Blog Authors | CMA | Camera Man Adelaide

How to catalogue all your raw video footage for offline access

Video_Production_backupsv3

Note: I am in no way affiliated with any products mentioned in this post, i have not received any financial reward, it is purely my opinion.

1. why is it a good idea to catalogue raw video footage?

To catalogue your raw video production footage in an easily accessible way can save you hundreds of hours of productivity over the course of a few years.

When it comes time to refresh that showreel or find specific shots a client is requesting, finding those specific shots from the last few years over a range of external hard drives can be painful and very time consuming. Having an organised footage library that has searchable keywords will make finding that shot much more manageable and claw back those valuable minutes in each day.

As a freelance DOP / camera operator, I produce hundreds of hours of raw footage over the course of a year. During my career, i have produced 1000’s of hours. From day one, my video footage has been slowly filling up external hard drives, sitting in the office collecting digital dust in the form of ones and zeros.

I have been fairly meticulous in my organisation of client projects, labelling the folders and sub folders in an identifiable way so that i can find them within a few minutes… Ok that was a bit of a white lie, sometimes i found them in a few minutes, but most of the time, finding a specific shot could take anywhere between 5 minutes to 2 hours – not ideal!

As time went by and more and more video projects were archived and backed up, the organisation was not what it was in those early years. So i decided to get on top of things and catalogue my raw video footage. I wanted to be able to do the following:

Quickly find out where any shot or video project was
Search all my external external hard drives in one search command
Be able to search on either my main desktop editing Mac or on my MacBook Pro
Be able to search when i'm anywhere in the world - even without an internet connection
Have (at least) a thumbnail image of every raw footage camera file shot for easy visual identifying.

2. Video catalogue app research

Finding a suitable app that was geared to video wasn’t as easy as i initially thought. There are quite a few apps out there that will scan the files on your external drives so that you can still search them even when the drive is offline. This is where i first started. Speaking to an editor friend, he recommended that i download Disk Catalog Maker.

After downloading, i scanned my 10 external hard drives and voila! I was able to search and see every video production project i had created content for over the past decade or so. I then copied the drive database that the catalog maker created and uploaded it to my google drive storage.

Now i can access all of my footage for reference purposes on my laptop or desktop. This definitely has some value and did save me a ton of time when i needed to access an archived project.

It still wasn’t 100% what i was looking for though, ideally i wanted to be able to see thumbnails of all of my footage and be able to search for specific shots via keywords.

I continued my search to find an app that would do just that, i spoke to a few industry friends and was finally pointed towards NeoFinder

26 April, 2024

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3. how to catalogue your raw video production footage with neofinder

Just like the Disk Catalogue Maker app i mentioned above, NeoFinder scans all of your external hard drives (as well as your local drive if you want) and indexes them in a database. The free version allows you to catalogue up to 10 drives which is very good, if you need to catalogue more than 10, the paid version is around $40 which in my opinion, is worth the money.

Once you have downloaded and installed the app on your desktop or laptop (for reference, i used an Imac), I would recommend doing the following:

Decide if you would like to sync the catalogues across your desktop and laptop via the cloud. If your answer is yes, before cataloging your first drive / volume, go to the NeoFinder preferences and change the database folder location to your cloud storage space such as Adobe Cloud, Google Drive, Dropbox etc.
Make sure you have the necessary software on all your machines to read the raw footage of the camera you use.

NeoFinder will natively generate raw footage thumbnails on .mov, .mp4, .avi, .divx, .m4v, .qt, .flv, .mpg, .mkv, .dv, .wmv, .3gp, .webm, and .EyeTV file formats.

As i own a Sony FS7, i shoot primarily on .MXF format, i quickly realised that i needed to do some additional work to generate thumbnails. I downloaded the ffmpeg driver and pasted the file into the /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/NeoFinder/ folder.

The next time i opened up the app, there it was, thumbnail images generated for Sony Raw Camera files in the MXF wrapping as well as MPG, M2V, M2TS, MPV, MTS, TS, WEBM, FLV, and even VOB.

Note: If you have r3d camera files from a RED camera, you will need to have REDCINE-X PRO Software installed on your machine to see thumbnails of your footage.

