I realize I left out anything having to do with audio recording on the 200. While it is no where near as complicated, as working with the picture side of the camera, understanding your options and how to best use them will increase your productivity in post.When you are shooting DVCPRO HD or Pro 50, the camera will record four channels of audio, two of which will always be the on board mic. The other two will be the XLR inputs on the camera. I prefer to always set the switches on the side of the camera (under the LCD panel to reflect channel one receiving input one and channel two receiving input two. This will force the on board mic to channels three & four. When you injest your footage and start editing, your audio tracks from your XLRs will appear on the top two tracks and on board mics on the bottoms two.
The manual for the 200, as with many manuals, has a lot of useful (and some useless) info. For those of us who don’t like to thumb through the paper copy, you can download a PDF version which is searchable (an added bonus). If you are curious about the 3:2:2:3 pull down, conversion to 24p, 30p to 60i and 24PA to 60i, the manual, and many places on the web, have this info. This will inevitably be a topic of conversation in the coming months.
I would also like to add some thoughts on the P2 and FireStore tapeless media. For all of us who have came from a would of shooting tape, which seems to be all of us, we’re use to putting tape in the camera, and shooting until we run out. The only thing that has changed with shooting tapeless media, is about of space we’re aloud to shoot before we have to spend almost as much time injesting that footage. P2 cards until recently has been the inferior of the two formats. You could only store about and hour of footage on two 16 GB cards. Yeah, this isn’t much different than your hour of tape, but when you have to spend another hour injesting before you can use it again, you begin to see its disadvantages. The Firestore and handle 110 minutes of 720p30 HD footage. And depending on your project, this usually is enough to get you to a stopping point, injest some, and continue.
In November, the world will be blessed with 32GB P2 cards holding about an hour on each card. Now we’re talking! The 200 will hold up to two P2 cards at a time, and if you are able to purchase two cards, you can shoot one, and then injest it while you shoot the other and never have to really worry about running out of space. Yes, this advancement will take HD to a new level and untether you from the Firestore.
For now, I think that will do it. In about two weeks, look for an article on producing for the internet.
