61 days -- December 21st, 2006 through February 19th, 2007 -- was the official length of Denver's second-longest period of continuous snow cover on record. The official testing spot is near the old Stapleton Airport and to count as "snow cover" there has to be an average of more than an inch of the fluffy white stuff on the ground in the open, unsheltered areas around there.

We *almost* broke the all-time record of 63 days, but not quite. Close, though.

But it was on Wednesday evening, more than a month after the official end of Denver-under-snow that I saw that the very last snowbank to have hung on from the storm was about to face its last withdrawal. I could have stayed up with it for its final moments, it's last drip at, perhaps, three AM, but I settled for taking this picture instead. So, here it is, with a conveniently located shoe included partially in frame for size comparison.

You know, the snowfall that covered Denver used to be a *lot* bigger than my shoe.

But by the next morning, the first of the daffodils were blooming, which is another hint that spring is springing. It's probably a good thing that I got around to doing the pre-spring pruning about two weeks ago.

...or something like that.

The snow had *almost* melted out here just before February ended with another fine batch of the white stuff.

That's okay, we finished up the shots that were planned on "Seven Swords" before the snow hit and the cast meetings up in the hills for "Atomites" have been postponed until the weather improves, so there's plenty of time to get all warm and cozy in the heat of the dual-Xeon video editing stations.

I've done a *lot* of upgrading out here over the last couple of months, inspired in part by the frustrations I had making an assortment of master tapes for various movies I'd sold to distributors around the world. Most of the world--apart from the US and Japan--is using PAL for their standard-definition video and, while I have a collection of PAL video equipment, it consists of devices like "professional" SVHS decks and monitors, not true mastering gear. Enter the Sony HVR-M25U: handles large and small DVCAM tapes, does NTSC and PAL plus Sony's preferred flavor of HDV (HDV-2, for those of you who've been keeping track of these things), all for less than 10% of the price of a used DigiBeta deck.

Sony hvr-m25u

True, it's still 4:1:1 (NTSC) or 4:2:0 (PAL/HDV) video and limited to only two high-quality audio tracks (which is a total pain-in-the-neck, but I know of no cost-effective option that doesn't share this particular pain-in-the-relevant-anatomical-region), but it really does offer a lot of great features, especially when you consider the $4,080 list price.

Not that it's entirely without a few "issues," but in keeping with most modern hardware and software, the biggest and most annoying problems are the ones that were deliberately engineered into it.

In marked contrast to the decks I've gotten before, the overarching design philosophy is how to keep the unit from being used in any way that could potentially involve copyrighted material in some manner. If some of the unit's functions occasionally do work for editing, playback, recording, etc., this should be viewed as a nice bonus or as a pleasant change of pace, but should not be taken for granted or relied upon.

On the whole, the manual is not very helpful, but as someone who plans to use it, I'm obviously not the intended audience. The bulk of the manual is devoted to repeated descriptions of the various things you should not try to do with the deck or that will cause it to disable its recording and output functions because they could possibly involve copyrighted material or fool the deck into detecting a possible future copyright violation even when working with your own original footage. Functioning as a video tape deck--or functioning reliably--was much, much, much lower on the design team's list of goals and is largely glossed over in the manual.

If, however, you laid out your hard-earned cash for a highly sophisticated high-definition recording deck primarily for the purpose of *not* using it, then you're set and you should experience no difficulty installing, connecting, and not using this device.

Some quotes from the manual:

• The unit may be damaged when the HDMI OUT jack on the unit is connected to the HDMI OUT jack on the same unit.
  (there's only one HDMI OUT jack; in fact, there's only one HDMI connection at all. Connecting it to itself would take quite some talent or a large hammer)
  
  
• Contents of the recording cannot be compensated for if recording or playback is not successful due to a malfunction of the unit, video tape, etc.
  (I'm guessing this sort of thing is a kind of legal disclaimer, but it's just stuck in the middle of explaining how to insert and eject a tape.)
  
  
• Press the x1/3 button on the Remote Commander to play the tape at one-fifth of normal speed.
  
  
• When you playback a tape in DVCAM/DV format and press x1/5 button on Remote Commander while pointing it toward the unit, the playback speed turns to 1/3 of normal speed.
  
  
• The time code and user bits cannot be reset on the unit from with Remote Commander equipped with a counter reset function.
  (Why have a counter reset button on Remote Commander if you can't reset the counter from with Remote Commander?)

I shouldn't complain. It's nice that it did come with a remote control (most professional video decks don't), but it doesn't seem to be a remote control designed for this particular device. A lot of functions require the use of one of those circular arrangements of arrows around an "execute" button (like pretty much all DVD players have these days). There is a miniature set of buttons like that on the face of the unit, but absolutely none of those controls appear on the remote.

Here's the chapter on using it with a computer:

For details on the connecting method to the editing machine, refer to the supplied instruction manual of your editing unit. The editing functions you can use depend on the editing software. For details on editing methods, refer to the instruction manual of your editing software.
(want to know how to use this device? we're just the manufacturer; go ask someone else)

And here are some of the highlights of the troubleshooting section:

• Symptom: Some menu item settings change accidentally.
  - Cause: You have pulled out the power cord during a menu operation or LCD monitor brightness adjustment.
  (It's a standard computer power cord; it takes some effort to pull it out. Have you ever accidentally unpluged your computer by pressing a button on it?)
  
  
• Symptom: It takes time to eject the cassette.
  - Cause: This is not a malfunction.
  (Whew! That's a relief!)

And the care and maintenance section:

• Plastic is often used for the surface finishing of the unit. Do not spray a volatile solvent such as an insecticide towards the cabinet.
  (Good to know plastic is often used on the surface, but what is it made of the rest of the time? Bugs?)
  
  
• Do not use the unit in an area exposed to radiation. A malfunction may occur.
  (It'll turn into a giant green tape deck and run amok? I thought only Panasonic decks did that.)

*whew* Despite all of this, it did work, though you pretty much have to figure it out by trial-and-error rather than relying on any insights gleaned from the documentation. There's not a lot of radiation around here and I don't generally squirt bug-spray into tape decks anyhow, so it was pretty easy for me to avoid the usual pitfalls they apparently encountered when doing their initial tests, and start cranking out master tapes.

Overall, it gets a couple of thumbs-up; I'd toss in a few more appendages on top of that if Sony had spent less time and effort worrying about all the ways they could make it not work and had put some of that time and thought into making it friendlier for legitimate users (coming up with a remote that was designed to work with this particular device instead of one that appeared to have been stuck into the box by mistake, for starters).