3. Cataloging your raw video footage

Once you have downloaded the app & installed the necessary drivers, it’s time to start cataloging your drives / volumes. to do this, go to File > New Catalog from Volume. Select the drive you want and click ‘start’.

Depending on how big your drive is, it can take a 20 minutes or so to catalogue raw video footage. My advice is to catalog all your drives first before starting to keyword the footage.

By default, NeoFinder will read all the files on the drives (including non video files) so a handy tip is to right click on the volume > find > All media files in this item.

By now you should be able to see thumbnails of all your raw video footage in a list with thumbnails! Ahhh!

You can sort these by Name, Size, Creation Date, Modification Date, Path, Kind, Rating, Comment, Label, EXIF date or duration.

4. key-wording your raw video footage

Here comes the time consuming part: Key wording! I’m not going to lie, this took me a while! About 3 days in total as i had thousands of raw video footage to wade through. One important tip is you need to have the drive online and connected to NeoFinder to save keywords as these are appended to the file metadata itself, not the NeoFinder database.

For key-wording your raw files, i recommend sorting by ‘creation date’ as i am generally shooting a similar genre / type of video on a specific day which makes it easier to bulk keyword. To enter keywords, click on the video file you want (or select multiple files) and type in the ‘Tags’ section of the ‘get info’ tab on the right hand side.

I key-worded my footage into various genres with the main idea of making the footage easily assessable when it comes to re-doing my showreel and making additional showreels such as drone, slow motion etc.

The keywords you use will probably be very different to mine but as a start, some words i used were ‘sport shoots’, ‘corporate video’, ‘branded content video’, ‘TV Series’ ‘TVC’s’, ‘Architecture’, ‘Automotive’ etc.

5. catalogue raw video footage - additional benefits

Find Duplicate Footage

I’m still exploring more feature as i use it but at the moment, the app is doing what i set out to achieve above. Another feature that i plan to use is ‘find duplicate footage’. This is great for making sure i don’t have triple and sometimes quadruple backup copies of old freelance projects.

Movie Contact Sheet

The movie contact sheet can generate more than one thumbnail for each video file. This is especially useful for longer clips. You can also generate added meta data. To generate a movie contact sheet, right click the file in NeoFinder or right click the file in Finder (on a mac).

Video Playback When Online

The heading pretty much explains this one itself, when the volume that the video file is stored on is online, you can play the video files from within NeoFinder. I probably won’t use this feature much but it’s good to know!

Advanced Raw Footage Search Of All Hard Drives

Once you have catalogued all your hard drives / volumes, you can quickly do advanced searches of all your video production footage such as Size, Duration, Keyword, Path, Video Codec, Image Codec, XMP & Name. These can also be combined. For example, search all travel (keyword) footage shot on .r3d file format.

5. conclusion

I’ve been meaning to catalogue my raw video footage for a long time and key-wording the files did take a bit of work (being able to bulk keyword did help a lot!) But now that it’s done i am already seeing the time saving benefits. In the coming months i plan to create mini genre based showreels and now that the ground work is done and the assets are organised, i will be able to find specific genre based shots in a flash. NeoFinder seems like a pretty powerful tool and i’m looking forward to trying out the more in-depth features.

Hire Paulfor your next video project

Paul and his team of trusted video crew are available for day rate hire or project rate hire in Adelaide at local rate, Australia wide or Global at very competitive rates.
Camera kits can be built for custom jobs. See full kit list here
Get in touch for availability and rates

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Habitus | House of the Year | Pacific Region

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Habitus house of the year series searches for the most remarkable homes know for their architecture and interior design within the Asia / Pacific region. Broadcast on Channel 7 Australia.

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MWC Media | Habitus

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DOP – Paul Moses.
Shot in 4k S-log3 on Sony FS7

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Australia by Design Interiors

Australia by design - interiors | Season 2

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We travelled around Australia in search of the countries best interior designs. Show broadcast on Channel 10 2020

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MWC Media | Channel 10 Australia

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Paul Moses

Paul is a seasoned professional and amazing all-rounder. A great director and experienced camera operator – his output is always of the highest quality and he works extremely fast. Nothing ever rattles Paul, making him a valued calm, level-headed member of the crew. I’ve worked with him for 2 years and he’s always been super reliable. Plus he’s just a downright good bloke.

