herein2020

Exactly, the older you get the more you realize how limited your remaining time is and the less you want to spend that time on things that don't really matter. I didn't want to spend weeks reading up on clock speeds, bus architectures, CPU integrated features, power supply cabling, case wiring, fan sizes, BIOS features, BIOS versions, ATA vs ATX vs miniATX, MB form factors, MB vendors, PCIe slots, NVME M.2 slots, RAID capabilities, , etc. etc. I know HP did all of that already and came up with the combination that they can afford to sell in the 100's of thousands and back with an enterprise warranty so I decided paying more to support their R&D department was better than spending my time reinventing their wheel. That Ryzen mini PC is tiny, I went that route awhile back for my home theatre PC when I got an Intel NUC. The problem was the fan noise was so extreme that it had the unique ability of ruining the movie watching experience so I went back to a full desktop for my home theatre. The NUC is now used as a tethering PC in my studio to show clients their images as they are taken.

You have to set render cache to User, Fusion Memory Cache to on, and ideally set a dedicated cache disk (SSD or faster) that is not used by the OS and that is not scanned by Anti-Virus. Even after doing all of that, you have to wait until the title is cached (red line above the title will turn blue) then you can finally playback in real-time. The other option is to not use Fusion titles and use regular titles instead. In the titles menu there are a few basic titles and the rest are Fusion titles. If you can get away with basic titles you can bypass all of the Fusion performance issues. Even better, create the title in something else as a png with transparency then add it as an overlay on the timeline; of course this rules out motion graphics but it is another way to workaround Fusion if you just need a simple title. I did check out the Source Tape feature but my entire workflow is optimized around Windows Explorer, I have a source clips folder, I drag clips as I use them to a selected clips folder, and I only import the clip at the time I need it to the media pool where I set an in/out point and drag it to the timeline for editing. For me this makes things very easy and it is easy to see what I have already used and what media I still have to pick from. Also, after a project is done, if I start running out of space in my archives I know I can delete all of the media in the source clips and discarded clips folders in Windows Explorer without affecting the finalized project. To use the Source Tape feature I'd need to just dump everything into the media pool. I agree with you, its not meant to go much beyond the basics of editing. I do wish Blackmagic Design would focus more on improving Fusion than the Cut page. I think they are more focused on attracting PP and FCP users than they are in fixing the Fusion performance issues. Funny thing is, I think even PP and FCP users will be confused by the Cut page.

Its kind of funny, the longer I typed the post the more I realized that I did build it after all. To me though truly building a system is picking out the motherboard, PS, memory, CPU, adding the CPU paste, inserting it into the socket, getting a case, fans, mounting the PS, etc. Plugging in hard drives and swapping some memory doesn't seem to rise quite to the level of building a PC. And half the "fun" of building a PC is researching all of the latest MB, CPU, Memory, PS combinations to figure out the best one for the money. I used to have systems that I didn't even bother putting on the side of the case because I was changing things so often. I got really tired of proxies, when I'm importing footage I want to get started right away, waiting for proxies with every clip was just annoying beyond belief for me. And I know some people say just let it sit overnight, but I do most of my project organization in Windows Explorer, I only import clips I will use in the project so that wouldn't have worked for me either.

It will be great if they ever get the Fusion integration right. As it stands now its an endless source of frustration. I'm always waiting for things to cache and the performance is terrible, simple things like Fusion titles cause the whole program to stutter, anything changes above or below a Fusion comp and the caching starts all over again..etc. etc. I think by DR20 they will have it where it needs to be. The rest of the program is already fantastic.

I'll admit, I find the Cut page the most confusing thing imaginable, in fact I dislike it so much that I removed the tab from the UI. Even after watching their tutorials on it there was nothing I liked about it. I would love to be able to click the mouse a little less and resize the UI a little less, but the Cut page just doesn't click for me. I also do a lot of work with multicam sequences, Fusion compositions, motion tracking, lower thirds Fusion titles, etc. so even if I learned the Cut page I think I would end up in the Edit page at some point. The Blackmagic Forum is a good place too, especially for Fusion questions. Hollywood grade VFX experts are actually hanging out on the Fusion forum and there's also more and more great YouTubers who post DR tutorials and they help a lot when I'm trying to figure out how to do something in Fusion.

