Noel Sterrett Posted September 12, 2012 Report Share Posted September 12, 2012 I just got a new Zephry (love it), and want to replace the monitor with a 7" Marshall HD monitor. There are two problems: The monitor has a 1/4" on the bottom, but without any pin holes for the tiny allen screws on the mount, I have to remove them and the monitor swivels far too easily. The other problem is that I would like to swap the BNC connectors on the top of the sled. I understand swapping the connectors is possible on the Zephyr but there is no information on how to do it in the manual. I'm not sure whether to start with the two screws on the dovetail or the four on the bottom. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Alan Rencher Posted September 12, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted September 12, 2012 Are you upgrading from an SD version of the Zephyr? My Zephyr came with a 7" HD Marshall monitor, and it also came with a mount that allows it to work with the sled. Tiffen has all of the stuff that you need. Also, what do you mean when you say that you want to swap the BNC connectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Wolfgang Troescher Posted September 12, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted September 12, 2012 Are you upgrading from an SD version of the Zephyr? My Zephyr came with a 7" HD Marshall monitor, and it also came with a mount that allows it to work with the sled. Tiffen has all of the stuff that you need. Also, what do you mean when you say that you want to swap the BNC connectors. I bought the Marshall-Monitor, branded and adapted by Steadicam, because I didn´t like the SD-Monitor of the Zephyr. Disadvantage: The Steadicam-Monitor is more expensive, about 2.000$ including cable (Hirose t BNC + XLR-Power). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Sterrett Posted September 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2012 Are you upgrading from an SD version of the Zephyr? My Zephyr came with a 7" HD Marshall monitor, and it also came with a mount that allows it to work with the sled. Tiffen has all of the stuff that you need. Yes, I'm upgrading. I bought one of Marshall's new modular monitors (V-LCD70MD), which has a built-in waveform monitor. I may try to fashion a small "L" bracket with pinholes to keep it from rotating. Also, what do you mean when you say that you want to swap the BNC connectors. I just need to swap the front and the back connector, so the HD BNC is on the back. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Alan Rencher Posted September 15, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted September 15, 2012 Are you upgrading from an SD version of the Zephyr? My Zephyr came with a 7" HD Marshall monitor, and it also came with a mount that allows it to work with the sled. Tiffen has all of the stuff that you need. Yes, I'm upgrading. I bought one of Marshall's new modular monitors (V-LCD70MD), which has a built-in waveform monitor. I may try to fashion a small "L" bracket with pinholes to keep it from rotating. Also, what do you mean when you say that you want to swap the BNC connectors. I just need to swap the front and the back connector, so the HD BNC is on the back. Cheers. I've gotten shit for this before, but I use the "SD" BNC port exclusively for HD... It's just easier, and I have no problems with it. And when I have to be tethered on a camera that doesn't have a redundant SDI out, I loop the signal out of my monitor back up the post to the HD-SDI on the top stage. Video village sees everything just fine. If I had to bet, I would say that Tiffen used the same cabling and connectors for both ports. I haven't taken it apart to verify, but it makes more sense to me that they wouldn't complicate things by having one port that is inferior to the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Sterrett Posted September 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2012 I've gotten shit for this before, but I use the "SD" BNC port exclusively for HD... It's just easier, and I have no problems with it. And when I have to be tethered on a camera that doesn't have a redundant SDI out, I loop the signal out of my monitor back up the post to the HD-SDI on the top stage. Video village sees everything just fine. If I had to bet, I would say that Tiffen used the same cabling and connectors for both ports. I haven't taken it apart to verify, but it makes more sense to me that they wouldn't complicate things by having one port that is inferior to the other. I have no doubt the SD wiring would work, but the output at the bottom of the stage for SDI/power is a 6 pin Hirose, the breakout cable for which Tiffen charges $470 (gouge). While it might still work, the Hirose does not include a coaxial connection, which is a bit odd since Hirose makes a similar connector which does. In any event, I've given up and decided to leave things as they are and just rout the HD to the front. Thanks for your help. