Good camera???

[Stevehend15 0]

I know that I am not going to be jumping with a camera any time soon..... But anyway, I was given a Sony DV-8500 today for graduation. Is it a camera I can use if I get into that sort of thing? It looks like others I have seen at the DZ and seems like a perfect size for a camera box? Thanks.

[PhreeZone 15]

I can't find any thing at all on a product with that model number, do you have a link to it?

Is it a MinDV, DVD or hard drive based camera? If its the last two its not an option to jump at all.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Stevehend15 0]

I cannot find any info on it..... But i think it uses a SD card as memory..... This thing is coming from miami so I would not be surprised if it has some wierd story behind it.

[PhreeZone 15]

Flash based? Not usually high enough quality to do more then post grainy footage on line. Plus you run into transfer issues since you are limited to only transfering to the same camera if you can transfer at all.

You need to see if its NTSC or PAL, if its PAL its completely useless in the US since all our TV's are NTSC and they are a different frame rate and size then PAL (Europe and Japan)

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Stevehend15 0]

This damn camera is sooo confusing..... It hooks up to the pc through a usb. I think the stick is for a stills (the camera has two lenses, one for stills and one for video). I am almost sure that it is digital. But now I am starting to think it is a fake. It looks real to me but I cannot find any info on it. I am going to post some pics as soon as I get home, maybe you can reconize the model. Thanks.

[DSE 3]

Quote

I can't find any thing at all on a product with that model number, do you have a link to it?

Is it a MinDV, DVD or hard drive based camera? If its the last two its not an option to jump at all.

Why do you say this?
I've been loaning the DZ camera guys my bullet cam and Nnovia HDD systems, and have also jumped the Sanyo HD1 on their helmets, all images have been as expected. The Nnovia is entirely HDD-based, and the HD1 is Flashmem based.
DVD is unstable, but HDD is actually more stable than tape, and no fear of dropout on an HDD system.

[pilotdave 0]

Is this it? http://www.merchantamerica.com/discountedelectronics/index.php?ba=product_enlarge&product=75991

Dave

[Stevehend15 0]

YA!! that is it. Well, thats miami products for you. Somebody took off that logo and put a sony thing on it. Same with the lense cap. Looks like they did a good job with it. Cant complain, free camera and cash! Will it still work good?

[dragon2 0]

Quote

Quote

I can't find any thing at all on a product with that model number, do you have a link to it?

Is it a MinDV, DVD or hard drive based camera? If its the last two its not an option to jump at all.

Why do you say this?
I've been loaning the DZ camera guys my bullet cam and Nnovia HDD systems, and have also jumped the Sanyo HD1 on their helmets, all images have been as expected. The Nnovia is entirely HDD-based, and the HD1 is Flashmem based.
DVD is unstable, but HDD is actually more stable than tape, and no fear of dropout on an HDD system.

Do a search on this forum, you'll damage the HDD if you jump with it.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[PhreeZone 15]

Hard drives have a operating ceiling of 10,000 feet. Anything less then this the air pressue can actually allow the read heads to hit the spinning disk damaging both the heads and the platters. Mountianeers have trashed many iPods and other HDD based media in the lower camps on Everest and K2 over the last few years just by turning them on. Flash based music is the only thing I've seen mentioned in some of the blogs of climbers since HDD's are trashed to easily. Also a hard opening can exceed the G force limit and slam the heads into the platters ruining both completely.

I've had a discussion with a former engineer at Seagate about HDD's in an unpressurized environment above 10k and its possible, but for consumer grade equipment its not reliable and the companies won't even talk to you for repairs if they find out you operate it at altitude. Mil spec gear can do it I guess but thats a HDD worth at least $1000 per drive, out of your everyday price range.

Its for this reason that MicroDrives are not recommended in digital cameras. A few people on here had to learn that lesson the hard way even though its been posted many times and basicly tossed the drives after they were damaged.