Dominique Smith

Series producer , Australia by design

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Heart Research Institute TV Commercial

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Play Video

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Videographers: 5 ways to stay productive when video work is quiet

Videographer stay productive

When work dries up, how do you stay productive as a videographer?

Making sure you stay productive as a videographer is paramount to keeping motivation and hunger up for the next gig.

The nature of running a small business or being a freelancer in the media industry naturally means that work will tend to ebb and flow. One minute you don’t have enough minutes in the day to finish that edit, plan the next shoot or make sure all those batteries are charged.

Then, before you know it, there can be times where you have a quiet spell and you’re wondering ‘what do i do now’? Well, hopefully these 5 tips will help to make sure you stay productive as a videographer so then when things do get crazy again, you’re ready for it!

1. Create a new showreel / specific GENRE BASED showreels.

Not updating our showreel as much as we should, we are all guilty of it! When things get busy, updating the showreel is often cast back to the bottom of the priorities list and before you know it, it’s been 6 months, a year or maybe more since one of your most important advertising vehicles is out of date and in need of some love.

When you have a few days off, gathering some of the best footage from recent production shoots together and adding them to your showreel can not only remind you of what you’ve actually been doing recently but help freshen up your reel and keep things interesting. If you have even more free time, editing together some specific genre based showreels can be a great way to showcase any specialities you might have as a videographer. For example, you can create a drone showreel, a slow motion, time-lapse, architecture, sport or corporate video production specific showreel. Then when you get that video enquiry for that amazing landscape drone job around your area, you can fire off a specific reel that will go a long way in assuring the client you know what you’re doing.

2. Network in real life / get in touch with past clients

I can see all the introverts reading this one and hitting the scroll button to the next tip, but networking in real life should not be ignored – it’s easily one of the most beneficial ways to land new work.

Always have a few business cards on you, you never know who you are going to meet! Some of my most valuable clients i have met in the most random of places or circumstances. Maybe your local camera equipment hire house is having a networking evening to showcase a new piece of kit for example, i have found this a great place to meet fellow industry people and collaboration opportunities.

Another way to keep busy when you’re quiet is to send a friendly email to your past clients or enquiries. I recommend having a fairly legitimate reason for getting in touch. For example, you could let them know you have a new showreel to check out, a new piece of equipment or package deal etc. Make it brief with a call to action.

4. give your freelance business a financial audit

Not the most interesting thing to do on a Monday morning i know! But keeping in touch of where you are at with your finances and business as a whole can create a fantastic sense of clarity both on paper and in your head day to day which results in less stress levels and a good sense of where you are at.

Giving your video production or freelance crew business an audit can involve a number of different tasks depending on your specific position. If you’re just starting out this could mean setting up some accounting software or researching if your current rates reflect your experience and equipment you are including.

If you are more established, setting up income and spending categories so at the end of each year you know what you’re spending too much on & whats earning you the most money can help give you a clear idea of what you could be working on. One important financial part of freelance life i never look forward to is reconciliation of spending account for GST purposes, I need to lodge my GST in Australia every 3 months so whenever i have a spare day i keep on top of my reconciliation so i don’t have a giant list of receipts to go through when GST is due.

For more in-depth tips on freelance accounting see my article 7 accounting tips I wish I knew when I turned freelance

4. work on a passion project

In my opinion, being a freelance videographer, getting paid to make videos is an amazing way to make a living.

Seeing clients genuinely happy on set is a great feeling. But every now and then, nothing beats working on your own project, with no-one to answer to, no client or producer brief to follow. Just coming up with an idea for a short film, a documentary or experimental video and getting lost in the process of script writing, scene selection and planning is a great way to stretch your creativity and skills.

It’s an opportunity to try something new, something you have be wanting to learn and master that you’ve been too nervous to try on a paid job. Having a week or so with no client work is a great opportunity to get out there and see what you can create!

