John Blankenship

Michael, I did playback for a music video recently that was shot using the P2 cards. We sent timecode to track 2 of the cam. After it went into post I spoke with one of the producers who was surprised, likewise, that Avid will not read the timecode from the P2 cards the way it does from tape. Fortunately, we used a slate, so all is okay. That sounds like a good NAB question for Avid and Panny. Hopefully, someone who goes this year will report back to the rest of us. John Blankenship

Lee, How long are your antennas? I have two 72 series transmitters and use what I call "floppy antennas" (mini plug with a single flexible wire antenna) on both, and also use the same type of antenna on my 216 transmitter. IIRC, my 72 antennas are 15 inches long. I mention this because I've had very good results distance-wise with all my Comteks. Of course, they don't equal a Lectro wireless, but for their purpose, I've found the floppy antennas to be fine. They've done well this way for for both monitoring and for wireless timecode. My guess is that you'd need to go with something better than just the whip coming out of the BNC to improve them much. Of course, I could be wrong. The phase-right might be what you're looking for. John Blankenship

Did you notice they're also coming out with a 3 channel mixer (SX-M32) at about the $1900 price point. It is to include digital (AES) outputs. They have a PDF with a block diagram of it available on the site. JB

http://www.mikesradioworld.com/ JB

<i>"...Also, do you put a label on the DVD itself (in case it should get separated from its home)?"</i> From my personal experience, I strongly advise against putting any stick-on labels on a DVD. Maybe a DVD-RAM is more robust in this regard but I learned the hard way that DVD-Rs don't like them. Early on in my DVD history I did paper labels. Two different disks that behaved well when I made them quit working properly after a few months. Having heard that stick-on labels could be a problem, I ripped the labels off (not an easy task -- that's tenacious adhesive) and they both once again played fine (although now they looked like crap). I haven't used paper labels since. There are some inexpensive printers available that will print on DVDs. A couple of years ago I bought an Epson R200 for about a hundred bucks that does a fine job (they make their money on the ink). Also, there are new DVD blanks that are supposed to be more durable ink-wise, although I don't know if they're available in a DVD-RAM version. When I don't have the time or facilities to print labels, I just use Sharpies. To my knowledge, I haven't had any problem with DVDs because they were labeled with Sharpies. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Terrific! Thanks for the laugh of the day. JB

Courtney, You win the prize! After hours and hours of looking for what you suggested and everything else under the sun -- even combing through the registry -- it, indeed, turned out to be the 3D simulation. The problem was that I had to first find it and turn it ON before I could then turn it OFF. Go figure. Courtney, YOU ROCK -- and so does this forum! A big THANK YOU also to Matt and Philip for your help. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Naw, we were shooting directly to Hi-Def. The people were all nice and overall they were good to work with. I just found that particular comment and their general attitude toward the audio to be typical of too many producers today. These days, people will shoot Hi-Def because they want the picture to be better. They'll take plenty of time to light it because they want the picture to be better. They'll make all kinds of changes because they want the picture to be better. Then they tell audio, "Get this mic'd quickly, we need to shoot." Naturally, they don't want to do any sound checks before shooting. I've worked with a number of producers who don't approach sound this way. These enlightened pros consider sound to be an important part of the whole. I always try to remember to appreciate and cherish these people. JB

So, today I'm on an out-of-town industrial shoot. We're shooting what I'll call testamonials. The subject matter requires that a box of Kleenex be handy to wipe frequent tears. At one point the producer/director tells me to move the boom mic much further from the subject because it's distracting one of the two people on camera. He said, "We really don't care how this sounds, we just care how it looks." It's a living. JB

Philip, It's beginning to sound like the MS Crystal drivers may be the culprit. There may be nothing I can do about it. I even tried installing the older drivers under XP but had no success with that. Thanks again for the input. JB