No way would I use a dongle, as others have said its a PITA. Also, when I made the jump to DR I was able to find an authorized vendor who let me order online and I had the key within 24hrs vs waiting for it to be mailed. As far as free vs. paid, I don't think that would be a problem as long as the footage is not 10bit footage and as long as the person using the free version does not need some of the paid Fusion effects. The main limitation that people run into is you have to have the paid version to edit 10bit footage.

I think the Z4 was around $1600USD but it takes a lot of work to get it that low. HP charges ridiculous rates for their memory and addin NVME cards so I used a few tricks to end up with just the tower, CPU, memory and power supply, from there I sourced parts elsewhere, so I guess I did kind of still build it out. - I always pick the Linux option when buying from HP so that I don't pay for Windows 10 since I already have a license -I picked the cheapest SATA storage possible since I already had NVME sticks from my previous system -I picked no add-in video card since I already had that -No optical storage since I never use CDs or DVDs -No keyboard or mouse -The one thing I don't skimp on is the Power Supply, I got the 1000W version due to the video card and to power all of the internal storage -etc etc, until it was almost barebones, I then called and managed to get a few more things removed and an additional discount over the phone. Many people don't know if you build a system on the Dell or HP website then save it, call them and ask for a discount then give them your build invoice a lot of times you can get up to 20% more off especially around the holidays, you can also get them to remove stuff you don't need like hard drives which the online system configurator won't let you do. You can also go to the outlet version of the online store and sometimes find good deals there on returns or canceled orders but when I got the Z4 it was too new to find any deals in the outlet store. After getting the tower with 8GB of memory, no graphics, almost no storage, etc. I then got a 4 port NVME Dell PCIe controller card on eBay for $100.00 (HP wanted $1300.00 for only 2TB), 64GB of memory for $150 (HP wanted $1600.00!!), dual SSD drives, etc. I also got the RTX2080Ti used on NewEgg for around $700.00USD. The main thing I've learned over the years is I don't want to deal with motherboards, picking out a tower, power supplies, and memory; these are usually the source of instability later on. HP's memory was so expensive that I went ahead and got that separate and even then I pulled the memory that it shipped with and used the part number to exactly match the vendor, bus speed, etc. online. I think the total build to do it all over again today would be right around $3300.00USD. I had a lot of the NVME and SSD storage from other systems, and the RTX3080 brand new is only $700 (if you can find one) which is better than my 2080Ti. I only buy/build a new system every 7-8yrs or so and so I saw it as a worthwhile investment. Since I use Davinci Resolve for video editing, I think my system is pretty much future proof, all I'll need to do is upgrade the video card again at some point once H.265 10bit 4.2.2 is supported on the chip. The system itself is rock solid stable, with enterprise class reliability which was my intent. Another thing that a lot of people do not realize is how power can make their system unstable. I live in FL, the #1 place is the world for lightning strikes, so I have a line conditioner and two surge protectors between my system and the wall outlet. Slightly dirty power is the cause of so many system instability issues and people have no idea that's what's causing their problems; for a system that gets taxed like a video editing workstation I always recommend spending another $200USD or so for a good line conditioner and surge protector. Yes, the CPU and video card is always the most expensive parts. I've never understood how motherboards can be so cheap; to my eyes they look way more expensive than the CPU let alone the video card.

I lost all interest in PC building after doing it for over 20yrs. Now when I press the power button I just want everything to work. I went mainstream; pretty much just stick to HP enterprise products now, I even get the extended support, got tired of custom rigs and always fiddling with the internals. My current video editing desktop is an HP Z4 with 64GB of memory, a Core i9 14 core CPU, NVME raid array via an add-in 4 port PCIe NVME raid controller card for the OS and working projects, SSD RAID1 array for my dedicated cache drive, and two 10TB WD RED NAS drives configured as RAID1 for stock footage and assets.

