DVL-Digest 570 - Postings: Index Amazing is not always Features Sony and Panasonic vx1000viewfinder default Amazing is not always Features - "Perry" I guess I'm slightly more conservative than Clifton in my belief in Digital takes over! A couple of examples: 1) Say 20 years ago, I found continual problems with appliance 'programmers'. That is the device that makes your washing machine know what to do. They are quite complicated mechanical machines that are obviously built to a price and yet cost an arm and a leg to replace. The first microprocessor chip controlled machines came along for the luxury models, and I thought great, soon that horrible unreliable mechanical monster will be no more. Now here we are 20 years on, and nothing has changed except that it seems that the mechanical programmers have got a lot more reliable. 2) A little less OT, my kids often get these throwaway 35mm cameras and in good light they are fantastic! You can even get underwater ones and all the big drug stores in UK will do 1 hour processing or stick the pictures on a CD in a few days. You would have to pay over to get equivalent picture quality to these film cameras with digital. The one thing the digital stills cameras CAN do is to take short movie sequences but to exploit this they need to rethink the operating mode. What you need is a continuous loop recording system where the operator decides when to STOP recording. The fact that you only have say 10 secs capacity then doesn't matter. It seems to me that most household appliances have very small inherent materials value, most of the cost is down to Marketing, Costs of Sale, and of course Profits. It is a bit like wine in the UK where it is said that a bottle has less than 10c of wine in it. This completely distorts the market and it still seems crazy to me that we get better value wine from South America, South Africa and Australia than we do from just over the Channel. Clifton's digital toy camera was probably using surplus or obsolete components. The best bargain digital cameras are those models from a couple of years ago that got trampled in the rush for bigger/smaller and better. A good few years ago a UK entrepreneur made his fortune by selling little computers based upon faulty chips. He would buy very cheap half working 64K RAM chips and sell the computer as having 32K of RAM. It turned out that they proved so popular that the chip manufacturers were unloading surplus fully working RAM chips and knowledgeable users could double their RAM with a piece of wire! Sorry for the ramble! Perry Mitchell Video Facilities http://www.perrybits.co.uk/ Sony and Panasonic - Perry Mitchell >There is some fierce competition between Sony and Panasonic, has been so for many years. Panasonic has purchased Sony technology in cases where they had something we needed, like the chip set for our WV-F200 camera was the same chip set that was in Sony's DXC-3000 camera(older cameras), but I have not seen any example where Sony has purchased a Matsushita technology. I don't see much hope of that changing either.< There is a lot closer 'co-operation' than the external image of two deadly rivals would make apparent. We regularly used to see streams of Panasonic executives being given tours around the 'secret' technology exhibits in the back rooms of exhibitions like NAB and IBC. I must admit I don't recall a major Panasonic component used on a Sony product, but the first Betacams relied on a vital Hitachi chip and Sony buys in most of its LCD screens from companies like Sharp. My information is that Sony CCD chips are on some current JVC and Panasonic cameras. There is a lot of cross manufacture of chips; I once took my camera to shoot a new Sony Semiconductor warehouse in UK and it was full of Texas Instruments cartons! Rumour has it of course that Panasonic supplied DV tape to Sony while they changed formulation. When I left Ampex in 1980 they used to spool Sony tape onto Ampex reels for use at exhibitions and spec tests, when I joined Sony I found they were doing the reverse! Talking about Ampex, they used to use an 'alarm clock' chip to do the timecode functions inside their C format portable. It always caused amusement because the relevant pin on the circuit diagram was still labelled 'Snooze Control'! Sony has occasionally licenced technology and even sold whole badge engineered products when it suits. The current ES-3 DVCAM editor is made by FAST, and there is an audio multitrack system actually made by Fostex. Just after I joined Sony in 1980 I was playing golf with the manager of the new crt plant in Wales. To start some small talk, I said I had just bought a new Sony tv set and remarked how good the Trinitron tube was. He chuckled and finally admitted to me that the tubes were being made in a rival plant for a couple of years whilst they ramped up production! Perry Mitchell Video Facilities http://www.perrybits.co.uk/ vx1000viewfinder default - "Perry" Keith Johnston posted: >I shot with the vx1000, and my question is do anyone know how to make sure the image in the viewfinder is the same going to tape...I remember thinking when I was shooting this time, that is was bad looking.< Keith, I think you answered your own question! As a fellow VX1000 owner I have to say that the viewfinder is of only very limited use. It gives you a guide to shot composition but annoyingly cuts off the edges. It gives you a warning that the colour balance is way off but certainly doesn't give an accurate look. It doesn't even give a good guide to exposure without the zebra. I've had very good value from my VX1000 and the limited sensitivity hasn't really worried me for my use, but I would swap it tomorrow for a VX2000 (hiss'n'all) for a better viewfinder and the fold out screen. It has to be said though that judging picture quality on anything except a full size display is always problematic. You have to largely trust the camera to reproduce it's normal look when given the requisite conditions. With modern digital cameras, short term drift is not usually a problem (wasn't always like that!) so if the picture is bad it is because you either haven't set it up right or because the conditions are wrong. Perry Mitchell Video Facilities http://www.perrybits.co.uk/ (diese posts stammen von der DV-L Mailingliste - THX to Adam Wilt and Perry Mitchell :-) [up] |
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