Movecam D204

[konstantinos Tyrin]

Hello.
I have just recieved the Movcam D204 with some extra goodies last night.
Today Iam flying it with an XDcam amd here starts the review of this system.
First inspection to all parts.

stage. it looks preety solid to me, no plays, on the fly adjustment in x,y with out the need to unlock. It came with 2 plates one long one short.
Anodising of the stage is exelent.it will be fearthure testing for vibrations.
It also has a rod assembly for motors and extras.Rods 15 mm CF , mine is anyway..
That could be a bit stiffer but it works ok.
Over all it looks like a preety easy to adjust and solid stage, with a different than usual design.Screw adjustment for side to side, screw adjustment for fore aft.Fore aft knob at the back and not at the side, not a problem to adjust with the rig on you.
No gears, no compexity, stage rides on support rods with no plays.

post. CF 2 stage no tools  ,no play at all, it works in and out very nice,with a line on side to line it correctly.

Gimbal. well there is absolute no play, it looks very slik and very solid to me,with tide tolerancies,and a nice machine curved grip/
works with no friction.

Arm. I WILL BE TESTING THIS LATER TODAY.But there is no locks and it doesnt have a limited boom range as mentioned before.
First fill is like a 3a arm, its not isoelastic I think.
It feels very rigid nicely machined.
One thing. The ride toolless adjustment is not....tooless unless you are HULK .
I could not turn the knob by hand but only with an allen wrench...
Oh well ..nothing new.

vest . It fits me very nicely very nice adjustments , tide lock, overall comfortable.Real testing to come later.

Electronics loads of 12/24 in outs, bnc, sdi, lemo connectors, secure switches. no fearthure comment for now.
3 bats, adjustable angle bracket, rod fore aft adjustment for dynamic balance.

Well thats its so far guys.
It looks very nice so far, and I havent found anything wrong with first inpection of components and assebling.
Nice machining, anodising, tide tolerancies.nice fit.

later
Constantine

[Charles King]

Thanks for the this review. You said  you had difficulties in turning the adjustment knob. Was this fully loaded or when the arm was loaded? Now please add some pics so we can get the idea of how it looks

[konstantinos Tyrin]

Hello Charles.Just finished a long day.
My impression is that this is quite a decent rig.
I have tuned the arm for the xdcam which was around 13 kilos with a vocas mate box rods promist and a focus motor and battery.
the feeling of the responce of the arm was this.
I tuned it for middle compesation first.It REACTED quite well and I could boom up and down with not so much effort though it looked that booming up was easier that booming down.But I could do this easy in all of the booming range with out any suspicius locks or any other errors and it felt very very smooth.Mind you this is a new arm. I believe if they decide to change to titanium springs it will be even better.
It is in the springy side but I think I like it more that the old 3a and I think its smoother.
I have tryed to turn the knob loaded and not loaded.No man there is a lot of torge in there.I cant do it and I dont thing anyone than superman can.But the forces of the arm go up and down very quickly with minimum turns, not like screwing a 3a.so the tuning is very very rapid.
The most important thing is that I have not experienced any kind of errors in booming performance and I found it to perform smoothly.

The sled. what I like about this is that it is quite modular. You can possition the bats in varius angles and achieeve dynamic balance, you can mount the monitor on the upper or lower post and there is plenty of space to mount other goods on the rods.It kind of reminds me one sled design of mine that was modular remember?
The gimbal performed very well at any angle.It felt quite solid with no vabrations.and I extended it to nearly full length to achieeve a high angle shot.I will be doing some more testing carefully but thats the first impression I got.

Vest fits well, feels solid , no sqweeks.

Ill try and get some photos tomorrow.

I didnt had the time to use the polybracket system either in low mode or other configuration.

Later

Constantine

[konstantinos Tyrin]

hello.
So here is a review about the sled of the D204.
THE STAGE.
First you slide the camera with plate, placing it rafly in center of balance then you lock with a knob screw toolless.
After that you can adjust in and out , or side to side toolless without unlocking .the adjustment knobs feel while turning nice and tide.There is also ofcource a safety spring pin that doesnt allow the camera and plate to slip of in and out.
So far with camera loads up to 14 kilos-that I have tryed - it looks very rigid.also mount the low mode polybracket that you see in previus photo and the stage felt as rigid as in high mode. I would prefer more beefie plates though I didnt have any problems so far.

UPPER JUNCTION BOX.
it has one 12/24 vdc output, one 12vdc output for varius cameras.
one bnc in, and one sdi in.
At the front it has 2x 12/24 vdc outputs and 2x12vdc outputs, for ff and other goods e.t.c.
All connectors are lemo.

THE POST.
All Carbon fiber 2 stage telescoping post, no tools extension,no play in between the tubes , with a line to line up both tubes for balancing.