I completely lost my mind with Premier as well, not to mention that endless bill; right after the pandemic hit and all of my projects dried up I did the math: I'd spent a total of $3600.00 on Premier over the years. That same day I downloaded DR, uninstalled Premier and told myself I'll do whatever it took to learn DR. It took exactly one week 8hrs a day of YouTube and practice in Resolve to get just as proficient or even more so in Resolve than I had been in Premier and it was the best decision I could have made. With DR the hardest part really is finding the settings. So much is not intuitive and you'll never find it without knowing where to look. Other things are awesome like the color grading tools, warp stabilizer is way better, speed ramping is easier IMO, Fusion is built in, node color grading/editing is waaayyy better than AE layers, etc. Anyway, I could talk about DR for hrs, as far as tutorials go, there are way more than there used to be on YouTube. For the basics Blackmagic Design has excellent video tutorials right on their website, I would go through their basic editing and color grading tutorials to start. If you have used Premier you are already familiar with editing in an NLE so DR really won't feel much different. You will just need to learn DR's quirks and how to find the different settings; Blackmagic's tutorials are great for that...the UI not so much. As far as stability goes; I've found with DR it is way more stable than Premier as long as you don't use Fusion. Fusion is awesome....but I can't use much of it because it won't stop crashing long enough to do cool things with it. They have a standalone version (like AE) and I have been told that it is way more stable but it costs extra. So if you aren't planning on doing any Fusion compositing and just basic NLE work (timeline editing, audio synching, color grading, etc.) then DR is rock solid stable if your system is set up properly and you have a supported video card configuration. I use a dedicated cache drive, I have my Anti-Virus set to not scan the dedicated cache drive, I have CUDA acceleration enabled (NVIDIA video card), the Studio version of the NVIDIA drivers vs the gameready version, and all of the caching settings configured as recommended. One thing you cannot do with DR is have any other GPU accelerated applications opened when it is open. I have complained to the developers for over a year now and they couldn't care less; if you have Lightroom, Photoshop, PTGUI, or any other application open that uses GPU acceleration, DR will crash and become very unstable, its annoying to say the least. Also keep in mind that you may have to upgrade your video card to get DR to run smoothly because DR relies heavily on GPU acceleration. I upgraded from a GTX980ti to an RTX2080Ti in order to smoothly edit H264 and H265 4K 10bit footage without needing proxies.

I think the biggest deciding factor will be how much noise the fan makes in those single unit lights. My VL300's put off heat from the head, the control unit, and the power brick....but they are whisper quiet and I am thinking they got it that quiet by giving heat so many places to dissipate which means the fan has less work to do. I will take my current setup any day over one that is only a single power unit but has a noisy fan.

I'm too lazy to do what most here are suggesting, sounds like an incredible amount of unpaid work. Also, if they are cell phone images prints won't look very good. I do mix stills with video quite often but it is deliberate and planned beforehand, i.e. to show some BTS footage of a video shoot where I will mix the models posing with the final image. For your scenario I would use my old copy of Corel VideoStudio, let it create a slideshow sequence for each major geographic area, select the Ken Burns effect for the slideshow, cut that with actual video in Davinci Resolve, throw some audio tracks on the timeline, cut the audio, video, and slideshows to sync with the audio tracks, add some lower thirds titles to identify the geographic area being shown, and that would be my travel video. Another option for your particular scenario that I would consider is to not try to mix it all together. Many people these days won't sit through a slideshow let alone a slideshow mixed in with video so I would consider using something like a USB menu creator to instead have a mixture of videos and images that people could navigate to via the menu. For weddings I provide highlight reels which are the wedding trailer, but for the full wedding I break apart the main portions of the wedding (getting ready, first look, arrival, ceremony, reception, send off, etc) and provide them on a USB drive with a full navigation menu that the client can use to navigate to the different portions instead of them having to sit through 2hrs of video at a time. If your final audience is not someone you can give a USB drive to, then maybe consider a custom website like Wordpress with all of the different media broken out by navigation links. I'd rather completely rethink my project than spend hours completing one that no one will watch when its done. If it absolutely must all be in a single video, then as others have said...narration would greatly help.

I agree its a very odd mixture, when Panasonic only had MFT you had to buy EF lenses for their cinema cameras. Now they are finally FF you have to buy into the weirdest "alliance" imaginable where only the L mount lenses from Panasonic will give you the best experience and you still need to keep your EF glass for their EVA1. The funny thing is now that they are FF you can finally share lenses between your EF mount EVA1 and S series camera but only if you buy the Sigma adapter. If Panasonic were to release a native L mount to EF mount adapter that also supported continuous AF instead of expecting everyone to buy their L Mount lenses then we might have an interesting combination. But then again, just selling bodies with no hope of selling lenses might make their situation even worse.

