Epics can't shoot 25fps !! (?)

[Brent J. Craig]

Sorry for trying to help you. I'll remember you next time you have an issue and me with the answer. :|

First off, let me apologize. I did not mean to offend you nor appear to not appreciate your reply. I was a bit shocked from the suggestion that a piece of professional gear might not work in the presence of cell phones, and expressed that emotion using sarcasm - which obviously does not translate well to a forum message. Sorry.

I don't know what kind of reality show or set you have but on our sets, phone are to turn off.

I have never been on a set where people had to turn their phones completely off. We always set them to silent. Perhaps you operate somewhere where crew members use a booking service and are not continually responsible for finding their next project. Here, a missed call is a missed job.

The sound guy would pickup any phone even on vibrate.

Definitely a shielding problem with the sound gear. GSM/HSDPA signals are easy to pick up on improperly shielded gear.

Again, thank you for your suggestions and I'm sorry that my reply appeared discourteous.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

Can you mod the thread title since its a specific 3D problem on one camera in your rig? (EDIT post>go advanced)

Good suggestion! I made the change several hours ago, but my change to the thread title didn't seem to 'take'. Perhaps we can't edit titles?

 

[Marc Wielage]

Definitely a shielding problem with the sound gear. GSM/HSDPA signals are easy to pick up on improperly shielded gear.

Uh... if the sound guy is picking up a phone on vibrate, he or she may just have great microphones that can hear the vibration. Anything you can hear with your ears, you can pick up on a good microphone. The right choice for an actor on set is to carry no phone at all, or have the phone turned completely off. This is especially important if they're wearing a wireless lav. "Airplane Mode" can work OK, but I wouldn't put it on top of a camera, a recorder, or any wireless mike receiver.

We had been T-splitting both TC and Genlock. Tested the Gen-10 today because it has separated outputs for genlock. Haven't found anything portable that has more than one TC output, but we feel TC is less critical since it is basically an audio signal.

T-splitting genlock is not a great idea, because you'll reduce the sync level. You only lose about 3dB with a split on Timecode, but some inputs are very fussy about TC level. Using a small distribution amp would compensate for these losses.

I would also not advise using Denecke and Ambient TC/genlock boxes. Use just one and not the other, to make sure everything's absolutely identical. This is critical for 3D.

I have no solution for the 24/25 question except to do what Brent suggested before: shoot it all at 24 and speed it up to 25fps in post at the very end. Stuff like this is why lots of tests prior to production are really critical.

 

[Deanan]

Do not T split the Genlock, it'll put it below spec or right on the edge.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

This is interesting...

This is interesting...

Here is a link to a Youtube video made by a director whose shoot was also ruined by the 25FPS problem two weeks before it hit our shoot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlepN_KwpVc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Everyone involved says they contacted Red and were working with them, yet when it happened to us, no one at Red had ever heard of such a thing.


Cutting edge cameras are cool. Cover ups are not.

I have been a serious supporter of Red and the Red way of making cameras since day one. The idea of shipping beta cameras and having the community finish them only works when there is open and honest communication. I have reason to believe that this philosophy has changed recently in a fundamental way. Have you been wondering why Philip Bloom hasn't been around? He was blacklisted for posting about the same thing: http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/

I suspect you won't be hearing from me for a while, but I challenge people from Red to a address these concerns, and b not remove critical-but-helpful messages from the message board they control.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

So it's been almost two months. Can Epic reliably shoot 25FPS yet?

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

hey? shooting 25fps only since june. zero problems here

 

[Brent Robinson]

Are you shooting in stereo 3d?

 

[Seth Larney]

I didn't watch that youtube link all the way through - so correct me if I"m wrong, but those guys weren't shooting 3D, were they? As I understand it, their camera was just dropping frames on its own? If that's the case and indeed your problem is the same one (I have no idea if it is or not), then surely it has nothing to with the sync and is a single camera problem? But you said you changed the camera that was drifting and it did the same thing? In which case surely it is NOT the same problem as those guys in the youtube link and would surely to be related to the 3D setup, right?

Did you try just sitting both cameras next to each other with nothing attached besides power and rolling on a TC slate? That way you should be able to tell if each of the cameras is actually *dropping frames* (as per the guy in the youtube link), or whether its a sync problem? His problem seemed to be pretty specific.