Shooting time lapses with XH A1

Hello everyone,
I am wondering if anyone tried to shoot some time lapses with XH A1. Does it have an Interval Recording option in the menu? And if yes, what format does it shoot in this Interval Recording setting. 60i or 24f?
Thank you for any input
Cheers
Paul

Yes I have shot some time lapses (and used up a lot of HDD space!), and no it doesn't have an Interval Recording option in the menu (not that any other semi-pro cameras have one that is useful for anything).
:D

Hi Blairness,
thanks for your info. That is pretty disappointing. Even my old Sony PD 150 has an Interval Rec for time lapses. Anyways, can I ask, how did you shoot your time lapses without the IR and how did they look?
Thanks
Cheers
Paul

Hi Blairness,
thanks for your info. That is pretty disappointing. Even my old Sony PD 150 has an Interval Rec for time lapses. Anyways, can I ask, how did you shoot your time lapses without the IR and how did they look?
Thanks
Cheers
Paul

Paul, you need to connect your camcorder directly to a computer and use a software to record the timelapse. You will just need to set the time intervals in the software and thats it. WinDV can do this but it only supports DV.

Hi Blairness,
thanks for your info. That is pretty disappointing. Even my old Sony PD 150 has an Interval Rec for time lapses. Anyways, can I ask, how did you shoot your time lapses without the IR and how did they look?
Thanks
Cheers
Paul

PD150's do indeed have an interval recording feature, but what is the shortest time you can set it to capture at each interval? If it is anything over 1 frame, IMO it is useless (please let me know if you think otherwise, and why). In reply to how I captured the time lapse: I kind of did it the way "vsansal" said. Except instead of only capturing the frames I needed (you need special software to be able to do that), I captured the full 'real time' footage straight into my computer in real time over firewire and simply sped it up in my crappy NLE.

So as you can see, there are two main ways you can 'do' timelapses: 1. You can record the whole 'real time' footage (either straight to computer, or to tape/HDD etc.) and then speed it up in a NLE (PLEASE DO NOT do what I did and use a crappy NLE and/or export the sped up footage, then import and speed up again... if you want a good quality outcome!).
2. Or you can find something (either software for the computer, or a HDD like a "firestore") that will only record the frames you will need for the finished 'time lapse' footage.
The advantage of #1 is that you can change how fast or slow your time lapse will be, the disadvantage being that it uses up a LOT of storage space.
The advantage of #2 is that the storage space it uses is the amount that the actual 'timelapse' footage takes up, the disadvantage being that you can not slow down the time lapse if you need to.

Hello,
thanks a lot.
paul

Hi,
thanks for your post.
PD 150 has a minimum burst time 15 frames, which is not bad.
The way I usually done time lapses was like this. I put, let's say interval 30 sec and burst time 15 frames.(setting differs from subject to subject.) Than I divide the total length in seconds, by number of frames/burst. In this case, I divide lets say 120 seconds(total length of the footage) by 15. That is 8. So I need to shrink my footage to 8 seconds clip, to make it look smooth. This is not from my head, I have read this somewhere. If the camera does not have a INTERVAL RECORDING, I can imagine that it could be done manually. Make let's say 21 frame burst and cut off first three and last three frames to get rid of those frames possibly affected by camera shake. Than you have number of clips, each containing 15 frames. line them up, make a QuickTime clip, which then could be shrank to propriate length, based on calculation mentioned above. I never tried it, but I don't see any reason why this would not work.

Hi,
thanks for your post.
PD 150 has a minimum burst time 15 frames, which is not bad.
The way I usually done time lapses was like this. I put, let's say interval 30 sec and burst time 15 frames.(setting differs from subject to subject.) Than I divide the total length in seconds, by number of frames/burst. In this case, I divide lets say 120 seconds(total length of the footage) by 15. That is 8. So I need to shrink my footage to 8 seconds clip, to make it look smooth. This is not from my head, I have read this somewhere. If the camera does not have a INTERVAL RECORDING, I can imagine that it could be done manually. Make let's say 21 frame burst and cut off first three and last three frames to get rid of those frames possibly affected by camera shake. Than you have number of clips, each containing 15 frames. line them up, make a QuickTime clip, which then could be shrank to propriate length, based on calculation mentioned above. I never tried it, but I don't see any reason why this would not work.

Oh ok, I can now see how interval rec COULD be of benefit:D: it would save you more tape than recording the whole footage (would still use more storage space than only recording the frames you need though). Should definately not be a feature you don't buy a camera over though (even if all you are going to do is timelapses!), because as I have said there are similar/better ways of doing timelapses.

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ0ZkLvixqI) a link to a short time lapse I did.

Yes, you absolutelly right, that this feature is not crucial factor. In fact I am going to buy XH A1, if the picture quality is what they say it is.
Cheers

Hi vsansal,
thank you so much for your tip and I appologize it is comming so late. I had just overlooked your post, so I did not respond right away.
So thank you,
Paul

Yes, good to know WinDV can do that. I'll have to store that one away. Does anyone know of any software that can do the same thing, except with HDV (I'm thinking the long gops could be a problem, though I'm sure there are ways around it)?

Hi vsansal,
thank you so much for your tip and I appologize it is comming so late. I had just overlooked your post, so I did not respond right away.
So thank you,
Paul

No problem Paul :)