I think it is a real shame too that they are in this situation, they offer every feature imaginable and then some. They put together some fantastic cameras but I really think they are too dependent on others to be successful.....sensors made by Sony, very limited selection of L-mount lenses, even their EVA body is dependent on the EF mount. The L mount "alliance" was the reason that I didn't buy the S1, S1R, or S1H, and if it weren't for the Sigma EF adapter I would not have bought the S5. The release of the S5 made me go back and look at their offerings and that's when I discovered that there was now an EF mount adapter. I don't think they can just focus on video because hybrid is so important these days. Even though they already seem to be mostly focusing on video, the further they move into that niche I think the worst off they will be. The FF space is very crowded and specs are very similar across all of them; if all you do is listen to paid YouTubers you would never know the little details that really set Panasonic apart from the rest, simple things like dual slot video recording, the XLR module, WFM, 1/320 flash sync speed (S1,S1H,S1R), aspect ratio guides in camera, internal intervalometer that will take more than 99 images, etc. etc. I think Panasonic has almost no inroads with photographers because they rode the m43rds train for so long and photographers are taught from day one that "real" photographers only use FF. Then when they finally went to FF they ended up with sub par AF and a new lens mount that means expensive new lenses or loss in some functionality if you use adapted lenses. All the while the market is shrinking and Sony and Canon are pulling ahead in other areas. I just don't see any scenario here where Panasonic comes out ahead.

The S5 has the spot meter function, not sure if the S1 and S1H has it as well. Within the S5 it also allows you to set what exposure levels will cause the spot meter to show 0.0. I have a feeling that its possible to figure out how to convert that feature to the false color feature for skin tones and calibrate the spot meter to read 0.0 when the skin's exposure is at the proper IRE level on the exposure chart...out of the box it is designed to be a used with a grey card. One day when I have the time and the proper talent to work with I might try to figure out the proper calibration of the spot meter to be able to use it with skin tones vs a grey card. I still don't get why camera makers don't include false color in camera without making you jump through hoops like using an external monitor, a custom false color lut, etc.

Hilarious and so true. I actually have a pretty good generator that is only 52dBA when run under full load and even quieter when run at less than full load. As soon as you round the corner for a building or go inside a structure and close the door you cannot hear it. I did a lot of research before I went the generator route, but none of the battery options were going to power a smoke machine, panel lights, and video lights for hours except a generator. I mainly just use it for music videos so I don't need the audio from on set. With my generator setup I can shoot in weird places like abandoned farm houses, rail yards, middle of a deserted road, etc without having to think about power. I like the power setup of the Clar better. The Godox VL power is pretty annoying to have to deal with but once its all set up its not that bad. I can tell you the VL300 is whisper quiet when running. I had to shoot a full days worth of content with the talent and a shotgun mic mounted on the camera cage about 8' away from the talent in a very small untreated room and not one bit of fan noise was picked up by the mic....now that's impressive. I'm not sure if the Clar is that quiet or if you care about sound at all.

Yes I can imagine......because I do it now lol. Its a real PITA but when you are shooting music videos especially at night you can't rely on having power. I do have a GoalZero Yeti 400 which is pretty cool, but I never know if it is properly charged or not or the battery meter is just lying to me. I only use it to recharge drone batteries and other small stuff when onsite without power. I think my biggest problem with those setups is converting from DC to AC back to DC. For setups that need batteries I just use VMount batteries, or the Sony NP batteries which is more efficient than going through the conversion process. I have some GVM panels which can use Sony NP batteries but I've never powered them that way. My favorite little nighttime mobile setup is to just crank the ISO to 4000 and use three Falcon Eyes F7's for lighting. At ISO 4000 you can light just about anything with those little panels....as long as you don't mind shooting at ISO4000 and you can power them internally, externally, VMount to USB-C, etc. for unlimited lighting. Obviously you will need something much bigger for groups of people, or larger spaces, but for simple music videos or working with a single person or shooting a simple event they can be all you need. They are also great if you pair them with a product turntable if product reviews are your thing.

