obie2

Thanks for all the suggestions and especially Richard who always has great suggestions, my best to you and your family. If I could I certainly would just boom the off camera actor in another room, but I fear we will have a number of occaisons when the off camera actor is not on set. Cell tap looks to be a good solution. Thanks All David Obermeyer

I have been asked to record both sides of a cell phone call where one caller is on camera and the other caller is not on set. Wondering what other people have done before since I know it comes up. Was looking at JK Audios Cell Tap. Has anyone used this with any success and wouldn't you need a 3 way call. Any help would b appreciated. Thanks David Obermeyer

I worked on several films as Les Lazarowitz's cable man and remember him telling me about that shot. He was first of all upset because they nailed it, but was ultimately ADR because of performance. I don't recall the shot exactly but I do know that it involved two mono Nagra's. One was placed under the cart that the waiter rolls along with I believe a plant mic.

When 3M stopped making 208 because it was not profitable, it marked a change in technology for me away from Nagra towards DAT which was at best a consumer product. Quantegy was never able to duplicate with any success the low print thru and signal to noise ratio that 208 had. Though I loved my Nagras and did not want to make a change to DAT,it seemed like we were going backwards with 1/4" and analogue machines because the tape stock that was being made was not as good as it used to be. Lack of profit was the end of 208, I wonder how long DVD-RAM will be available since it seems like a shrinking market of professional users next to a much larger consumer market. Jeff your post made me think about how tied we are to the media that we put into our machines and how we as professionals are tied to a consumer market. David Obermeyer

Recently I upgraded to a Deva V, which I am now wondering why I waited so long,but now comes the question of what to do with my Deva II, I am getting the impression that FAT 16 is becoming either obsolete or at least something that creates havoc at Post houses. I also got the feeling from some earlier posts somewhwere that newer Fostex DV40's can not read FAT 16, is this correct ? I was thinking of doing away with a DAT back-up which I do out of habit and use the Deva II as a backup. Though I have never lost audio with either Deva, hard drives do fail and I do feel the need to have a second machine on the cart. It seems using FAT 16 as a backup when everything was recorded at FAT 32 is a bad idea. Would love to hear from the Post side of things as well as from Mixers who find themselves in a similar situation. It makes it harder since recently I had a case stolen with all my Deva II cables and extra hard drives, as if that has any value to anyone the street. Thanks David Obermeyer

I have a question about variable folder size for the Deva. Being a DevaII user I am familiar with the 2gig partition. Currently with the Deva II I keep all of the past work on the drive and only erase a partition as needed.What will happen if lets say I happen to fill a drive with variable folder sizes representing a days worth of work. When the the drive is full I erase folder 1, what happens if I want to record a larger folder size than was erased. Not sure if I said it right but if a folder equals a days work the drive becomes full, I erase a folder of a small days work and then find myself in a large multi-track day and exceed the folder size I erased. What happens then?

Have been reading this thread with great interest, more for the sake of wo camera shooting wide and tight shooting simultaneously than the disappearing RF space. I would be happy to say that the wires don't work we better plan coverage with a boom in mind. Two cameras is what has taken the fun out of my job as a mixer. I remember stategically using plant mics, booms and the occaisonal wire for what I felt was nice matching perspective knowing that in coverage I would get all of the dialogue on a boom and that a good editor could easily replace clean coverage into a master. I still argue all the time for two-medium shots or two wide, but never wide and tight, I often have good luck and will fight for it because I can remember the days when a wireless meant automatically that ADR would be needed because they were so inconsistent.With in home sound systems being so much better and theatres with really good sound you would think that Producers and the other crafts would care more for a great sound track that preserves the hard work of the actors and does justice to their performances. I could really start to rant now but will stop.

I have a general question for Deva IV & V users. I have done six or seven features using a DevaII with a Fostex PD-4 backup DAT, as I contemplate switching to a Deva IV, what are other people using as a backup and how. I sincerely wish to leave the DAT machines at home and backup on some other media,however I also don't really want to spend a lot of time at the end of the day burning discs other than my DVD-RAM which usually needs just a few minutes to catch up, since I start mirroring at lunch. Can the current Deva's mirror simultaneously to other hard drives? Is anybody using a DevaII to backup a DevaV and in what capacity. For me the hours are long enough, teamsters want to get going and I just don't want to spend time after wrap doing back up work, since between the hard drive and the DVD-RAM I am not sure if anything else is needed. Would love to hear from others on this.