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Fusion/Deva on the cart, Nomad in the bag


Matthias Richter

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so I made the jump and got me a Nomad 12 for my bag. 

 

How do you guys with a Deva / Fusion on your cart and a Nomad (or other Zax-recorder) in your bag handle the workflow with the primary and / or mirror-card?

 

When going from cart to bag: do you pull both cards to continue your recordings into the same primary folder?

 

Would make sense. Post couldn´t even tell which machine you used.

 

Pulling the primary card on a daily basis makes me bit nervous though.

 

Just changing the mirror card doesn´t make sense really does it?

The Nomad would start with Seg001 on it´s own primary card which would lead to double named files from two recorders?

 

 

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I have a Deva 5.8 and a Nomad 12 so I can't swap out the primary card!

 

What I do is use a separate mirror card and call it X001 (or whatever roll no.) as opposed to 001.

 

I then send in 2 mirror cards and 2 sound reports.

 

I have thought of recording a number of empty segments on the Nomad to get the file number to be the same as my Deva file number and then mirror from there onto the Deva card, but never gone through with it!

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I switch between a Nomad and a Maxx on the same day sometimes. The cards have to be formatted differently so no chance to use the same one. If I'm using one recorder I name the folder in backwards date format  e.g..

 

150316-

 

If I have two recorders that day it's

 

150316A

150316B

 

A quick note to post and then it's pretty clear. 

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I've done it both ways.

I tried swapping the primary card, and it worked fine. Obviously you need to use the classic Deva/Nomad filename scheme and not the scene/take one since the Fusion doesn't support that. I also did jobs where I made the Fusion the A recorder and the Nomad the B recorder. Same thing we do on a reality job with multiple zaxcom mixers working. Since getting my Nomad, I haven't done a ton of jobs that have both recorders in play the same day.

There was an older thread about this, and that was what made me try sharing cards. I'm going to guess the thread was about 2 years old based on the film i used it. It was either here or on the Zaxcom.com forums. 

I guess we are a little unique that the Fusion and Nomad are the only machines that can share primary & mirror sources like that. I don't *think* you could somehow share a card with a Nomad and Maxx. Maybe if it was Maxx formatted and then..... ok, getting messy and off topic. 

 

Obviously test it at home first. Just to make sure there hasn't been a firmware update to the Nomads that makes it not work. I don't think the Deva firmware has had updates in a while... at least nothing I installed. 

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I switch between a Nomad and a Maxx on the same day sometimes. The cards have to be formatted differently so no chance to use the same one. If I'm using one recorder I name the folder in backwards date format  e.g..

 

150316-

 

If I have two recorders that day it's

 

150316A

150316B

 

A quick note to post and then it's pretty clear. 

 

What happens if you put a Maxx formatted card in a Nomad primary slot? Will it record ok in the Primary partition? Could you mirror that Primary partition to a Nomad's mirror slot later? I obviously need to buy a Maxx to test this out. 

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I use a Deva on the cart and a Nomad in a bag. Since I use a Compact Flash card as my internal drive on the Deva, I can just swap the main drive between them as Johnpaul mentioned he does with a fusion.

Also, as previously mentioned, you need to stay with the traditional folder-naming convention, and limit it to eight characters (seven, if you're using some older Nomad firmware). If you're using non-alphanumeric characters, test ahead of time by entering directory names on each machine to make sure they both support them. Don't quote me on this -- my memory may be foggy on this point -- but I recall a time when the Nomad didn't support a dash and the Deva did. I use an underline, which both have always supported.

I came up with a directory naming convention that has proven to be helpful. On a show last year with multiple days, and more than one Nomad-based mixer on board, I wanted to have a naming convention that would always keep files organized in a non confusing way. I originally used a seven character version (eliminating the leading "1") but now that Nomad supports more characters, I now use eight, as that is what Deva has always supported.

The convention is simply...

150316A_

...which is two digits each of Year, Month, Day, and an identifying letter, followed by an underline. With the date in this order, on a computer files will sort chronologically. The letter can designate which mixer, or reel, etc., and the underline separates this part of the name from the sequential numbers for each file, making them a bit easier to read.

This has turned out to be a dependable method, that even makes it easy to know when a particular job took place, just by looking at the directory name.

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that totally makes sense. I am only worried to stress the slot of the primary card on a daily basis (maybe not every day but you know what I mean).

Also running around with that still tiny CF-card makes me nervous. All the original recordings are on that card ...

 

I think I will do the A-B setup and wait for post´s reactions.

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I'm unclear on the need to swap around cards to maintain a smooth continuity of data.

 

I can understand that the editor might find it comfortable to have the takes proceed in a continuous data stream that never requires swapping a memory card; I just don't understand why this should compel field recordists to go to great lengths to accomplish it.

 

In my experience working on films in the olden times, there were often occasions when work would proceed out of continuity, jumping from one camera roll or tape roll to another. The script supervisor would make a note and the editor always seemed to manage to find the suitable take. And, a helpful sound mixer would make a prominent note on the sound report (a document that would be scrupulously and vigilantly ignored) that audio was jumping from the audio tape on Nagra A to the roll on Nagra B. If it happened only once on a project, there might be a phone call from the editing room but, by the second time. the editing assistants would get the pattern.

 

These primary flash cards are essentially "camera original" or "Nagra original" and should, I think, be treated as such. They should reside in the machine until the day's work is done and be removed only when suitably copied. A serious mishap in the course of swapping about may be unlikely but the possible consequences are calamitous.

 

David

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David,

Camera constantly swaps their "camera original" cards on most every gig these days, and we're as good as they are <G>.

In point of fact, the main card swap thing doesn't happen very often, and if I were concerned at all I would just use an "A" and "B" in my filenaming convention mentioned above to differentiate between machines.

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yes (and no). I still used my 744 for bag work and that always needed some longish emails to editorial before we started shooting to make sure they use it the way I wanted. If you know the guys from previous work - it´s no big deal. But with some assistant editors it became quite a conversation sometimes.

So I think now that at least my track layout remains the same both cart and bag, I will be fine.

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They copy the cards from both cams, labeled A and B, data from each card going into a separate folder.

Usually camera file naming will be something like A003C012 for the 12th clip on the 3rd card of the A camera.

I think an editor who understands this camera file naming pattern will also understand a similar sound file naming pattern if two machines are used.

Just make sure they know that an "A" or "B" sound folder has nothing to do with an "A" or "B" camera.

 

With a scene/take file naming pattern this is a non-issue.

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I have a Fusion and a Nomad 10. I swap primary card to Nomad from Fusion and back again when the day takes me back on the cart. I do not need to do it too often, as most of my stuff is on the cart, but there have been no problems so far. Mostly this has happened when starting day in normal cart mode then we go do a process vehicle, or driving scene, or something like that. After it is done, pull the card out of the Nomad and back in the Fusion it goes to continue on the same roll I was just on for the driving scene.

 

CRAIG

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