I don't really know yet...I just need it to work when I point it at something. I feel like locking on and remaining locked on I can already do with MF as long as the subject does not move forward or backwards. I have a Canon Rebel that I use for time lapses, even it can stay locked on to just about anything if I make sure the subject is fully in the white box. So that's all I want from the S5...give me a little box in the middle and whatever I point it at, keep it in focus, I don't need eye or face or body tracking, I just need a box or cross hairs and reliable AF when they are aimed at something. I feel like it can probably already do what I am thinking it should be able to do, but I haven't used the native lenses since my EF adapter showed up. My biggest problem is on a gimbal, when I am approaching or moving away from the talent AF would be great if it worked. I truly know nothing about the AF in the S5. Is there a mode where it just has a box or a focus point and anything you place on that focus point it will keep in focus? From there I can manually keep the focus point on the talent as they move closer or farther away, I used to do that with my 5DIV all the time when shooting event b-roll. It doesn't work for fast moving objects, but for events where I was able to move the camera to ensure the box was placed on the talent, it worked better than MF.

The part they don't tell you about setups like those is that the batteries are nearly impossible to properly maintain. If you leave them on the charger between gigs they go bad and won't hold a charge, if you leave them off the charger between gigs they go bad and won't hold a charge, if you discharge them fully during a gig....the go bad and won't hold a charge...etc. etc. Also, keep in mind that a product like that loses a lot of efficiency starting out as DC, then going through a DC inverter to convert to AC to power the lights which then have to step all of that voltage back down to something useable. You really are better off getting the V mount batteries or a gas generator. My gas generator is great when I can use it and it almost cost the same as the product that you referenced...only caveats of course is it can't be used where there are noise restrictions or indoors.

I like Godox and GVM, nearly all of my video lights are GVM. Some of my favorites are GVM's RGB lights, its great not having to use gels. All of my flashes and studio strobes are Godox.

@MrSMW I'll be most interested in that 85mm F1.8 test. I feel like at F5.6 it didn't have to work very hard, F1.8 at 1.8 will determine if you have hit on a gold mine. I have a few projects coming up that are all about details and I'm going to need to shoot razor thin, knowing the AF can handle 1.8 might convince me to get a native Panasonic lens.

I agree too, I'd much rather do my own noise reduction later if needed. With the S5 at 4000 ISO the image is so clean that if I expose properly all I need to do is properly grade the primaries and the noise is gone while the details still remain; an option I would not have with the A7Sxxx

I only use the WFM for exposure with the S5 and in VLOG the WFM always seems to show everything is in range. In a more controlled environment with lighting or a studio environment I would use the spot meter and a gray card which would help you nail exposure perfectly every time, but I found it wasn't very useful for run and gun because there's no time to set up the grey card especially in changing lighting conditions.

I have 3 of the Godox VL300's they are pretty good at what they do, the two huge power bricks is my only complaint, but apparently they are needed; after a few hours the head, control box, and the power brick all get pretty hot.

I think another factor is that the expectation for quality is also dropping. It's become so easy with cell phones that anyone can do it so now the "viral" photos are based on who is in the image vs. the skill that was required to create the image. A horribly lit and composed cell phone picture of Kim Kardashian will get 50M views yet a photographic masterpiece that took weeks of planning and years of experience to create will barely get seen by 1,000 people. Another factor is no one prints anymore, so even if a camera were to advance by the magnitude of a decade or two....the typical viewer would never be able to tell the difference because it would never be viewed on anything other than a cell phone. The same thing can be said for video....who needs 8K raw when the average viewer is going to watch the final video on YouTube using their cell phone? If your client can't tell (and isn't going to pay for) the difference in quality between a $15K camera and a $2K camera why would you buy the $15K camera? I have to face these harsh realities each time I consider my next equipment purchase, I would love to own the Inspire 2 but my clients are not going to be able to tell the difference between the Inspire 2 and the Mavic Pro. Likewise the C70....why bother buying the C70 when my clients are going to pay me the same if I use the S5 instead. Thanks to cell phones which are "just good enough" for most people they are less and less willing to pay for quality.

I will be the first to say that I was impressed. Was that with the 85mm and shooting at F1.8? Its a shame buying L mount lenses would completely disrupt my current setup, maybe one day I'll try the free Sigma 45mm that I have laying around. The Sigma EF 50mm F1.4 is quickly becoming my favorite low light and portrait lens, especially when shooting at 60FPS so the 45mm isn't too far off from that focal length.