the editman.com

I had a 70XP monitor from Marshall and it served me well when I did all work with a Canon 7D. Now Marshall has a new line of monitors and one in particular caught my interest - V-LCD56MD. A 5.6 inch high resolution IPS monitor with some very useful features using 1280x800 pixels on screen.

First off it has both SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs. The SDI input can be exchanged so that instead of SDI in/out you have two SDI outputs converted from the HDMI input. There's a WFM and audio meter on screen and a headphone output. 1:1 pixel zoom with moveable area. False colours and all of the usual great features on Marshall monitors.

5.6" is to me a perfect size to put nearby a camera so this one suits me fine but you can also get a 7" or 9" version with the same features.

Power drain is a little more than on the DP6 and it can be driven by Sony NP batteries or batteries from Panasonic or Canon just like the older Marshall monitors. In front of the screen is a protection screen. I'll try to get hold of a sample and look closer.

Sometimes you have to use HDMI from cameras or other sources but HDMI and very often mini HDMI doesn't feel to comfortable to use. One solution is to converter the signal into something more robust like HD SDI before running longer cables or attaching monitors and such. In these circumstances a device like Blackmagicdesign Battery Converter can come in handy.

I got a HDMI to SDI converter and Blackmagic has SDI to HDMI converters if that's what you want.



This device is very easy to use. At one end is a HDMI input, a DC power jack and a switch to toggle between battery operation and no battery operation. Thanks to the built in rechargeable battery you can run it up to two hours. When the unit is hooked up to 12V DC power the battery is charged at the same time as you use it. If the DC plug falls out the battery insures that this converter will keep on running.



At the other end there's two HD-SDI BNC connectors and a mini USB jack to upgrade the unit if needed. The whole chassis feels excellent in built quality and it has no rough edges. All connectors are recessed to avoid breaking of connectors. All in all a sweet little device.



In each corner there's rubber feat to avoid slipping and a white LED near the switch indicates how much charge is left inside. This is my first Blackmagicdesign product and I really like the way it's put together from two aluminium pieces. According to them it can even be run over by a truck but I wont try that. I hope their Cinema Camera has the same feel to it!

I shot this BTS video from one of our commercial shoots, this time using an Arri Alexa for the commercial spots. During the day I picked up audio and took care of files coming out of the Alexa so I had plenty of time to do the BTS since I wasn't DP this time.

My Canon 5Dmk3 was set to Technicolor profile 1080p25 IPB. Used a Canon EF 24-70/2.8 lens and Zacuto EVF to do the BTS video.

I shot a BTS video this week as my first real Canon 5Dmk3 video and struggled to get Premiere CS5.5 to ingest the material. No matter how I tried some files hanged the program and couldn't be imported. Some clips worked fine one time and the next it was marked as offline. I found out there is an incompatibility issue between Canon 5Dmk3 files and Premiere 5.5.

Apparently files have to be renamed from .mov to .mpg to enable CS5.5 to import clips. I used a small and excellent program called Extension changer and after changing files to .mpg all of them imported just fine.

Yesterday I worked with a production crew making a couple of commercials and I picked up audio and took care of files coming out of an Arri Alexa camera. This was my first time working both in a production and in post with this camera and what comes out of it.

The beauty of the Alexa is Prores 444 files that plays on any modern computer be it win7 or OSX. It's such a great thing. No transcoding just straight into Premiere Pro or After Effects. I asked the DP about shooting in RAW but he never do it, only to PRORES and I understand from a post workflow standpoint that it's much more desirable and cost effective than RED files or RAW files from the Alexa.

Looking at Blackmagics Cinema Camera due later this summer a couple of things are shared between this camera and Arris Alexa. Both can shoot to RAW in higher than 2K resolution or PRORES and both have a high dynamic range in the 13-14 stops class. I also asked the DP about running audio into the Alexa but he never did that either. I bet it's easier to get audio into the BMD Cinema Camera but it's also not a priority it seems in the design of this camera.

With about the same DR and file format but in 10-bit 4:2:2 on the BMD camera I can see these camera to look very similar in the edit suit. So it might turn out to be a poor mans Alexa. Still, footage is lacking except from John Brawley and nobody knows how easy or cumbersome it will be to shoot with.

The smaller sensor inside the BMD Cinema Camera wont achieve the same amount of shallow DOF as the Alexa and it wont be as solid but for $2995 I can't see it to turn out all wrong. Cropfactor compared to Super35 is 1.6. Here's sample footage to view and I hope that we'll see more soon.