Supacam onboard recorder

[Dan Coplan]

Yeah, I got swept up in the excitement as well.

 

When one of you figures out how to either make or properly order the necessary cabling for this thing, please post and specify for which rig.

 

I'll be flying all over the place for the next few weeks so have to rely on you all to do the detective/grunt work.

 

Great seeing everyone! NAB was pretty cool this year.

 

Dan Coplan

[Charles Papert]

I'll be on it early next week Dan, I'll let you know.

 

If there are any others who have bought or are planning to buy the Supacam and use it with a PRO, lemme know and I'll look into making a run of adaptor cables.

 

The good news is that it appears to be fully compatible, should be able to take up to 6v in without any Infolithium type trickery involved, and separate connectors for input and output. Which is nice.

[Charles Papert]

First round of problem solving over--testing the picture output of the thing on my monitor looked absolutely dreadful. Was getting ready to box the thing out and send it packing when I discovered it was set to PAL output. Oh well. NTSC looked a lot better--I'm ready to proclaim the picture quality "good enough for playback for framing purposes" so I'm moving ahead.

 

Right-angle Mini USB cable ordered.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Charles,

 

Keep me posted as well. Since my rig has a VDA, things need to be a bit different (I have a 6-pin Lemo versus the PRO's 5 - two pins for video because of the in/out situation). Also, this port puts out 12 volts on the Hill battery cage, so I need to put a regulator in the cable. But I'm curious about yours as mine will no doubt be similar.

 

Also, where did you order your right-angle Mini USB cable from? Do you have a part number or link?

 

Thanks,

[Charles Papert]

http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/rr-2mbr01-72.html

 

The length of the assembly (protrusion) is a bit of a shame but this is the only one I could find. There were low-profile right-angle adaptors made for Mini-USB but an extensive web search and store crawl (Fry's, etc) hasn't turned up any evidence of same. Erwin has one that came with his Archos but it doesn't appear to be a stock part any more.

 

The other possibility is to get a retractable USB to MiniUSB cable, the kind with the sprung reel in the middle--the connector is short and the cable is flat and flexible so it will turn the corner easily. There is of course a bit more danger of it breaking this way.

 

I'm also having a voltage regulating circuit put in to accomodate the low requirements of the camera. And considering adding a little microphone so that there is scratch audio on the recordings--I used one of these a few years ago and it works great (and can't beat the price) but it is a tad fragile so it needs to be protected on the rig. I believe I jumped the power ground and the video ground together to free up a pin on the recorder connector to accommodate the audio signal.

 

p.s. thanks to Peter Abraham for first showing me the Supacam, and GB for showing him.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Chas,

 

Thanks or the info. I think I might even have a coiled adapter somewhere....... I think a free trade show gift....

 

Cool, thanks for the idea.

[Charles Papert]

**sigh**the Supcam turned out to be a dead end, but I've ordered another box that looks promising--this time I'm not going to say anything until I have it in hand and it works properly on the sled...but I can't resist being a tease, so check out these specs:

 

3.14"W X 2" H X .86"D

2.68 ounces

2.5" LCD display

AV in and out

MPEG-4

$400

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Charles,

 

I have actually gotten my Supacam working rather well on my rig BUT there are a few key things that have allowed this. I use Jerry Hill's battery base which incorporates a VDA. I have the Supacam wired to a 6-pin Lemo that provides a dedicated video in and out as well as power (kudos to Matt Petrosky for making a killer little voltage regulator that neatly fits in the sled base - by the way Chas & Matt, I too had to cut the USB connector from the Supacam charger as the others I tried did not work). The playback from the Supacam is wired to playback on channel 2 of my TB-6 meaning that it never causes feedback to the primary video channel on the rig (it seems that Charles and Matt ran into feedback problems despite the fact the Supacam has both a video in & out).