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Alan Rencher Posted September 15, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted September 15, 2012 You might try asking Terry West of he can make that cable for you, or make on yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Mark Schlicher Posted September 16, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted September 16, 2012 When you unscrew the screws on the underside of the topstage, the two halves of the plastic cover come apart like a clamshell. The BNC connectors just set into grooves in the plastic. There is enough cable to swap the positions of the SD and HD video cables. Piece of cake. As for swiveling, I went to the hardware store and bought a rubber washer. A "star" lock washer would probably work fine, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Sterrett Posted September 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2012 When you unscrew the screws on the underside of the topstage, the two halves of the plastic cover come apart like a clamshell. The BNC connectors just set into grooves in the plastic. There is enough cable to swap the positions of the SD and HD video cables. Piece of cake. While there is enough wire to move the BNC and Lemo connectors on the front of the topstage, there isn't enough to move the rear BNC to the front on my Zephyr (I tried removing the tape and tugging gently on the wire, but it didn't budge). The rear Lemo clearly doesn't have enough wire to move at all. Perhaps your Zephyr was lucky and got a bit more. In any event, I ordered a Hirose connector, and hopefully I can use it on the bottom for HD and avoid having to move the BNC's. As for swiveling, I went to the hardware store and bought a rubber washer. A "star" lock washer would probably work fine, too. Thanks, a rubber washer seems to work quite well. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Victor Lazaro Posted October 1, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 I've gotten shit for this before, but I use the "SD" BNC port exclusively for HD... It's just easier, and I have no problems with it. And when I have to be tethered on a camera that doesn't have a redundant SDI out, I loop the signal out of my monitor back up the post to the HD-SDI on the top stage. Video village sees everything just fine. If I had to bet, I would say that Tiffen used the same cabling and connectors for both ports. I haven't taken it apart to verify, but it makes more sense to me that they wouldn't complicate things by having one port that is inferior to the other. What Dan Ikeda from Steadicam told me: The SD plug is not up to the HD-SDI standards. They were not able to upgrade it due to the Lemo connector. This doesn't mean that it will not work, it is just not guaranteed by SMPTE to work. That's why Steadicam added the second HD SDI connector that is up to the norm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Alan Rencher Posted October 3, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 3, 2012 I don't get why they couldn't have two identical BNC jacks on the sled. Could someone chime in on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Sterrett Posted October 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2012 I don't get why they couldn't have two identical BNC jacks on the sled. Could someone chime in on this? There is a Lemo which has power for the monitor and tally as well as monitor signal. I power the monitor using a D-Tap on the V-Mount plate, so I think it may be possible to replace the Lemo with a BNC. I've ordered a Lemo connector and plan to see if it will pass HD-SDI, but I'm not a Lemo fan. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Mark Schlicher Posted October 3, 2012 Premium Members Report Share Posted October 3, 2012 My Zephyr originally had enough slack to swap the position of the "HD" and "SD" connectors on the top stage, so I did (per a tip from Peter Abraham). Later I sent the sled back to Tiffen for the tally upgrade and when they added the tally connector in the topstage, they swapped the video connectors back to standard position, and now there is not enough room to move them around anymore. I had bought a hirose-to-BNC/power cable from Terry West when I bought my Marshal HD monitor, and I've used the trick of running HD-SDI through the "SD" connection to the monitor via this cable and it works fine. The signal strength indicator isn't as high, but it's still in the 80's and I haven't had a problem with it. Side note: when you buy the tally upgrade this cable is replaced with one that is similar except it has tally signal wired into the hirose and a connector for a tally LED. Other options: ignore the hirose cable and use the supplied Tiffen lemo-to-XLR cable (or buy another one if you need the Tiffen cable for your camera power on the topstage). Or power with a p-tap cable. In either case, use the HD video lines. The advantage of getting a hirose video/power cable: having access to the second video line can be handy for needs like program return, monitor loop-out, or video transmitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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