What's hiding in the back of the cupboard...
Our Equipment
There have so far been three 'stages' of equipment development at TXDP. The distant-past, the past, and the present. So, in reverse order, it's the TXDP Equipment History...
The Present
This is more like it! Some professional videography equipment and all the bits to go with it! Among other things, this is what we've got to play around with...
- Sony PMW-EX3 (pictured above), a High Definition 3CCD professional video camera - better than the cameras that TX used at university, and better than some that he's seen being used to make propper TV shows in the UK!
- Vinten Vision 3, a two stage aluminium tripod - it's the bee's knees.
- 2x Sony wireless microphone kits - with clip-mics for interviews and presenters, just like on TV!
- Sennheiser sound kit (microphone pictured left), which means no more hissy background noise on TXDP's videos!
- Datavideo Chroma-key kit (part of which is pictured right), which is the biggest leap forward in 'special effects' for TXDP since.... ever!
This new equipment means better quality videos - clearer images and crisper sound with no unwanted hissing or background noise. The chroma-key equipment opens up a huge range of possibilities, and we're all very excited about it.
The Past
Some time during TX's university years, he knew that 8mm tapes were pretty much dead, and that he'd a better camera.
Cue the Canon MD101 (pictured).
This camera uses MiniDV tapes, and records in full standard definition. It's smaller, lighter, and higher quality than it's TXDP predecessor. The MD101 was the camera behind most of the productions in the TXDP YouTube account, an account which saw more than a quarter of a million video-views before the end of 2008, when newer, more professional equipment was purchased.
It was used throughout the "TXDP Kane's Wrath Demo Videos", which was TXDPs most successful venture of 2008. (See the first of those videos here).
This camera is not retiring just yet - with bigger, more complex equipment setups planned for future videos, someone will have to be filming the action behind-the-scenes!
The Distant-Past
'Narrated' by The TX
[Loud booming planetarium voice]:
MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO....[A cough, followed by a normal speaking voice]:
.... well, not millions of years ago, but about a decade ago, which seems like quite a long time thinking about it, I was enjoying my younger youth as a schoolboy, and mucking about with an old 8mm video camera (See About TXDP).This video camera was the entire inventory for TXDP. My, how times have changed.
Want to know more? Ask us! Just pop an email in our inbox, at: yoursay[at]txdp.co.uk