Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 13:37:55 -0500 From: "Charles Goldman, MD" Subject: compatibility with Truevision/Radius I am forwarding this response from Truevisioin re: alleged Sony TRV900 problems with the Bravado DV-2000 (Radius MotoDV). According to the Radius people, you may have to request version 1.1.3 of their software (some current packages may be shipped with earlier versions). The new MotoDV Studio 2.0 is due out in December and should be compatible with the TRV-900. Obviously, they take this seriously. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: Dana_Kincaid@truevision.com To: cg@npsy.ceb.sc.edu Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:18:38 -0500 Subject: Re: TRV 900 The TRV-900 does work with our software if MotoDV is v. 1.1.2 or later. It fails with v. 1.0 and 1.1. These at least are ovservations on the macintosh. below is more information on it. -) There has been a massive amount of confusion (and panicky emails to me, support, our CEO and everyone else) about the Sony DCR-TRV900. I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions. What we know: -) Many users report the same failure when playing out FireWire to the camera -- gray blocks and/or black and white video. -) We borrowed one for a few days and could not get it to fail in that way. We found some other minor problems, but no grayscale and gray blocks. -) The guy who loaned it to us says it works fine on his system. He is using MotoDV version 1.1.3 (which, from the standpoint of print-to-video, is the same as version 1.1.2). I have asked him to reinstall the old software and see if that causes the problem to appear. No word yet. -) We have ordered one of our own, but it is going to take a couple weeks to get it unless a miracle happens. -) We will support it in an update very soon, but we can't know when until we have a couple days with the unit. -) Sony has not released any cameras that forced us to revise the drivers before, so we had no reason to suspect that the 900 would be any different. As a result, many Radius resellers and employees told people is was "untested, but should be compatible." What we DON'T know: -) Anything at all about compatibility with the PAL version. ANYTHING, not even rumors. I'm pretty sure that a PAL version exists, and that it has DV in. That's all I know. -) When we will know more about PAL TRV900 support. -) Why I couldn't reproduce the gray blocks problem -) When we'll actually get the camera -) How long it will take to fix it, although probably not long -) What release the fix will appear in -) When that release will be made available -) If all the NTSC TRV-900's are identical (Sony has changed the firmware a couple times on at least one camera. I'm not saying which, because then someone ELSE will panic, and it doesn't matter because we support all of them anyway) For those of you who bought them, CALM DOWN. You face a dilemma that every early-adopter faces. You have/want a piece of gear that nobody supports yet, but they will "soon" and you (we) can't be certain when. You have a choice. Either return/skip the newer unit and buy one that's known to be compatible, or keep/buy the unit you like and just hang tight for a couple months until the update ships. If anyone knows of another TRV-900 configuration that is working properly, can you please contact me directly so that we can see if there are any trends. Regarding miscommunications within Radius: If tech support says Testing/EQA did something (like reproduce the problem) and I say otherwise, I'm the one who's right. I meet with Tech support every Thursday to clear up miscommunications like this, and I correspond with them frequently via an internal listserver, so it shouldn't happen too often. The TRV900 is a special case because it's a Very Big Deal and everyone is running around trying to find out the status, which is a recipe for miscommunication. This would all have been easier if Sony sent us a unit for testing before it shipped, but they didn't. --Mike Jennings --Radius Digital Video Team