Mike Curtis posted an amusing and, more importantly, instructive rant over at HDforIndies. The post, entitled "OK Indies, listen up - 10 THINGS NOT TO DO", is a litany of Bad Things that Mike probably encounters once a day in his work as a post-production guru. Eight of the DON'Ts are technology related. Five, in fact, deal in some way with the Panasonic DVX-100. That camera has earned its spot in the Pantheon of Great Indy Film Tools, no doubt, but its framerate settings (60i, 30p, 24p, 24pAdvanced) can cause a lot of problems if you don't fully understand them. The fact that most of these problems happen in post-production only adds to the misery -- if you've shot in multiple formats without understanding their differences and potential incompatibilities, you may have really hurt your project.
If you don't understand this stuff, check out the CallBox DVD or read carefully in the DVXUser forums.
The two non-technology issues have Mike addressing the fact that so many poor independent filmmakers want him to do their tech consulting for free. Though his blog (like many others, including this one) provides information freely, Mike's really in business to sell his expertise and information. Since the "product" Mike sells has no physical properties (i.e., it's not a car or a widget) people seem to think that it should be given freely since it can be asked for freely.
I can relate. Since I teach, it's my obligation -- and it's my pleasure -- to give my information freely to my students. I also try to serve the community (both the film community and my local community) in different ways. But you have to draw the line somewhere in order to do your own work and to pay the bills.
Mike's answer to people needing answers to specific post-production questions is that you can "pray to Google" or hire him. I'm someone who's done both. Here's a post from the past of my own experience in hiring Mike as a consultant.