Building a small studio! Help Needed.

[darkwhite]

Hello my dear friends.
We need to film some classes and lectures for broadcasting in local TV stations. Now we are using a sony PD150P for filming. The organization decided to expand their activity in this area and cooperate with bigger TV stations. And since we have to finance the budgets we cannot buy our equipment along the way and should purchase everything needed now. So this the reason for buying blind! And I hope you guys could help us!
We will be filming classes, lectures, A LOT of interviews (indoor mostly) and in near feature we want to make documentaries which will be needing a lot of street work.
Which camera we should choose?
Can we use this PD150 for this purpose? If no what we should buy for secondary camera?
What kind of tripods we need?
Lighting Equipment?
What kind of Sound recording equipment we need? We don’t even have a lapel Mic.
Anything else?
TiA.

[poisondeathray]

You'll get better replies if you provide info on:

1) Approx Budget range

2) Station requirements for broadcast & potential other audiences - while local TV stations might be ok with SD, almost everyone and their dog uses HD now, especially these days with Youtube, vimeo (even if you only require SD, acquisition in HD gives you many more options). So you should clarify what those "bigger" TV stations want

[lordsmurf]

^ What PD said.

Honestly, this isn't something you should be asking online.
For this, I would seek assistance from the somebody at one of the local stations.

I like VH, but this topic is outside the expertise of 99.999% of the members here.

[darkwhite]

Well BIG ones are quiet big! for example Aljazeera is interested in our material but its not quality qualified. so its definitely HD! but I've seen 1000 $ and 15,000 $ HD cameras and dont know which one would suffice! and for budget as I said we have to propose estimated needed budget. but I do not want overpriced equipment and get a rejected budget! and do not want to negotiate to get finances like in six months for stuff that I didn't foresee buying!

[poisondeathray]

You should REALLY clarify this - because many stations have strict requirements .

e.g. BBC requires specific cameras from a "qualified" list , 4:2:2 sampling, 50Mb/s for most productions . But they may waive some of requirements on other lesser or "Independent" productions . Similarly, shooting for Discovery Channel - they have a minimum requirements list


You don't want to end up spending $20K on a camera with nothing left over for other equipment , and you don't want spend all this money to be rejected either , etc...

[edDV]

SD is cheap and most all stations can accept DV format for news/sports clips. Programming standards are more strict. HD will be much more expensive.

[TreeTops]

Your going to produce vids for Aljazeera? They don't seem to care about source. I have seen
Al quaida training vids on that channel done with Flip cameras.

[darkwhite]

Because the nature of programs are informative/ educational I don't think we would need the +50 MB bit rates and high standards of discovery and BBC channels.
And there is a big dilemma we are facing here. Although we are sure that aljazeera and some other national TV networks are interested in our material, we are not sure that our production could meet their requirements. So we should talk to them and ask for their standards?

[poisondeathray]

Because the nature of programs are informative/ educational I don't think we would need the +50 MB bit rates and high standards of discovery and BBC channels.
And there is a big dilemma we are facing here. Although we are sure that aljazeera and some other national TV networks are interested in our material, we are not sure that our production could meet their requirements. So we should talk to them and ask for their standards?

Yes! That' s what everyone has been saying

I'm in Canada and the CBC's submission guidelines are similar to BBC's, even for documentaries. It's pretty standard for HD submissions . I don't know about Al Jazeera

You can download the CBC's or BBC's pdf guidelines, but that won't be useful to you unless you're submitting to the CBC or BBC. They are very specific about what they will and will not accept (BBC even more so). But if you meet their requirements - you will meet just about everyone else's requirements - so you have a much wider potential. Perhaps other broadcasters might be interested in your productions in the future? You can cross them off if you don't meet the minimum requirements. Something to think about if you're planning ahead with a budget

The bottom line is you should contact whoever you are submitting to directly. "I don't think we would need..." isn't a valid excuse if you wanting to start up a production company or studio . This isn't a high school drama class. Find out in writing.

[darkwhite]

Yes! That' s what everyone has been saying

And I summed up everything that i read here!

I will post the result of our investigations on this issue here!
Thanks everyone!

[intracube]

You should REALLY clarify this - because many stations have strict requirements .

e.g. BBC requires specific cameras from a "qualified" list , 4:2:2 sampling, 50Mb/s for most productions .

Then they go and broadcast it at ~5Mbit/sec (1440x1080 h264)

No, I'm not exaggerating.

[lordsmurf]

I don't recall anybody broadcasting at 1440.
1920, yes. But 1440? You sure about that?

[edDV]

I don't recall anybody broadcasting at 1440.
1920, yes. But 1440? You sure about that?

1440x1080i h.264 is common in Europe.

[intracube]

I don't recall anybody broadcasting at 1440.
1920, yes. But 1440? You sure about that?

Yup:
"move from a picture resolution of 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 in order to maximise the delivery of HD benefits on large, high-quality displays."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/06/picture_quality_on_bbc_hd_a_vi_2.html

Last time I checked (which wasn't that long ago) they were still broadcasting 1440px horizontal according to mediainfo (looking at a dumped .ts). Might have changed recently.

EDIT: In the last few weeks: http://a516.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/1920x1080-hd-on-freeview.html
IMO there are still quality control issues they need to address (other than res. and bitrate).

[budwzr]

Your going to produce vids for Aljazeera? They don't seem to care about source. I have seen
Al quaida training vids on that channel done with Flip cameras.

FYI: Aljazzeera is funded by Qatar, a modern-minded arab country like Jordan, but richer, as a way to open the eyes of the arab world. It's a good thing.

If they do all perfect puff pieces nobody will watch. Hahaha.