The music came from the DeWolfe Music library. I am not certain what specific song was used, sorry.

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Art

Sonnet first announced their Thunderbolt adapter back in April at the NAB show. I placed my order in September when they announced the product was ready to ship. The units did not actually ship until December.

I mainly use the E34 slot for a Matrox PCIe card that allows me to run my Panasonic PCD35 P2 card reader in the field. I do have some drives with eSata connections, and I have run those from time to time, but the P2 reader is my main need.

The Echo is a small box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It has one thunderbolt port on one end, and a e34 slot on the other. Because this unit has only one TB port, it must be at the end of the chain. That also limits the use of something like an external capture card like the Decklink UltraStudio, since that unit is also an end unit.

There is no software to install, and nothing to configure. Plug and Play, as they as.

I first tried the Echo with my Matrox PCIe adapter, the MX17330. This is the card that drives my PCD35. Unfortunately, the card is not supported by the Echo, and I cannot get it to work. Looks as if it needs a driver. I spent an hour in queue with Matrox support before I gave up. 

I next tried a eSata card, to see if I could make an external hard drive work. This card is a Griffin e34 to eSata, and worked fine in my old MacBookPro with the e34 slot. In the Echo, I could not get the card to be recognized. Sonnet does have their own esata cards that work with the Echo, that I may need to try.

Next up, a Verbatim e34 to compact flash adapter. Again no go.

In fact, the only card I have that works is a e34 Firewire800 adapter from Nitro AV. This is the least useful card I have.

I did place a call to Sonnet’s tech support. I was told that cards may need driver updates or firmware updates to work with Thunderbolt hosts.

It looks like the AJA card and the Magma card are supported for pcie connections, so I will have to do some more research and try another card.

I will keep posting updates as I sort my way through this.

I followed the Canon event on the live Engadget blog, great job by Michael Gorman on his coverage. Here are my thoughts.

Here is a great page with C300 specs from DVInfo. 

Here is a link to the Canon Product Page for the C300. 

I will start with the price, because with price comes certain expectations. The estimated price will be $20,000, and that is of course without glass. Quite frankly, at this price point, I expect more:

I expect more in the on-board codec. MPEG2 50Mb recording at 8 bits is not getting it done. This is the same issue I have with the Sony F3, and that’s cheaper at $15,000. For this level of money, I think a 100Mb, 10 bit codec is expected, something like the Panasonic AVC-Intra.

The C300 suffers from the same 8bit SDI output that the Panasonic AF100 has. I can put up with that on a $5,000 camera, but not at $15K or more.

Over-Crank is limited to the 720p mode. Again, at this price point, 1080p is the new threshold.

Cosmetically, I do not mind the design. I think the idea of a rotating grip is useful.

I like the fact that Canon added optical ND filters in the camera, BNC timecode, zebras, XLR audio, and waveform. I like the idea of iPad type wireless control.

The problem is that Sony and Panasonic have already addressed the shortcomings on the 5DMKII. Canon C300 is at least a year late to the party.

At $20K, or even $16K, I think this camera offers too little. At $10K, I think it would offer a lot of value, somewhere between the AF100 and the F3.

Canon was surprised by how well the 5D MKII was accepted by video pros. It really woke up Panasonic and Sony. Canon had a chance with the XF series to do something, but they punted. So now we will see Canon’s vision of a pro video cinema style camera.

I am thinking about my next camera purchase today, November 1st, 2011, days before Canon and Red have independent announcements about their next cameras.

Red is expected to announce that their Scarlet camera is ready to ship with a yet unknown feature set. The Scarlet was originally announced at NAB 2008 as 3K resolution for $3,000 based on a fixed lens ⅔” sensor. All kinds of rumors are flying about the new specs.

Canon is also set to announce something on Nov 3rd, although nobody who knows will say. The rumors are flying fast and furious that this will be a true cinema camera with features pro’s need (unlike the 5D MkII).

While it’s fun to think about these options, but when it comes time for me to spend my hard earned dollars, i need to evaluate my real world needs versus my cinematic desires. Big resolution alone does not make a camera great.

I have always been more of a realist than a dreamer. I know that most of my work will never see that big screen. Sure, I have entered my share of short film competitions, but the corporate and web work that I do pays the bills.