Flash drive media sucks for day to day useage at a DZ. I'll burn a tape a day during the busy times just in freefall and tandems. Cost of a tape is less then $3. Cost of a 2 gig SD card is still $60-75 if you are lucky. Then you need to move the video to a computer/DVD for storage. Tape its straight to the archive, load a new and I'm jumping again. So thats $6 in tapes vs $150 in 2 SD cards to get me through for a weekend... simple math to me. Also most consumer grade equipment is using a very low quality codec that you can easly tell the difference between miniDV and it on a TV. Higher end equipment is a bit different, but then I hope at that point you already know what a camera and its limitations are.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[DSE 3]

Appreciate the explanations, guys. Just got off the phone with the engineering boys at Nnovia, they assure me I've got nothing to worry about. My A2D has 9 jumps from 13,500 so far and no issues. It's an IBM Travelstar loaded in a doubleshock mount case, with analog input over Y/C.
The Sanyo HD1 only has 2 jumps on it, but it's also only a couple weeks old, so we'll jump it til it dies, if it dies. I've been totally unaware of the altitude limit on the microdrives tho.
Interesting about the iPod comment, too. My canopy coach wears his often on his arm, far as I know, he's been doing it for at least a year. I've jumped with my Rio turned on in the plane, and only remove the earplugs just before the door is opened in the airplane. Sounds like I should be on the lookout for weirdness.

[PhreeZone 15]

Here are the specs on the IBM drives:
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D4C1F74A49A6158787256B49008209CF/$file/T60GH40GNenh_sp11.pdf

Operating shock
# 60-GB model - 150 G/2ms
# all other models - 200 G)/2ms
" Nonoperating shock
# 60-GB model - 700 G/1ms
# all other models - 800 G/1ms

Item Operating Nonoperating
Maximum temperature gradient 20°C/hour 20°C/hour
Maximum wet bulb temperature 2 29.4°C 40°C
Relative humidity 2 8 to 90% 5 to 95%
Temperature 5 to 40°C 1 –40 to 65°C
Altitude –300 to 3048 m (10 kft) –300 to 12,192 m (40 kft)


I'd be talking to IBM because the experience level of people dealing with unpressurized high altitude environments outside aviation and mountianeering is pretty low. Expecially in Skydiving where we are going from 80 degrees on the ground to 25 degrees at altitude in less then 15 minutes (the temperate gradient is in an hour and its only ~65 degrees F).

The little hole on a HD is to allow air pressuse inside to allow the heads to float on that cushion of air. Put tape over it and the HD will crash, starve enough air from getting in there and the same thing happens. At DZ's where you are at sea level and go to 13k the risk is'nt near as high as those DZ's that are sitting at 3-6000 feet and still go to 13k AGL. Thats up to 18k MSL and at a ripe altitude to starve a drive of its needed air. Thats for Microdrives and fullsize drives.

Look and see if the iPod is a flash based. I know from Everest blogs in 2004 they threw at least 6-7 away during the season since they died on the climb due to the low air pressure.

From a hardware side I've had vendors tell me all sorts of stories that when I reached the real OEM's they told me whole new things. Just a fiar warning, I'd hate to see you trash such an expensive unit when the lessons have already been learned all over.


READ THESE POSTS!
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1458741#1458741
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2000803#2000803

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[DSE 3]

Our DZ is at 5000 ft, we climb to 13,500 each flight.
Nnovia isn't a vendor, they manufacture the device used. It's also used for the Marine Combat Camera Group, and used by law enforcement as an on-body recorder.
Whilst I am reading and accepting the information your're posting and related links, we regularly are taking drive-based equipment into very high and difficult environments. Heck, Telluride is that high at the top of the ski runs (13,700) and we're shooting HD to HDD up there every year, for hours on end in subzero weather.
That said, I also feel there is a margin for error that isn't accounted for here. There is a significant difference between mathematic and design theory and actual use. I'll keep jumping my Nnovia until something happens to it, and go from there, since the president of the company has assured me they'll cover it. For giggles, I'm gonna jump a POS CitiDisk we have as well. It's junk anyway and would never be used in a production, so might as well see if it survives. No shock, no strength to the plastic case, and just simple power as well. It's worth it to experiment with. It's got a Hitachi drive in it as well. Basically it's just a plastic covered drive with a Firewire connector and battery.
I'll post what happens after jumping it tomorrow.
The iPod (and my Rio Carbon) are both microdrive-based.
I'm quite aware of what the hole in an HDD are for, our facilty operates with approx 40TB at any given time, and usually more, depending on the time of year. Our productions range from extreme snowboarding and motoX to shooting in fires, water, volcanos, etc with our gear. Whether we're shooting with our LDK5000, HDCAM, or our HDV cams, they're usually in less than ideal conditions.
I'm not at all advocating that anyone follow my practice; I'm in a position to afford testing these devices without expense to myself or my company.