A few years ago, i was doing a lot of sport related video content, i always wanted to shoot a promo video in a dark gym with only one key light but the style never quite suited the brand i was shooting for at the time. This was a perfect excuse for a passion project to a) see what a dark gym / one key light would look like and b) to make any mistakes so that when the time came for a paid job with this style, i had an idea of what to look out for. My test / passion project video “Ring Masters” is below

Play Video

5. Walk away from work / pick up a new hobby

They say a change is as good as a holiday, if you’ve been burning the midnight oil lately with work and late night editing, having a complete break from all things work and video production can be a great idea.

Take a mini ‘staycation’ if you can’t leave your town due to other commitments, work on a project around the house or pick up a new sport or hobby for a few days or a week. Having a mental break can result in coming back to freelance life a week later feeling refreshed and ready to stay productive as a videographer & maybe get stuck into a few of the ideas i’ve raised above! If you have the funds and capability, go on a short break away and enjoy the finer things in life!

6. (Bonus idea) sell old video production gear

If you’re like me, when you started out, your equipment took up a few shelves in the wardrobe, then it migrated to 1/2 of the wardrobe, then all of the spare room and before i knew it, i had gear everywhere all over the house! Selling old gear that you no longer use takes a bit of a push as you may always have that little voice in your head saying ‘what if i’ll need it again one day’. While this may be true you have to ask yourself if it’s financially viable.

If you have a piece of equipment worth $1,500 that you use twice a year, are you better to sell it for $1500 & hire it twice a year from a rental house for $90 per hire? With technology advancing so rapidly it may be financially better to sell rarely used or old production gear sooner rather than later while you still can.

Selling that old vision switcher or old workhorse camera can free up some much needed storage space in the office or house as well! Some places to sell old gear include:

Hire Paulfor your next video project

Paul and his team of trusted video crew are available for day rate hire or project rate hire in Adelaide at local rate, Australia wide or Global at very competitive rates.
Camera kits can be built for custom jobs. See full kit list here
Get in touch for availability and rates

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Freelance Sony FS7 camera hire in Adelaide

The Sony FS7 has quickly penetrated the TV & video production industry over the past few years and for good reasons too! It’s an incredibly versatile camera that produces crisp 4k images which a lot of bells and whistles.

This camera 4k image produces stunning images along with 180p Full HD 150fps slow motion. These are captured through a super 35mm sensor which enables film and photography lenses to be used, which, in turn produces that shallow depth of field look (with the background blurry and the subject in crisp focus).

The sensor is capable of capturing 14 stops of dynamic range which allows for more detail in the image to be captured when there are a lot of highlights and shadows in the picture (bright white clouds and dark shadows in the foreground for example).

If you have time and budget to grade the footage, i can shoot the video in a flat cinema profile such as S-log2 or S-log3 which allows for even more dynamic range. If you would like the picture coming out of the camera to be colourful and ready for broadcast or upload to youtube, i can ‘bake-in’ the colours as i record the video which still produces amazing pictures.

I have written a detailed article on what’s it’s like on set using the Sony FS7.

Sony pxw-fs7 specs

Super 35mm 4K Sensor
Resolution 4096×2160 (4k)
14 Stops Dynamic Range
ISO 2000 Base Sensitivity
Internal 4K XAVC 10-bit 4:2:2 (Intra/Long GOP) up to 60fps
1080p up to 180fps
MPEG HD, 4:2:2, 50 Mbps (HD only)
Slow & Quick Motion for over-and under-cranking
Dual XQD card slots (with dual recording support)
Supports S-Gamut3 Cine / S-Log 3 &S-Log 2 encoding
Uses EF Canon Lens’ with Metabones speedbooster

Do you need a freelance camera person in adelaide?

I am available to hire as a camera man as a package with the Sony FS7 for half day, full day, weekly or on a project basis, get in touch for rates and to discuss your needs.

OTHER CAMERA TYPES & BRANDS ARE AVAILABLE!