Philip, That was my thinking, but then I tried it on more than one ThinkPad and even swapped the hard drives in a given unit. The only change being one hard drive has 98se installed, one has 2000, and the other has XP. All the rest is the same hardware. A new, clean install of XP gave the same problematic results. Maybe there's a magic software setting somewhere that I haven't figured out. I've definitely looked. The one thing that I was thinking was that maybe the Crystal WDM sound drivers were different. On the newer operating system, they're built into Windows, whereas with 98se they need to be installed separately. Which model ThinkPad did you have? The ones I have are Model 600E. Maybe yours used different drivers. This one sure has me perplexed. Any ideas on how I should proceed to solve it? Thanks, JB

Good thought but I've tried muting everything except what's absolutely necessary and I get the same result. Thanks, JB

I'm using a laptop for sync playback for music videos with the song in mono on channel one and timecode on channel two. I've been using Windows 98se and playing back with Sound Forge. The output comes from the computer's built-in headphones mini-jack. The setup works really well for this application. The computer is a ThinkPad with a 366mHz processor. I recently added a second ThinkPad as a backup. (Older laptops are dirt cheap -- ain't it great!) So, on the second laptop I decided to install a newer operating system only to discover something alarming. With Windows 2000 or Windows XP, there is a great deal of crosstalk between channels. Using either of these two newer operating systems, the time code is audible (at a lower level, of course) in channel one. Windows 98se has practically no crosstalk. The difference is not hardware related. I can swap the hard drive in a given unit and get the same results. I haven't found any software settings that seem to affect the crosstalk at all. Playing back a WAV file in Windows Media Player, I get the same result: practically no crosstalk in Win98se and a lot of crosstalk in the two newer operating systems. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Thanks, John Blankenship, CAS Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

He was confused because he didn't know if it was you or the voices in his head. JB

Fernando, Again, I think you are confusing the transmitter with the receiver. The Lectro receivers operate at full gain and pad down the output to whatever level you choose. Although my conversations with Larry have been about the 200 series transmitters, my guess is that the 400 series is similar. In the 200 series there is a buffer stage prior to the level control. The buffer stage will handle about 1.5v. RMS. Easier than arguing, however, is to turn your transmitter gain full up. I think you'll hear excessive noise. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

"...letting the Lectro at maximum gain (since it is, iirc, an attenuator)..." I believe that is not quite the case. You may be thinking of the output of the Lectro receivers which always operate at maximum gain and then use resistive padding to adjust the output level. The transmitters, (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) have a gain stage prior to the input level adjustment. Operating it wide open is going to give you a lot of extra noise. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Jeff, Contratulations on your daughter's wedding! I also like my R-09. Firmware update 1.10 added support for SDHC (high capacity) memory cards which allows for higher than 2gb cards. (They mention in the update notes that "MacOS9 is not campatible with over 2GB file system in SDHC." I notice that the newest update is now 1.20 which has added some more new features like a maximum file size (when it reaches the maximum size specified, it starts a new file), peak LED hold, and a repair file function. It's available at: http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=757&ParentId=114 click on "downloads" On the first R-09 I owned, the line-in jack broke and so I got a replacement. My point is, be very careful with not bumping the plugs sticking out of the unit. It's an extremely lightweight device and is not as robust as we're used to. With that said, there's a lot to like about this little gem. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

We should have no fear of hanging onto established terminology. After all, language is about communication. If always being literally correct were the requirement, most human interaction would quickly break down -- except for sex, of course. If another department takes you to task for your terminology, keep in mind how often you hear camera people refer to CinemaScope as having an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 when, in fact, the format was modified to 2.40:1 by the SMPTE in the early seventies (to help hide splices). John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

