Figure 12-13: Look badass with the external HDMI monitor and the external shotgun microphone!
Figure 12-13: Look badass with the external HDMI monitor and the external shotgun microphone! |
Well, this seems to be a reasonable place to bring this up. Sony has also sells an optional external display called the CLM-V55 (Figure 12-13), which is being marketed to DSLR movie makers of any brand. It measures 5 inches diagonally and plugs into the camera’s HDMI output port. Why do you need it when you already have a larger LCD screen on the back of the camera? Well, just like photographers have always like big, bright viewfinders and big rear displays to see how their images look, so too do videographers like to really see what they’re doing. Big.
As you may know, the A6300 lets you view live video from an external monitor (AND the LCD/EVF simultaneously) and monitor audio (via what looks like real-time VU meters) while you’re shooting video.
As mentioned in the Introduction to this chapter, you can monitor your video by plugging in an HDMI monitor (and setting MENU --> 
4 --> HDMI Settings --> HDMI Info Display --> OFF). ) You can also use this configuration to hook up an external HD video recorder and record uncompressed video directly from the camera.
Figure 12-15: Be careful about trusting the HDMI monitor when it comes to judging your lighting and exposure! Just as viewing your pictures on an HDTV make them look bright and contrasty, so too will your video preview. The left image is how a video looked while we were filming it; the right one (a different take, obviously) is how it looked on my computer monitor during editing. (The sound VU meters were equally misleading!) I found a way around it though… |
However, be careful not to judge your color balance or exposure by paying attention to the HDMI output! It turns out that the color space associated with HDMI is called Rec. 709 and represents only 35.9% of the color gamut your sensor is capable of capturing. Another way to think about it is your camera can represent each color in the range of 0-255; however the HDTV standard uses a narrower range, from 16-235. (This is because Sony is adhering to a CIE 1931 color industry standard for television colors. Don’t blame Sony.) The result is that the monitor will look brighter and contrastier (pretend it’s a word) than what your rear LCD monitor will show, or what it will look like when viewing later on a computer monitor. (See Figure 12-15.)
TIP 1: I referred to the audio level meter as a “VU Meter”, but technically it’s just a “Peak Meter”. See Section 7.7 for more detail and what it takes to cause audio distortion. TIP 2: The different color palettes used between your camera and the monitors can be a problem when you’re editing, since it can look GREAT on your computer screen but completely different when viewing it on an HDTV. (Again, Figure 12-15). What to do? I’ve found a trick that works well. First, tweak your color and levels on your computer using the video editor software of your choice. Then, just before you render your video, you should invoke a function that all video editors have which performs a “COMPUTER RGB TO STUDIO RGB” conversion. It makes the output match what you saw in editing, and no longer will you cringe when you see your work played back on consumer equipment. |
You can see the equivalent of VU meters (the volume level graphically superimposed on the screen) if you have MENU --> 
2 --> Audio Level Display set to On (Section 7.7).
I discovered that even if the VU levels look healthy, once you get back to your computer the sound level can sound low. So make sure you test the camera in a similar environment before that important video shoot.
TIP: One problem I discovered while using an external monitor in a studio (with MENU --> 4 --> HDMI Settings --> HDMI Info. Display set to OFF) is that the live video feed also carries the audio monitor, so you might get audio feedback during filming if you’re using sensitive microphones and your monitor is close by. To solve this problem we had to constantly turn down the sound on the monitor whenever we were taping, and then turn it up again when reviewing the footage. Don’t know what Sony could have done about this since the HDMI output can also get routed to a DV recorder which needs the sound as well. |
I’ve never been a fan of these fancy programs that imported your images for you once you inserted a memory card into your computer. (I’d much rather drag the images to wherever I want, thank you very much!) However, in the case of movies the importing software such as PlayMemories Home (PMH) or iMovie really are helpful, since the camera stuffs images and videos into different directories. For example, here is where the camera stashes the raw information for movie files on the memory card:
The PMH software knows about all of these directories and it pulls them across and onto your hard drive, and it appears to do some file renaming at the same time. (.mts on the memory card, .m2ts on your hard drive, for example.) Sony’s manual strongly warns against hooking up your camera to your computer and manually transferring the movie files over to your hard disk: “Do not delete or copy AVCHD View movies on the memory card from the computer. Sony is not held liable for consequences resulting from such operations via the computer.” Pretty serious warning. It probably has something to do with that mysterious AVCHD database on the memory card.
Important TIP for Macintosh owners who insist on shooting in AVCHD: When importing AVCHD movies as "iMovie" or "Final Cut Pro", make sure you’re using MacOS version 10.6.7 or higher. Older versions will not be able to read the AVCHD video files. |