My experience includes operating Canon, Panasonic, DSLR, Broadcast & Alexa cameras, not just Sony FS7 cameras. I have over 14 years experience operating video technology in a wide range of genres

I have a kit list full of varying video production tools such as drones, gimbals, DSLR photography cameras, lights, wireless microphones and lens’, you can see my full kit list here

Based in Adelaide, i am available for hire on a day rate or project rate basis. My skill set ranges from directing, camera & edit.

For more information, feel free to get in touch

Do you need to rent an fs7 camera in adelaide?

If you are a professional / video agency / TV production company looking to rent a Sony FS7 in Adelaide, this camera is available on a day rate, weekend or weekly basis. See here for prices and more information

Hire Paulfor your next video project

Paul and his team of trusted video crew are available for day rate hire or project rate hire in Adelaide at local rate, Australia wide or Global at very competitive rates.
Camera kits can be built for custom jobs. See full kit list here
Get in touch for availability and rates

fs7 camera hire sony fs7 adelaide

Building a DIY wireless directors monitor

Wireless_client_monitor_Smallhd

When it comes to providing a director or client with a live feed out of the camera i have always rented from my local hire house, either with a wired, umbilical cord esque SDI or HDMI cable connected from the camera to the monitor or via a higher end (and expensive) wireless directors monitor transmitter & receiver system.

Having a live feed with minimal delay coming from the camera adds an enormous amount of value to a shoot in my opinion, it allows for greater collaboration, a more relaxed set with more people being able to see whats going on, it allows for a closer director – d.o.p relationship and in the end, less possible problems in the edit suite with more eyes on the image being captured, the less chance of mistakes.

A few months ago i had a number of TVC freelance d.o.p gigs in Adelaide that required a monitor for my director. I also landed a series gig directing Australia by Design so i thought it was time to bite the bullet and find a wireless directors monitor system for myself when directing as well as for clients and directors when i’m shooting.

IF you can afford the high end systems - go for it

I decided that for the time being, i was going to lean on the more budget friendly side instead of shelling out $3-$4k (AUD) for a high end purpose made transmitter & receiver system such as the Teradek.

The reason for this was a mix of the cost and being the Christmas period, i had a few quiet weeks with work so i had the time to research and build a DIY system. It’s important to note that, if you have the budget to buy a purpose built solution then go for it, the reliability, build and range of signal are why you pay the money and will be hard to match on a DIY system .

What i wanted the setup to be

When setting out to build the unit, there were a few key features i wanted to achieve:

I didn’t want to be swapping batteries every hour or so – ideally i wanted to use one or two batteries for a full day of shooting
Minimal cables hanging everywhere, i like neat!
I shoot outdoors a lot so i wanted a good quality monitor that i could see under the bright Australian sun.
I wanted to use as much equipment / hardware that i already own to keep the build costs down.

There are multiple ways of building this type of rig, the important part is to research enough so you can build a system that suits you and how you plan to use the kit. Once i decided whats important (above) it made the initial research easier.

wireless transmitter / receiver research

After a bit of googling and youtube searching i found the Nyrius transmitter / receiver which basically plugs into the HDMI out port on your camera and transmits a HD picture to a receiver up to 100ft away. The receiver then plugs into your monitors HDMI-IN and just like that, you have a wireless HD live picture all from USB 5v power. Simple in theory!

I decided that this would be the solution i’d try out. I had a look on amazon and saw the Nyrius for sale for $150 USD, i’d seen it advertised on the Nyrius homepage for $249 so i thought it looked like a bargain and excitedly pressed the order button. It wasn’t until a few days later after receiving the ‘your order has shipped’ email that i noticed that i had accidentally bought the entry level model which only transmits up to 30ft… Grrrr! My bad.

This wasn’t going to be a strong enough signal, especially after putting it into a cage surrounded by aluminium. A few days later i saw someone was selling the Pro (100ft) version on Facebook marketplace for $300 AUD so i bought that with the intention of returning the 30ft version once it arrived.

“There are multiple ways of building this type of rig, the important part is to research enough so you can build a system that suits you and how you plan to use the kit. Once i decided whats important to me, it made the initial research easier.”

the monitor & cage research

There are many many options out there when it comes to monitors and each brand and model has it’s pro’s and con’s. For me, wanting a bright, outdoor viewable screen, i found a guy selling a second hand SmallHD 702 Bright field monitor which was perfect! I’d rented one for a job just a month before so i knew i liked them.