I am quite happy with my purchase of the Panasonic AF100 camera. It serves my needs of pro controls and shallow images, but there are things I would like in my next camera. For me, instead of chasing bigger sensors, and higher frame sizes, I would rather see other features developed.

I am fascinated with the idea of the HDR feature in the Red Epic. This is a feature that would be a home run in the lower budget everyday production cameras. I have walked into many situations where a overblown window in an office ruins an otherwise decent shot. How many of us would really love to have a highlight or lowlight protection? I know i would.

I am equally fascinated with the light field camera technology, where one can change focus after the fact. Lytro has announced a camera that does just that. https://www.lytro.com/camera

So imaging for a moment, a cinema camera with the ability to protect exposure and re-focus a scene in post. Give this to me in HD resolution, I am fine with that. SD cards, fine too. Just price it under $25K. Who wouldn’t want this? I would be the first in line.

To build these features in a high end hollywood camera seems to miss the mark. Hollywood jobs have the budgets to carry crew and equipment to make ANY camera look good. It’s the guys in the trenches, running around with a Lowel DP kit, trying to fight a 15 foot wall of windows with 2 guys that needs these advanced tools.

Who I ask, will be the first to build me this camera?

No, the group is going strong. Will celebrate our 10th year next July. Send me an email and I will add you to the mailing list. info at njfcpug dot org

There is not a model number that I know of, just the Birger M43 to Canon EOS mount. There is not even a product page built yet. Check http://www.birger.com/ for updates.

A good fast zoom would give you the best range of options. I have a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 that I love. You could also use another zoom to fill in at the wide end, or more telephoto.

Ever since the release of the Panasonic AF100 camera, I have been shooting lots of jobs with it. This has been a departure from my P2 workflow somewhat.

First, I no longer need to bring my PCD35, as my i7 MacBook Pro has a built in SD card slot. Secondly, I am not swapping and offloading as many cards as I do with P2, since I can get 3 hours on a single 32GB card.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love P2, and would buy a AF200 or whatever Panasonic might call a larger sensor camera with a P2 recording mechanism in a heartbeat. But they don’t offer me that option now.

With P2, I never worried about card corruption or physical damage, because the P2 cards are practically bullet proof. I was not running on that same level of confidence with the SD cards. The sheer fragility of such a small card concerned me. I have heard of horror stories about corrupt cards that cannot be read after shooting, and once experienced that myself. Luckily that was only under test conditions.

Panasonic has put my fears aside with the release of their new Pro series SD cards. These cards offer more safety features than P2 cards. For example, the new Pro SD cards are water proof, heat proof, x-ray proof, shock proof and magnetic proof.

The cards use a SICS processor (super intelligent controller system) which allows for smart data writing, power failure protection, and refresh. This gives the card a long life span. You can read about these features in detail here.

Another feature that is unique to these pro cards is the inclusion of a QR code, unique to each card. This means that tracking the cards might be possible via a smart phone. I say might, because I tried scanning the very small code with my iPhone 3GS, and it was not able to scan it.

On top of all that goodness, is the speed factor. This cards have a read speed of 90MB/s. In my real world tests, that makes these cards twice as fast as my Panasonic class 10 gold cards.

According to Panasonic, In order to use the card checker software or the file recovery software (available here) you need to use the new Panasonic BNSDCMAB UHS-1 Adapter. This adapter uses USB 3.0 to achieve the fastest throughput. Running at USB 2 speeds will not get you 90MB/s.

In my testing, with my i7 15” MBP, I was able to recover files from the built in SD slot in the laptop, but the Card Checker software would not see the cards. I will test with the USB later and report back my results.


The model numbers and prices are as follows:

8GB: $60 RP-SDB08G1K
16GB: $129 RP-SDB016G1K
32GB: $245 RP-SDB032G1K

These cards are more money than some other cards out there. A Transcend 16GB Class 10 card can be had for as little as $25, so the 8GB pro card at $50 street is twice as much. In my opinion, the features of these new cards far out way the small premium they command.

One last note. There are gold series UHS1 cards from Panasonic that offer 90MB/s of throughput that some might confuse with the Pro cards. These gold cards have many of the pro features, but lack the QR code, and the Card Checker software.