Upgrading to HD

[carlhataway]

Hello all, I'm a NEWBIE here to this forum and would like to ask some advice! My name is Carl and I own a video production company in San Antonio, TX, I have eight videographers including myself and own nine Canon XL2's I am so sick of Mini DV tapes and the real time transfer to my Mac Pro. The Sony HXRMC2000U price wise seems to be a decent upgrade for my guys and the video demos I've seen look great. I do a ton of weddings (73 in 2011) and quinceanera's, anniversaries, etc.. I have seen the Sony for as little as $1419.99 at AjRichies.com on the east coast, I have been a B&H customer for all my equipment but they don't seem to match the price so before I invest could someone give a little hands-on experience advice. My plan is to buy 64GB Class10 cards, two per cam and a Ikan 7" HDMI monitor for each cam. I have Sony UWP-V1 wireless mics for each of the Canon's and LED lights for them too so the HXRMC2000 and the memory cards is my purchase unless you can better advise. Thanks in advance and I hope to become a viable asset to this forum. Carl

[acgold7]

First of all, welcome! I hope you will find these boards useful.

Congratulations on your decision to move to HD. I think once you see the quality available to you, you'll never go back.

You should read the thread we have here on the Hands-on review of the MC2000. You may or may not find this to be the right cam for you. Ergonomically it's great, but the picture isn't as good as the older HD1000 which, of course, uses tapes.

I shop only at B&H and while they don't match prices, they come close. If you find a price substantially lower it is likely to be a scam. AJRitchie's has horrible feedback on ResellerRatings.com; they may initially have a low price but you are unlikely to get it unless you buy a lot of other unneeded junk and they will pester you until you do. Always check out vendors on ResellerRatings.com before you buy.

A much better cam for you might be the AX2000 or even the NX5 if you can afford it.

When you go to B&H, make sure you do it through the links here on the site.

[Stephan]

Hi, welcome to our forums!

... sick of Mini DV tapes and the real time transfer to my Mac Pro

Have you been using FCP till now? FWIW, I too will be doing some kind of an upgrade shortly... as I have tested Final Cut Pro X and will probably switch to an iMac soon. Although my cams still are HDV, and you're looking at the newer AVCHD, there are probably a few tips & experiences we might be able to share later on, regarding the HD post worflow :-)

[carlhataway]

Thank you for the warm welcome to the forum. Both "acgold7" and "Stephan" your remarks were very welcomed! I did read the review and the picture and video comparison on both the Sony 1000 and the 2000 before I posted to the forum, it's just that I am so sick of the mini DV tapes, having been in the video business since 1991 I probably have over 100,000 used tapes. I even bought a degausser thinking I could erase and reuse . . . WRONG! No time code so syncing cams didn't work. With the ever changing conditions of weddings, receptions, bar/bat mitzvah we use the auto mode a lot and have never experienced a problem so this "iAuto" is very enticing! I leave the cam operation up to the individual videographer after they have proven they know what they are doing, the Canon XL2's have always performed well in both Auto and Manual mode. I have been able to see and play with the HD1000 and the viewfinder was very hard to get picture in until you got your eye just right, so my thinking the 7" HDMI on cam monitor will be a good addition, do you have any input on that matter? I also have the Cool-Lux MD-3000 Light and Sound bracket for the LED light and the monitor. One more thing, does the MC2000 allow you to use both the cam mic and the wireless at the same time or do you have to unplug the camera mic and plug in the wireless?

To Stephan yes I use the FCPX and love it especially since Apple came out with the last Update, and I came from Avid Studio to Final Cut Pro X . . . a little learning curve but an NLE is about the same regardless it's just "Bells and Whistles". When you get your iMac be sure to get as much memory as you can, I bought my Mac Pro from B&H but I bought the minimum memory and bought a 32GB package from "Other World Computing, "OWC.com" has great pricing on everything for mac and they will buy your memory that you replace with theirs here's the url: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/i ... R3_21.5_27
Thank you both for your reply and I sincerely hope I will not become a pest to anyone. Respectfully, Carl

[Stephan]

When you get your iMac be sure to get as much memory as you can, I bought my Mac Pro from B&H but I bought the minimum memory and bought a 32GB package from "Other World Computing

That's it, I placed my order yesterday - 27'' built-to-order with 256GB SSD and 2TB disk. Actually the guy from Apple advised me to only order 8GB RAM (2x4), as this leaves me with 2 unused RAM slots that I can always use later on if needed, at a more affordable price. 400 EUR extra for 2 RAM modules would have been slightly outrageous.

Anyway I'm not too worried, I tested my FCPX+Motion+Compressor workflow on a 4GB MacBook Air (!!). For what I do, I hardly ever need more than 2 simultaneous video streams on my timeline.

Thank you both for your reply and I sincerely hope I will not become a pest to anyone. Respectfully, Carl

Oh I wouldn't worry about that :-) We haven't had too much traffic on this forum lately, so be sure to check it from time to time.

[acgold7]

If you want to record sound on the cam, you must unplug the included shotgun to use any other mic.

External monitors can be very expensive and even though many say HD in their names, they may not be. Check the resolution carefully in the specs. One current favorite is from SmallHD but they aren't cheap, especialy if you need to buy a bunch of them.

If you don't care about HD resolution or portability, you could do what I do and use Sony DVD players with 480p resolution and composite inputs. But this only works if you are tripod based, which kind of defeats the purpose of a shoulder cam. But I guess any external monitor is unusable with a shoulder-mount cam, as you can't see the monitor while shooting anyway.

[carlhataway]

Thanks for the info Adam, the 7" monitors specs show a 1024x600 resolution, in your experience with HD will this give me a satisfactory with the mc2000? I'm also looking at another iKan 7" with hard carrying case, charger for almost the same price but the res on that monitor is 800x480, I use the Pearstone Batt. NP-F975L at 7200mAh for my LED lights and was planning on these for the monitors also. Your opinion on the monitors and the Pearstone batteries will be a valuable help. Thanks, Carl

[acgold7]

600 lines isn't bad. It's not HD but it's better than most and should be good for framing purposes. I'm not sure I'd use it to check critical focus or color issues. Ikan has a pretty good reputation.

480p is okay but you can get that for less than $100, and I wouldn't pay more than that. Of course useless for focus and color but again useful in framing.

But keep in mind how you will be using these cams. If you are shoulder-mounted, as I mentioned above, you won't be able to see the screen if it's mounted to one of the cold-shoes on the cam. I suppose you could strap it to your waist or something and be able to see it when shooting with the cam.

You should check out:

http://www.smallhd.com/Products/DP6.html

I don't really have experience with Pearstone batts but I hear they're fine. I always buy actual Sony batts whenever I buy a new cam, two of the largest capacity available. I think batts are too important to cheap out on but I realize it adds up when you need nine or eighteen of something.