GIMBAL
Now I have done a lot of tests to see if this is accurate, and it is accurate in all 360 degrees panning with out errors.I have also actually balanced the rig in dead 50-50 balance and performed the horrizontial camera balancing where wherever possition you place the camera in panning it stays there, while the sled is in horizontial possition balance 50/50.It wwasstill accurate as long as there where no external forces or inertial forces.It has no friction in all axis, and it has a nice long grip that you can mount a zoom controller or a focus controller and still have plenty of space for a confortable grip.It s toolless and there is no play at all so far in all parts.
It oves nicely up and down the post with minore lock rotation, tolerancies look to be very tide.

LOWER JUNCTION BOX
It has 2x bat in, one is for the double back bat mount so 2 bats are connected there.
The other is for the bat plate under, and you connect this only if you want 24 vdc
there is a secure on off switch and above a 12/24 vdc switch.Both with leds.
at the front it has one bnc out, one sdi out, 12vdc ouut and 12/24 vdc out.

BATTERY MOUNT.
That iis a rod kit with bracket and 2 rods, carbon fiber 15mm.
The bracket can be adjusted in out-and it has a lot of adjustment near 200mm, and also can be adjusted clockwise or anticlock wise so you can place the double bat mount in upwrite or down possition and there is more that 180 degrees adjustment there depenting where the middle bat plate and bracket is that also can be adjusted in and out
The rotational adjustment is toolles, but the in out with allen screw, that can be modified toolless as well.
I fount this battery system very modular and easy to set for dynamic balance.

MONITIR BRACKET
That is also a 2 rod system that can be adjusted same way as the bat mount, in out and rotational to varius angles
Also you can mount this at the upper post tube , or the lower with the addition of an inner plastic spacer.

INNER CABLE AND CONNECTORS.
There is a spiral cable with lemo connectorsinside the post that conncts with the upper and lower boxes connectors lemo .
this is a 20 cable and they should in my oppinion upgrade to a 14 or 12 cable so it can take a 435 in high speed with out probs, and that is as long as the electronics are ok.

ELECTRONICS.
Iam not messing around with them,Iam not opening them,and generally so far I have no coment.
It works ok with XDCAM so far and other video cams.
All cables are lemos to other connectors like 4 pin, 3 pin, etc .

OVER ALL OPPINION.
so far I havent noticed any design errors, tolerance errors , play in between parts errors, friction errors, balancing errors.
It all works very nicely, and with the change of some allen screws to knobs it can be 100 percent toollles.
It can be put in dynamic balance and it can do anything I have required to do so far.
So what ever is written about doggy sled that only looks good does not stand in my case.
This is a new sled and I have no actuall knowledge of what has happened in the past so I cannot comment about the past.
What ever was wrong then I cant see it here.

I will do the D204 ARM TEST LATER.
i ALSO INTENT TO GET SOME VIDEOS to saw you all set ups and adjustments and tests on video but I can find a chance so far Iam really busy working.Soon Iam getting a DVR so you can see some footage-as long as I deside which bloody dvr to get---

take care guys
Constantine

[Charles King]

Interesting Constantine. Again, we want pics! No good without pics please. Do you have something against taking pics BTW, did you order the BM vest?

[konstantinos Tyrin]

pics

[konstantinos Tyrin]

pictures by phone

[konstantinos Tyrin]

more...

[konstantinos Tyrin]

more..

[konstantinos Tyrin]

ouuuuffff

[konstantinos Tyrin]

arm ....

[Charles King]

Thanks for the pics. Judging by the arm it looks to be a two spring system using the flyer style/Steadicam vertical adjustment; but for bigger cameras. Interesting. How is the Steadicam patent on this issue?

[konstantinos Tyrin]

No Charles I dont like backmounted vests, they take space, and I want to get able to go throu tide spaces, Iam happy with front mounted vests and my back even at the age of nearly 43 in november, still is as strong as when I was 20.
Constantine

[konstantinos Tyrin]

The arm is indeed a 2 spring per section with acable conecting the 2, and with the vertical adjustment as you mentioned.
It feels frictionless, its not isoelastic, but it takes about , 3.5 lbs to force from middle to lower or highest boom range so I think its ok. that with a load of 13-14 kg camera on top...
I will be more precice in the force you need to control the boom range when I buy the weight scale but I think its ruffly 3.5-4 lbs .
I dont know about the patent issue.. what I know is that the y show up in NAB last time with the avant series which has this adjustment..so why didnt they have probs?
But trully I dont know..
I will be getting a titanium spring upgrade when this is ready, and I believe the arm will behave even better with this.
Later
Constantine

[Charles King]

Well as I heard from a visitor Garrett and Frank were going round these stalls and taking a copy of a phamlet from these guys. Who knows,  maybe to send them a mail or check their systems out closely... No seriously, I think that adjustment is still owned by Garrett and it is still in effect. Well, whatever happens, I wish them the best of luck.