The monitor displays a sharp 1920 x 1080 picture, has SDI and HDMI in & out which was a bonus for me as i do plan on using the monitor as an on camera screen from time to time using SDI. The monitor also boasts a very decent 1000nits brightness level. I got in touch and purchased.

The cage was a fairly easy purchase coming from a recommendation from a mate of mine, the super cheap Neewer Directors Monitor Cage is a no frills, basic & fairly modular option, it’s a tad on the heavy side but will do fine for my needs.

batteries, cables & parts research

In my existing camera kit, i use 3 types of batteries:

Sony L series (b-cam Sony FS700)
Sony BP series (main cam Sony FS7)
V-lock IDX (Sony FS700, Lupolux lights & light panel)

I was planning on selling my Sony FS700 so initially i thought i’d make the most of the L series by using them on this wireless directors monitor build. The problem with this is they are the large ones and will stick out the back of the monitor potentially not allowing space to fit the video signal receiver inside the cage. After summing up the pro’s and con’s i decided to go with using v-lock due to:

Long life (i estimated a full day’s use using only one battery).
I wasn’t using them much any more, only occasionally when needing portable lighting.
They are sturdy and i could attach the battery to the back of the cage and use it as a little stand so the monitor can sit on a table and not fall over.

I ordered a bunch of different cables to connect the unit up which i’ll cover further down as well as some black cable ties & a set of SmallRIG Allen key screws so i can tighten all the connections easily with an allen key. It’s also easier to take an allen key with me when flying with carry on luggage only.

Building the DIY wireless directors video monitor

The Nyrius pro unit i bought second hand arrived in the mail the same day as the monitor so i opened it up to test it out straight away, plugging the transmitter into the HDMI out on the FS7 & the receiver into the HDMI in on the SmallHD. I powered the Nyrius Tx & Rx using various USB power points in had in the office, i turned on the unit to find…. Nothing! No image, just a black screen.

What followed was 3 hours of testing every scenario i could think off, i tested 3 different cameras, i tested using an old Nano flash from yesteryear, i changed HDMI cables, changed USB power sources thinking it could be something to do with Amperage yet still nothing. Eventually i called the guy who sold it to me to explain and luckily he was a decent person and offered full refund. So, i was back to square one! I had no choice but to wait until the Nyrius prime (30ft) range model arrived off Amazon, return that and then purchase a new Pro (100ft) version off Amazon.

3 weeks later...

When the ‘pro’ version arrived, i had all the wireless directors monitor parts i needed, the monitor, the cage, the tx & rx and all the cables and adaptors i needed so it was time to start the build.

I had a slim v-lock backing plate that i wasn’t really using anymore connected to an old westside AV fs700 rig i bought around 8 years ago. I decided to cut off the end and screw this onto the back of the cage which after a bit of messing around with screws fit quite well. The v-lock backing plate had two power outputs

7.3V D-tap output
12v – 16.8v D-tap output

Going back on my goal to power everything on the unit from one battery for as long as possible, i realised i could power the SmallHD monitor with a D-tap to Sony L series dummy battery, this would also free my actual L-series batteries up to use elsewhere on set.

To power the 5v 2A Nyrius receiver i found this D-tap to split female USB cable. This has 1 x 2A source and 1 x 1A source. Having this spare USB port on board while out on location has been great to charge my phone or the backup power bank i use to power the transmitter.

The D-tap connector luckily fit perfectly into the V-lock plate with less than a 1mm space between the plastic D-tap connector and the back of the cage itself… A happy coincidence!

fitting the receiver and cable management

This was a challenge! I tried a number of ways to do this but eventually settled on using one allen screw that i fitted onto the middle of the back of the cage on the inside. i screwed it in half way and then ‘snap hooked’ it into the base of the nyrius. This seemed to half hold it in place. I then fed a few cable ties through the ventilation gaps at the base of the receiver and fixed them to the cage. This worked great and the unit is now held tight to the cage. Few things to note:

I had to completely open up the cage by removing a lot of screws to give me space to fit the receiver into the back and have enough room to rotate it to tighten the screw. I then re-screwed the cage back together.
I positioned the receiver so that the part with the signal antenna on the inside has the most ‘breathing space’ away from the cage to increase signal strength (see image below)

At the bottom of the image you can see the 90 degree elbow adapter coming out of the HDMI out of the receiver, wrapping around the outside of the cage (which was unavoidable) and then feeding into the HDMI in on the monitor.

