How bad is it to use your main camera as your tape deck

[dakkio26]

Ok, so I got myself a Canon XHA1, and I have no money to spare. This means that I am using it for capturing instead of using a tape deck. Is this crazy, Am I ruining my camera by doing this? I heard that Canon playheads are pretty tough. What would you suggest? I hear some people are buying cheaper cameras in order to use as tape decks, but I just can't afford to.

Alex

[Jason Ramsey]

It's not generally recommended. It puts extra and unecessary wear on the heads.

Most people just buy a cheap couple hundred dollar camera and use it as a capture deck.
I don't know how that will work with the 24f and HDV though.

Jason

[Bill Ball]

Shoot to a new tape in the field, copy it once to your NLE, and never touch that tape again (unless disaster strikes your hard drive an you need another copy of the original) and you will be fine. It would only put an unusual amount of wear on the heads if you were shuttling tape back and forth across them while editing, but I can't imagine why you would do that.

In my experience Canons need a factory head cleaning once about every 20-25 hours use. It is not cheap.

[Elton]

Don't worry about it too much. Capture your tapes in an entire pass because hard drive space is so cheap. That's what I've done with the XL-H1 and have put many hours on it, (owned it for 1 year) yet no trouble so far.

When you can afford it, get the little HV10 as a capture deck (F mode compatible) and have a nice little 60i B Cam as a bonus. I've heard of it being had for $900 or so, but it might be a bit more from a reputable dealer.

[AuditoryVisuals]

It's not generally recommended. It puts extra and unecessary wear on the heads.

Most people just buy a cheap couple hundred dollar camera and use it as a capture deck.
I don't know how that will work with the 24f and HDV though.

Jason

People are using the Canon HV10 as a tape deck, as it understands 24f.

EDIT: Too late.

[dakkio26]

Thanks guys. Im gonna use my XHA1 for the next few months, making sure that I capture the whole tape in one go; and then I'll get myself a HV10 in the Summer/Autumn. They seem like nifty little cameras anyway.

[Drew Ott]

Once you get to 63 minutes, and you want to capture the entire tape, is there a better way to get to the beginning of the tape than rewinding the whole thing? It takes a while and seems like there's a better way.

[Barry_Green]

The problem with using your camera as your capture deck is that you can't be using it as a camera anymore. If you're fine with that, then there's no problem; especially if you do as Bill Ball said and capture the whole tape once and never refer back to the tape again.

Tying up a $4000 camera to do the job that a $300 DV camcorder can do, doesn't make a lot of sense. But with the XHA1 it's a tad different; you can't use a $300 camcorder to capture 24F or 30F, you have to use the HV10 at least. And that's $1000, so that changes the economic balance a bit. If it's not worth it to you to spend $1000 so you can keep your XHA1 in the field, then go ahead and use it as a "capture deck", there's nothing wrong with that at all. If you need to keep it active, you can get an HV10 and install that as your "deck" and capture from it.

[jaegersing]

The important thing is to avoid random type batch captures where the tape has to be shuttled back and forwards to find the In point for each capture. This is what causes the most wear and tear on the drive mechanism.

If you have an NLE with scene detection in the capture function it is very easy to just capture the whole tape and then sort out the clips you want using the files on the hard disk.

[jsaadein]

I think I am a little lost right here on what is going on. Okay...I record my footage on my XH A1, I know the HD is still compressed but I'm okay with that, and then capture the video onto my external hard drive via Firewire afterwards. Actually...lets visit this real quick. I only have one firewire card port on my computer. I haven't purchased the hard drive, but I was going to get one that was 7200 and had a great access rate. I guess the question is..when I connect my A1, am I going to connect it to the external hard drive (if there is an external port)...or where do I go from here? I will be using Premiere Pro 2.0 and it says it can only capture to a drive directly connected to the computer. No daisy chains.

Justin

[scannon]

I use Premiere Pro 2.0 and It easily operates the capture with the camera plugged into the computer's firewire port. If you only have one port you will have to add another firewire card in an expansion slot, or if its a laptop you can buy an adapter that fits into your PCMCIA slot.


I have one Maxtor Terabyte external attached to a second firewire port where I store active projects and captured source footage. If you are using a desktop computer you could also install a second 7200 rpm HDD internally.


SCannon

[jsaadein]

SCannon,

You are AWESOME. That explains a lot for me.

TO ALL FORUM USERS: You guys are awesome. Always responding timely to everything. I hope to be able to stay on here as long as possible to help other people as you guys have helped me.

Justin