[PhreeZone 15]

Please let us know how it goes!

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[DSE 3]

Long day of jumping, results of the HDD jumps:
6 jumps with the Nnovia, all from 13,500
2 jumps with Citidisk
7 jumps with iPod
13 flights with Rio Carbon
All are HDD-based systems, the iPod and Rio are microdisks.
We also jumped the new Sanyo HD1 flash-based HD camcorder. (1280x720)
Observer/copilot flew with Rio Carbon, operatingall day/all flights
Nnovia handled all jumps as expected. no dropouts, no crashes, no problems.
Citidisk worked for second jump only, but it wasn't expected to work, the product is for crap. Files read properly and write to properly after two flights, but it never works for DV capture anyway, so it was just thrown in there cuz we had it. I'm tossing the crappy thing once I remove the 80 gig drive from it.
Nothing died, all gear working as it should.
Obviously, , it just demonstrates that the tolerances are probably higher than they suggest. Can't go higher than 13,500 without oxygen for any length, and it's not worth it to me to spend the bux to find out any different.
So, no earth-shattering news or destroyed gear as I'd somewhat hoped to see happen.

[PhreeZone 15]

See what the wear and tear is over the course of a season with a couple of hundred jumps and cylces. A single week is'nt enough to prove anything unfortuantually.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[DSE 3]

Quote

See what the wear and tear is over the course of a season with a couple of hundred jumps and cylces. A single week is'nt enough to prove anything unfortuantually.

Agreed.
The point is, the threads linked in previous posts suggested that the gear would fly apart once the cushion of air was removed from the disk, and it would happen virtually immediately. Engineers from Nnovia (former Seagate team) and design engineers from Sony both say this isn't so. It's not a big thing to me to be concerned one way or another, but given that we regularly use HDD systems above 12,000 feet in subzero weather for World Cup, America Cup, and other events. We've yet to have one failure, which is why we use HDD vs tape. Tape can't handle the cold. We've purchased a few XDCAM HD systems that use BluRay, but unfortunately, those can't be jumped without a special harness rig. We'll likely modify our Dalsa Origin rig to fit the XDCAM, which should perform very well. Intial tests with helicopters have shown great result.
I realize I'm OT here in discussing other formats, but overall, I can't accept previous claims of drives blowing apart above 10k. While manufacturers may suggest one thing, and certain specifics may support those suggestions, actual use, whether once or a dozen times, suggests the tolerances are greater than suggested.
Does that make it "OK" to jump with HDD-based systems? Obviously not. I'm putting a cam on a cameraman, plus carrying one in my pocket to test in a non-controlled environment for purposes of convincing myself of what I believed I'd find. Which is that the drives won't fail above 10k as suggested in several other threads. Firestore claims they're putting FS4 devices on the exterior of non-pressurized aircraft in a military observance area with Z1 camcorders on them. Obviously, they don't fail. I don't know what altitude they're flying at, but I'm quite certain it's above 15k.
4 HDD-based devices, one flash device, all running all day at the same altitude being at least 30%past suggested tolerances and zero failures suggests that suggested tolerances are not accurate.
Not trying to start an argument; I'm probably from Missouri at some point in my life, because my sign is the excla-bang.

[Fast 0]

Most of the results I have seen regarding hard drives and altitude has been that, many iPods/MP3 players seem to work but MicroDrives in digital cameras fail quite a bit.

One girl at my DZ had a 2gb microdrive for her Rebel XT and it worked on the way up and crapped out before we got to the ground. There have been many similar reports on here.

I wonder if there is a significant difference in quality between what you have been testing and what some other jumpers have been using.



edit: To be noted, the microdrive worked fine again once back on the ground.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[DSE 3]

could be there are differences, but bear in mind as well that the Rebel isn't likely nearly as well mounted/protected as the iPod/MP3 player will be. Folks don't strap their digital cameras to their arm or waist and jog with it like they do with the iPod. The guys at Skydive Hawaii tell me they've jumped their iPods at least 1000 times each, so there is some strong evidence there that the tolerances indicated in other posts are definitely off. Also, removeable microdrives likely don't have the overall strength in the housing that the drives in the iPods/Rio's have. I've never taken my iPod apart, but have taken 3 Rio's apart, and they're very well built compared to the removable microdrives I've got for my computer.