Jon Gilbert

Not worth the trouble, I think we probably all have one of those lurking around somewhere!

I'm prepping for my next job right now, I'm doing 48 days in Afghanistan, in 3 stints of 16 days thankfully! On active patrol with the troops, so am currently on a refresher course for my 'Hostile Environments' certification, then next week I'll start  prepping the kit, and myself for the desert.

I'm off to Afghanistan in a few weeks, and having been told we're shooting on one of these I thought I'd search here to see if anyone had used on, good to know you can rely on JWSound!

And thanks to you Paul for the tips.

We have a long history of Indian food in the UK, but I know most of it bears little resemblance to what's eaten in Indian homes, I've always enjoyed the food in India, and tried to replicate it at home, with various degrees of success!

Vin,

If you ever find yourself in the UK, I'll do the cooking, you put your feet up

We had a lamb and spinach dish last night, with dhal, mushroom rice and rotis, there's plenty left in the fridge for when I get back from work late tonight.

I was going to say the same regarding lavs, if you test it, and it works, and it doesn't crackle when you wiggle the cable, the connector or the capsule, then it's cool!

I have a mix of new lavs, lavs bought from friends and lavs bought off ebay, all are considered as reliable as each other.

I seldom use a formal resume, in my part of our business (I'm a UK based documentary recordist), I think a credit list is sufficient, and since I've had my website live, which I sorted earlier this year, I just direct people there, and it seems to work.

I've had work through people Googling for someone in my area, and prospective new clients seem to like to see the site. I've started putting an intermittent update on what I've been doing, rather than something which needs updating regularly, nothing worse than an out of date website, I just put what I've been doing in the previous few months.

Although there's a link in my signature, I'll put a link here also

www.jongilbertsound.co.uk

Richmond Film and Video, or a guy who sells cables on ebay called wireman0160 are the two people I'd recommend, Richmond are expensive, have been around for years and are reliable, Wireman is pretty cheap, but has proven himself to me at least, to be 100% reliable and really knows his stuff.

If you want his email, PM me.

I made a surfing doc a couple of years ago, I used tx's in aqua pacs on the surfers, with the lavs wrapped in rubber finger stalls (like tiny condoms)

I was in the water with a CS3E with a Lectro butt plug on a long pole, and the bag was in a peli case on the beach, right on the shore line, recording everything. Against the odds everything worked perfectly, no kit failure, lot's of usable dialog, I'd do it the same way tomorrow!

Having seen the distances you'll be working at, substitute a boat for the shore line and you should be OK

I use them and don't worry too much about charging cycles etc, and I think they're well worth the time, money and effort involved, I usually charge them in the car on the way to work. I think they've paid for themselves many times over.

My initial batch do seem to have lost a little charge, but not enough for me to worry about it, I just keep an eye on the battery level and change them when I get a chance. They've probably all been totally drained at some point or other, with seemingly no ill effects.

I've been vaguely aware of possible problems for ages, but never faced them myself, first time for everything though

Returning from Japan recently, all the batteries got inspected, which I've never experienced before, a guy with a multimeter fiddled about with them for a bit, and declared that one of my L-Ion NP1's had to travel in my hand luggage and one could stay in the Pelican going in the hold, they didn't notice the 8 iPowers I was carrying. Two of the camera batteries (large IDX V-Lok) were confiscated and not allowed to travel and two were passed as fit for travel. Confusing? Yes!

I do pretty much what BVS says, works for me (US!)

Not related to the OP, but I had a friend with an SQN which would through the course of a day need more and more gain applying to any mic inputs used, and on occasion the outputs would suffer a similar fate, a few days back at SQN Towers and a few quid later and all was groovy again.

In 15 years of travelling for TV productions, I've never, ever had to sort out my own international travel or carnet, unless it's a client you know I would take that as a warning sign!

On another note, if you wanted to hire a whole kit in London, I know a few recordists who could probably help, that would save the carnet and the excess baggage costs.....

Something to remember is that high mAh NiMH batteries (usually 2450+) suffer from very high self discharge, meaning you can't really charge them and then wait a week to use them. Next-day or day two is ok, but their charge dissipates rapidly. However batteries like the Eneloop and others (often rated closer to 2000 mAh) are low or ultra-low self-discharge batteries and can be charged and kept at the ready for a much longer period of time.

It's worth remembering though that Eneloops, Goodtogos, Imedions etc are different a formulation to 'regular' batteries, so it's not the case that because a battery has a lower mAh rating it will perform like an Eneloop, only batteries using that formulation have the longer shelf life

I was in Tokyo a few weeks ago and tried to get hold of a CS-2 there, but couldn't find one.

Change your thread to a warning about working for that particular production company then, or on that particular show, rather than branding the whole PBS network as untrustworthy.

I sympathise with anyone who struggles to get paid, but make sure the dirt is slung in the right direction........

I always keep an up to date one, mainly for Carnet use, it's important to make sure it is up to date though, Carnet mistakes can be costly, and production managers don't always check that the list they have is the current one!

Whist I loved the HD-P2, the 744T is in a different league in so many ways, money well spent!

I never did nail down what the sync problems were with working with that machine, after investing is the green Lockits I thought it would be sorted, but the edit still had problems, so I put it down to the files being incorrectly imported in the edit or the wrong TC setting being used in the editing software, as all the checks I did on location and at home after seemed to show the sound and pictures were in sync.

We're using a different editor, using Final Cut Pro this time, and he's had no problems at all, so it's impossible to say where the previous problems were...

I've used Hawk Woods kit, both batteries and power distros for years and find it all excellent, so if it's quality issues you're worried about, worry not!

The rushes are now in the edit (40gb shot over a continuous 18 day shoot) and the editor is happy with the timecode and synching the audio (which he never was when I worked with an HD-P2 and a couple of lockits) He's also happy with the sound quality (which should go without saying, I know) and the Sound Report PDFs have made their lives a little quicker and easier, so top marks all round. I think the 744T is the best thing I've ever bought!

http://petergray.org/lockits.html

The Lockit page

I bought one from Amazon here in the UK as it seemed the best compromise for a backup recorder without spending too much money, but after one faulty unit and two replacements with different faults I gave up and bought one of the cheap tascam devices

After having serious problems with (I think) 3 Microtrak II's I'd seriously look elsewhere for the backup device.