony camera. Check them out - skydreams.tv

Both systems work really well together, im using them on my steadicam for live jobs like Australia's Got Talent, the jobs where lip sync is important so the zero latency of the Boxx is great, dosent matter how tight i shoot singers etc, its closer to perfect than any other link setup we have used.

 

No i dont work for either company, but am happy to talk them up because both systems work really well and they're customer service is excellent!!

 

I have seen the AirPaint and it looks like a solid fallback for Sony RCP's. I'm curious about the vague reference on the Meridian price list that you can get Full Telemetry via Sony RCP's for an extra $10,000 USD. I'm also wondering why Genlock is an extra $2500 USD option, does the receiver not do this natively?

 

If anybody has encountered these optional add-ons, shoot me a message.

 

How are folks getting PGM and Prompter feeds when wireless? Buying up a couple of Modulus units?

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Mike,

From what I understand, the 10k you speak of for the rcp is the Airpaint, Boxx use this to do the telemetry. Its exactly the same units you get from the airpaint guys.

The genlock is an option because only certain clients need it! Its a major advantage to not have to framestore the broadcast receiver but you have to pay more for it.

The system is so much much cheaper than a Link Hd system or a Gigawave so paying for options like this is quite understandable.

 

Cheers

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Mike,

From what I understand, the 10k you speak of for the rcp is the Airpaint, Boxx use this to do the telemetry. Its exactly the same units you get from the airpaint guys.

The genlock is an option because only certain clients need it! Its a major advantage to not have to framestore the broadcast receiver but you have to pay more for it.

The system is so much much cheaper than a Link Hd system or a Gigawave so paying for options like this is quite understandable.

 

Cheers

 

That makes total sense. It seemed from the PDF like they were describing the AirPaint. It would save us some delay not to have to run it through a framesync, though we have hundreds of them readily available in Transmission. They do note that the "zero delay" goes up to 1ms delay (1 frame at 30fps) when Genlocked though. But it beats the 1.5frame delay we had when Link came in to demo their system for us. And the price certainly beats all other options out of the water.

 

Thanks for the clarification Matt!

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They do note that the "zero delay" goes up to 1ms delay (1 frame at 30fps) when Genlocked though. But it beats the 1.5frame delay we had when Link came in to demo their system for us.

 

 

two things

 

1ms is not one frame

 

you can't see the difference between 1 and 1.5 Frames......

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