Bartek

I have to say that regardless of what the subject matter is, rolling on anyone one going to the bathroom is plain out unprofessional.

Hey gang, what are the most open blocks down in Shreveport these days? Its been a long while since I've done work in Louisiana. thank you in advance. - Bartek

This is a great new product, unfortunately it's potential will not be fully utilized unless there is a "mixer" that can support this device. All those of us who refuse to adopt the jumboloid Yamaha style mixers are screaming out for a SD controll surface. It's like buying a LAMBORGINI without a steering wheel.

I would like to formally and publicly offer my apologies for incorrectly stating that LSC has sold or knowingly attempted to sell expired AA lithium batts. My initial statement on that particular issue was factually incorrect, as pointed out by Larry. I have no issues apologizing for an ignorant in the heat of the moment statement. Mark I have to say that I would not be able to distinguish a counterfeit AA from a real one if they apparently look the same. And Senator, the substitution issue is a bit of a recurring problem I have spoken with sales reps in the past, but this time around it actually made me look like an ass in front a client, putting my position, and future work in jeopardy. This compounded by a remote location and the fact that this all happened over a weekend, caused a bit of a pressure cooker situation, if you know what I mean, that ultimately has led me to the above apology.

Larry, Allow mw to clarify, while I do understand the ramifications of calling an entity "dishonest" it was not attached to the battery issue, but to the practice of substituting expendables for what the person prepping the order deems an acceptable replacement. The right thing to do is to call the customer and say that you do not have the appropriate product in stock, like any other vendor would do. Im guessing that this was done either out of laziness, inexperience, or out of the fear that my not having a part of the order I the customer (or the prod co in this case) would go somewhere else, some place that can sell me the entire order. Whatever the reason at the very least this is a Shitty business practice, if the word dishonest must be omitted. What really ticks me of is that this is not the first time that this vendor has done this, with multiple items. I have edited my original post to exclude the name of the vendor involved, for the sake of civility. While I do see how my original post came off as a "whine fest" Its intention was to alert the members here that a bad batch was on the prowl. The batteries that had 3/11 punched into them (an expiration date i assumed, that apparently is the manufacture date, my bad) had an incredible fail rate. 30-60% of them lasted under an hour in an SM Tx. Some didn't even fire up the Tx at all. I have burned through thousands of batteries in my days, but never had i experienced fail ratios like those. so while my original post was a bit heated, and perhaps a bit clumsily written, I do stand behind the point it makes. Bartek

hey gang, Just wanted to share a problem I've encountered with AA lithium batteries bought through a vendor. The last two shows I've done my production company has ordered these batteries through this vendor, and they have been WAY expired, the last show I did that started in early october the batteries had an expiration of 3/11!!!!!!!!!!!! We caught that one too late, but this time around I opened the expendables and checked the lithium AA right away and guess what, they are still pushing out expired batts. this time they were expired by only three months. They also did substitute Rycote windjammers for overcovers, without checking with us first. Kinda dishonest IMHO! Bartek

that is the reason why i was a bit disappointed today, I really was hoping for a knockout recording device

the most impressive "new" function of the recorder part of the 664 is the separate external slate input, and i assume its own circuitry, so that you don't burn an input by using a slate.....788 im looking at you! :-)

well than, let me be the first to offer to buy your 788T SSD from you!

... and yes It will make them a boat load of $$$$

sorry Matt i wasn't very specific, the product itself seems at first glance to be a fine tuning of the 552 idea. It does appear to be a good product, in my book SD only made one poor piece of equipment, and that is fairly impressive if you compare it to the competition. My disappointment is aimed at the company strategy. It is a response to the Nomad, nothing else. And it is a first piece of SOUND gear released in a while. I was expecting something more of a game changer, but than again im just a hopeless romantic :-)

Definitively underwealmed! this appears to be SD move to check Nomad's market share. It appears that they are content with chasing the competition, rather than blowing minds with truly new innovations, like they used to with the 7 series recorders for example.

good Job!

Hey Gang, Great topic! i have in past worked on several "foreign" movies, and TV and have to say that I really enjoyed the experiences. The first thing that you notice is the style of filming, when you think about it there are subtle differences of how we make movies and TV here in the States, the guys on the east coast have their way, the west coast has its way, I was really struck how different the approach to filming can be, and honestly it took a little bit getting used to. The most challenging shoot was a Canal+ show I did for German / Polish TV Series. The crew was a German, Polish, and American medley, The Europeans spoke all three languages, so communication wasn't an issue. The Technical side of things on the other hand was a nightmare. They shot two cameras, each camera was hardwired to a monitor and a "paint box". The sound worked as follows, The Main mixer was hardwired to both the cameras, not for audio but rather for TC and wordclock (they did not want to use lockits) He was responsible for mixing talent mics. when we did interiors we had a boom op. When we had exteriors, the boom op would become a Stereo mixer, and took a dat and a stereo mic rig to record the scene ambiance in real time, also getting a hardline TC feed from the Dialog mixer. This was and unwieldy mess! Completely impractical! A few months later I did a Pakistani movie that was in English and Urdu. It was one of the most laid back enjoyable sets i have ever work on. Lots of playback and exquisite choreography, the crew was incredibly friendly and fun. The weird technical thing was that they did not want TC at all. Everything was shot on 35mm anamorphic with old fashion hard sticks. Playback with no TC ;-) One interesting thing I realized was that languages have various operational ranges, and this I mean in a musical sense. Languages from the far east are on average higher pitch than western ones, and African languages are in general lower. This is pretty cool, because that means that evolutionary development of hearing for those groups ensured that there are differences of sensitivity. I remember a study that was done in the eighties that was inspired by stereo sales. Stereo systems made in Japan at that time and sold in the west emphasized the high mids to the point that if you A-B'd a Japanese made stereo with an American or European brand you could hear it. That discrepancy was eventually attributed to language. This means that our Post friends should probably take that into account when mixing for a movie to be released in Asia. Curiosity did get the better of me once when I did a Chinese film, I pulled out the Sanken CS-3e, that I rarely use in normal circumstances, and I was stunned how well Characters sounded, the mic seemed to emphasize just the right ratios of the frequency spectrum, it was pretty, pretty cool! Moving on to the language challenges. The one common thing about languages is that each has a specific rhythm, If you can learn the rhythm it makes things a lot easer. The harder thing to pick up, but very important is what happens with intonations, most English speakers are tone deaf because english is a very "flat" language. If you don't know what is being spoken you need to be able to process any clues you can, intonations in most european languages can determine the difference between a question, an order, a statement, sarcasm, etc. I found that to be very helpful when dealing with European languages I don't speak, it hints on where dialog transitions might happen. Asian languages of course take that to a whole different level, where several definitions of "the same" word exist through a change of tone, but since i have no idea what is being spoken, that doesn't really help with deciphering who will speak next. But here is the thing, a good boom ops have a big bag of tricks, when it comes to figuring out who will speak next, in general I think those guys are great people watchers. Language is only a pice of the puzzle, not the entire puzzle

I ran the same 788T for about 6 months in "Hotlanta" no issues even with very high humidity, those suckers are well put together. PS: i bet you that you can cook an egg on a well heated up SD 788T recorder.