If you can solder at all, it couldn't be much easier. Purchase a 9v. battery snap-on connector: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062219&cp=2032058&f=Taxonomy%2FRSK%2F2032058&categoryId=2032058&kwCatId=2032058&kw=battery+snap&parentPage=search (A package of 5 is only $1.99.) Also purchase a coaxial DC power plug: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103614&cp=2032058.2032231.2032284&parentPage=family (This is just a sample of what the connector looks like, this may not be the correct size. I don't know the size off-hand, so just take one of the units with you to R.S. and find a connector that fits properly.) Then, solder the red lead from the snap-on connector to the center lead of the barrel connector and the black lead to the sleeve. (Don't forget to put the screw-on handle portion over the wires before you solder them so you can screw the handle into place when you're done. Make sure the wires don't short together when you screw on the handle.) It's one of the easiest solder jobs you could do. Your best bet is to do it yourself or find someone nearby that can solder. If you can't, I could do some for you, but see if you can make it happen locally first. Good luck. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Don't we have a penalty jar around here somewhere? Anyone who mentions the "R" word is fined a quarter. I, too, tend to vist here more than RAMPS now, however, I don't wish to desert RAMPS completely. I think it still has a great deal of value. One of the big advantages this forum has over RAMPS is that we don't have to listen to all the obsessive-compulsives who want to get into long, drawn-out debates about the "charter" of the newsgroup when a topic they don't like crops up. (Nothing against obsessive-compulsives, mind you, I just think all that energy can be channeled better -- for instance, into tweeking gear to get the last dB.) My compliments -- and thanks -- to Jeff. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

As I got the story, here's the reason they aired the additional Doritos commercial: Sometime prior to the Super Bowl they had a large company meeting where they unveiled all the spots that would be airing for PepsiCo's products (as you probabaly know, Frito-Lay is a division of PepsiCo). They also aired the five Doritos finalists. One of their other products had a couple of commercials scheduled for airing. The five Doritos finalists got such a huge response -- and the top two were so close together in votes -- that the company decided to pull one of the other commercials and air a second Doritos spot instead. The official release is at: http://www.fritolay.com/fl/flstore/cgi-bin/ProdDetEv_Cat_304_NavRoot_303_ProdID_544013.htm With the Colts, the story is that when Coach Dungy first addressed the team he said in his usual calm tones, "Do you hear how loud I'm speaking to you now? This is the loudest I'll ever get." (Or something to that effect.) A class act. IIRC, you told me a couple of years ago that you're a long time Colts fan, so congrats to both of us. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Dave, Congrats on also making the finals! Doritos is going to be airing the top five for the next couple of months. The air dates I have been given so far are: Week of 2/19, Network: Adult Swim and G4 Weeks of 2/26, 3/5 and 3/12, Network: Adult Swim, G4, MTV and Comedy Central John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

The last music video I worked on that was shot on hi-def video went like this: I confirmed that we were shooting on a Panasonic hi-def camera and the director spoke with post and confirmed that we would not be linking to camera timecode. I prepared a playback tape with a mono mix of the song on track one and timecode on track two. Since we were shooting on a Panny, I recorded timecode at 29.97 NDF, its native tongue (even in 24P mode). Since this was video and not film, I didn't do any pull-up speed correction on the music and timecode -- necessary if playing back for film that would be transferred with pull-down to video. I recorded several minutes of time code starting at a minute before the 1 hour mark. That way I could position the start of the song at the 1 hour point and still have plenty of pre-roll without timecode wrap-around issues. On playback, the time code went to a timecode slate as a visual sync reference for post. I spoke with the project's editor and explained that he may need to establish an offset due to digital processing issues with the picture -- usually no more than a frame or so -- but that once he extablished the offset, everything should line up fine. For your playback, be prepared to start at different points within the song for pick-ups, etc. Good luck and have fun. ======= WHOOPS! I just re-read your original post (short attention span) and realize that you were asking specifically about playback within a recorded scene as opposed to for a music video. So, please use anything that is helpful in the above and ignore the rest. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

David, Yep, the voltages you're getting are normal. I, too, was concerned when I first measured mine but (so far with a dozen in service) they seem to work beautifully. Nice, quick recharge, too. Michael, I haven't normally run mine until they die so how quickly do they quit after you get a low voltage reading from the transmitter? Thanks, John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)

Phil, Just use a standard barrel connector. I'm not sure which size. I just rummaged through my parts until I found some that fit fine. You should be able to buy both the snap-on connector (for the 9v. battery) and the barrel connector (to plug into the transmitter) at your local Radio Shack. The positive lead of the battery goes to the center of the barrel connector. Let us know how they work for you. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!)