 

Overall, the deck has performed well and it is indeed nice having a non-liner system for playback. The picture quality is good enough for our purposes and the 2 Gig card holds plenty of video for a day or two of shooting (and I just bought a 4 Gig on sale). Importing footage to my Mac could be faster as I have to use a plug-in to convert the files to something Quicktime recognizes, but I can live with this as I don't even bother keeping a lot of stuff anyway. The deck is both small and light, but could be sturdier; I fear for its longevity, but in the meantime it is working very well.

[Charles Papert]

Good to hear it is working for you, Alec. The final blow for me was the sketchy connection with the miniplug on the particular model I had--I sensed it wouldn't hold up for long under the beating I (or more likely, the assistants) put my gear through. Even though the company is literally next door to Preston, I didn't feel like making the trek on a semi-regular basis!

[Peter Abraham]

Hmmmm. Mine is still in the box, I've not gotten into the next project on my lightweight sled- a small J_Box on the bottom. Seems I need to build in a voltage regulator circuit. Why can't I wire the video from the SupaCam the way the IIIA sled or MS or Ultra sleds are wired- pass video through a switch. Throw it one way, get video from the camera up top. Throw it the other way, get video from the on-board recorder?

 

I'm missing something here. What is it ? :)

 

Peter " Loves Foam-Core Weight Technology " Abraham

New York

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Anyone have a good source of a small 1 in 2 out Video DA?

 

Thanks

[JimBartell]

Anyone have a good source of a small 1 in 2 out Video DA?

 

Thanks

 

Here are two:

 

http://www.vac-brick.com/

Check out the VDA2

 

http://www.horita.com/

Check out the PDA2

 

I've used both. Both work as advertised. The VAC is smaller but the Horita is self contained and powered by an internal 9V battery.

 

Jim "waiting for FedEx" Bartell

[Peter Abraham]

I'm about to install ( or, wire outboard.... ) a two-in and four-out video DA.

 

I've been mowing the lawn. I love mowing the lawn. I smell funky, am covered in a sheen of sweat and have good Think Time. Here is what I think.

 

The SupaCam has a shared In/Out. The camera needs to be told which way the signal is going, and the sled needs to not be bollixed up. Would this work?

 

1. Take the common signal wires from the SupaCam, which we shall now call CS. Run them into an A/B switch of quantuum-like smallness.

 

2. Take the A output of the CS and run it into the # 1 input on my DA.

 

3. Take the B output of the CS and run it into the #1 OUTPUT of my DA.

 

4. Take my sled video out and run it into the #2 input of my DA.

 

5. Take the #2 output from the DA, run it to my monitor.

 

If I run video into my sled, it hits #2 input and is DA'd. The signal runs out of the DA, going to my monitor ( # 2 output ) and back into my CS line, from #1 output. It hits the A/B switch, which is set to B ( accepting incoming video signals ), and runs down the lines, into the 3-conductor + ground mini plug on the SupaCam.

 

You hit record, you record video. The monitor has a signal ( as do xmitter, etc. ).

 

To play back, I have to do two simple things:

 

1. Flip the A/B switch to A. This is feeding the signal from CS through the switch, down the line into the #1 Input of my D/A. The D/A sees this signal, and distributes to the monitor and xmitter. It can NOT feedback into the SupaCam, because the A/B switch is stopping a two-way flow.

 

2. Turn off my video camera up top. Lacking a secondary signal into the two-signal D/A, the D/A can only process the signal it sees- which will be the #1 input signal from the CS.

 

I say videocamera, but of course, the onboard is used for film shoots. Powering down the video tap to cut off the #2 D/A input signal is necessary to avoid feedback it seems, and is nice to do anyway cause it saves on juice.

 

Thoughts? Forget the power voltage regulator issue, let's assume I covered that already. Why won't this work with my D/A, and a very small A/B switch? I could wire the A/B circuit into a small metal J-box that I'm building for the bottom of my rig, therefore avoiding any feedback issues.

 

Peter " I must now go finish the lawn " Abraham

 

oh, and Jim, the Fed Ex guy is hung up at the beach. He'll be there by 2:30 :D

 

Here's the DA of which I speak so fondly.

 

Micro DA