The cable management was pretty simple, hide as much as i can inside the cage and cable tie them up so they aren’t loose and won’t get snagged on anything. The length of the USB cable coming from the D-tap to the receiver and spare 1A female USB is a little longer than what i need but it was the shortest i could find.

transmitter from camera to receiver

Setting up the transmitter was a lot easier and fairly simple. I had an old Rycote cold shoe extender in the cupboard doing very little so i put it to use. To rig this up to a camera op’s setup all i need is a spare cold shoe, it takes 30 seconds to attach. I am powering the unit via 1x 5,000mah power bank which lasts about 4-5 hours of shooting. I have a much smaller backup battery that i’ve had to use occasionally in the afternoon on a full day shoot.

The little package is held together via a very amateur set of colourful elastic bands. I will find a more aesthetically pleasing solution in the next few weeks!

One usb cable from the battery to the transmitter and then a HDMI cable for the feed out of the camera into the transmitter and thats pretty much it!

Real world use experience

Pros:

Overall i’m pretty happy with how this has worked out. It’s been amazing on set as a producer / director to get a live feed from the camera op and collaborate in real time about what visual look we are going with.

I have been working outside during the Australian summer in January and have been able to see the screen without too much trouble, it’s very bright! The v-lock battery solution has been a good gamble, 2 weeks ago we flew to Perth, Western Australia for a 4 day shoot and i only had to take two v-lock batteries. 1 battery is powering the monitor and receiver for around 5-6 hours. I also charged my phone during lunch on one day via the spare USB output! It was useful and very satisfying!!

It’s worth noting that i have also been receiving an audio signal through the 3.5mm output on the small HD 702 monitor.

The unit itself is quite portable, i travel a lot on planes to locations and i’ve actually just been removing the battery and monitor to fit the wireless directors monitor into a carry on bag very comfortably.

The delay in video display is very minimal and am really impressed with this, it’s maybe 2-3 frames at most and does not distract me in anyway when conducting interviews / pieces to camera etc.

Cons

The signal! The signal can drop out occasionally even when i’m only 5m away from the camera op. This has not been a deal breaker though and usually comes back on if i step closer. There have been times when i’m 10-15m away and it’s been fine. Especially when the weather has been really good but i’m not sure if this has anything to do with it!

It’s also a tad heavy, i found an old DSLR camera strap from my A77 in the cupboard which i attached to the rig with cable ties, i wear the unit now over one shoulder like a satchel and it’s really comfortable for long periods.

The screw holding in the monitor can become loose after a days filming. I need to work out a better solution here.

Future upgrade ideas

How far do i want to go with this? I know there is an antenna hack i could look into to try and extend the signal of the video transmission. To be honest, for my needs, i haven’t needed to be further than a few meters away from the camera op / director. But this could be a nice upgrade in future.

I could look into a bluetooth audio option using the usb power port available on the cage.

For now though i am very happy with this solution.

Total cost

Using as much of my existing equipment as possible in creating this piece of equipment has definitely reduced the cost, in particular not having to buy batteries and using my existing v-lock battery plate.

All up including the SmallHD 702 bright monitor, the Nyrius transmitter & receiver, the cage and various cables, the total came in a $1424 AUD.

A large part of this cost is made up of the monitor which was important to me as i want to make multiple uses out of it. You could significantly bring the budget cost down for this build by replacing the smallHD with a liliput or an Atomos Shinobi monitor. E.g the cost with a liliput monitor would come in at a total cost for the unit at around the $850 mark.

parts list

Monitor & Parts

Transmitter & Receiver

Cables / Various

If you have any questions with this project, feel free to leave a comment below, i will reply asap.

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