droputs only on FX1 or onFX7 too?

[ryszard]

Hi, I am about to upgrade to HDV and was thinking about FX1 or FX7. When brushed through DVdoctor forums i did find quite a few postings about dropped frames on FX1 and this problem on its own makes me consider FX7. Q.-did Sony addressed this problem on FX7 cam or it too is prone to this problem?
ryszard

[Alan Roberts]

All HDV is prone to the same tape problems. Since HDV is an MPEG2 coder with a half-second GoP, any problem on the tape can potentially affect 12 frames. The cure (or rather, the prevention) is to use the far higher quality HDV tapes, which cost more. Sony claim that the probability of dropout on a proiper HDV tape is about 1/10000 that of a conventional DV tape.

I use Sony HDV tapes in my A1 when I shoot mfor my own purposes. So far, no problem with any shot on any tape. However, I also use Panasonic 63 minute DV tapes (63ME) for demonstrating aspects of HD on the training courses I do, and so far have not had any problem with them either. But, come the day that I do get a problem, I'll use that experience as a demonstration, I'm just waiting for the day when it goes wrong.

[tom hardwick]

That's it see. You wait all day for an HDV dropout to come along on cheapo tape and because it knows you're wanting one for demo purposes it behaves perfectly.

What you need to do Alan is shoot an HDV film of an important event using cheapo tape - that way you'll get lots of lovely dropouts :)

Ryszard - I'd be most surprised if Sony have changed the tape deck mechanism one iota between the FX1 and the FX7.

tom.

[Flame1]

I've had tape dropouts on both quality tapes from sony. In fact on one HDV tape alone I had three dropouts!, one happening in the Groom's speech. Thankfully I had backup for sound with our marantz pm660 and an additional camera.

This is a problem we have had on all our cameras when filming in HDV.

SD does not suffer the consequences so severly.

Cheers:)

Flame.

[Alan Roberts]

I suspect that the key to avoiding dropouts in HDV is multifaceted. Use good tapes, and keep the deck clean. Use a cleaning tape more often than you would for a DV deck. I'm sure that my current fortune hinges on my relatively light use of my Sony A1.

[DAVE M]

It makes you wonder if the move so fast from tape to solid state was due to the manufacturers being keen to help with ingest - or they realised that tape's not really up to it.

knowing Sony, if they could have stuck with a generation of tape based cameras first, selling HD to all who wanted it, they'd have had two bites at the cherry by selling the improved capabilities a bit later.

[Alan Roberts]

I think that the real motive for moving away from tape is to get rid of the complex moving parts in the camera. They found they could do it, so did it. I suspect that the fact it makes ingest easier is just a bonus, albeit one that tilted the broadcasters towards it.

[tom hardwick]

What Alan says and compactness. I have the tape deck mechanism here taken from a DX100 and in a camcorder it takes up a fair amount of real-estate. Most of it seems like fresh air, even with a MiniDV tape laced up.

[garethw]

Hi there
I've had an FX1 and now a Z1 and can honestly say that drop outs have not been an issue and I do shoot a lot of tape during a given year. I can only think of one edit where a dropped frame really made my sequence unusable. Often if I have a drop on capture that doesn't show when I play in the camera, a simple recapture of that segment solves the problem... (I wonder if a certain percentage of dropped frames are not software related..)
Mostly though I can pass on the dropped frame, find another part that fits..add a cut away if the audio is not too important..etc...
A serious audio drop to me is the most annoying eventuality.

I do however only use Sony Permium (yes cheapo tapes.. I've tried the HDV ones and not seen an improvement in reliability, and they cost a lot more).
I never reuse a tape for an important shoot.
I always wind forward usually with bars at least 30 secs in the tape and always finish before the end...
If I have to capture any one else's tape (yes my camera serves as my deck as well..) I run a cleaning tape before I re-shoot.

Tape is a weak link and I guess we have to accept this...

Cheers
Gareth

[Chris Longley]

Just caught up with this thread. Cheers for the answers on the original question.

It raises an interesting point about Sky.

Based on the HD Ready sets that most consumers are using. Might there be an argument for them to broadcast in 720p?

People without full HD panels wouldn't be downscaling, nobody would be deinterlacing?

[Alan Roberts]

That raises an interesting observation: the current plan for HD on Freeview is not nailed down, one of the options is to broadcast 720p on Freeview, 1080 on Freesat. That might well make sense. But it would continue to encourage me to stay with Freesat even more so.

Incidentally, Sky News is all P2 now.

[Chris Longley]

Hey, you know what I've done here.

I was reading my 1080i topic, then when navigating to page 2 I accidentally clicked next thread. (I thought it had gone a bit off-topic!)

Hope that explains my odd post in here.

Thanks anyway for answering. I'll post this in the correct place, don't know if you can move the followup posts to the 1080i topic?

[Alan Roberts]

No problem Chris :)