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    Robust Mini-DV Player?

    Does anyone recommend a good playback device for Mini-DV tapes?

    I was looking at the Sony HVR-M15U, on eBay for around $600.

    hvr-m15u.jpg

    There are also several of its bigger brother, the HVR-M25U, but they're more than twice the price.

    hvr-m25u.jpg

    I'm apprehensive of the DSR-11, which is much more common. I bought one when they were new and immediately resold it, because I had a bad experience with it (I think it ate the first tape I put in it). Anyway, the HDV players that I just mentioned are newer, and the HVR-M15U is about the same price as a DSR-11.

    ---

    I have about a hundred Mini-DV tapes that, after years of procrastination, I would like to transfer to SSD.

    At first I tried with the camera I still own, the TRV900, but the results were bad. Sometimes it played back the footage fine, sometimes with the slightest audio squeaks, sometimes with that dreaded blockiness moving on the left and right sides, and sometimes with thick white stripes across the video!

    The tapes were recorded by a few different cameras (Canon GL2, Sony TRV900, VX2000) on mostly Panasonic Professional brand tape, but there a few from Sony and Fuji. (I vaguely remember the disproportionate catastrophe of mixing tape brands in the same camera without running a head cleaner in between. I just ran a head cleaner for 10 seconds in the TRV900, but still the same video artifacts remain.)

    ---

    If you think it's just my old TRV900 that's the problem, and a cheap Mini-DV camera off eBay in good condition would play back all the tapes fine, by all means let me know.

    Otherwise, I am considering a professional deck that might be better at handling a variety of magnetic terrain.

    Surely some of you have gone through this same kind of project!


    P.S. I don't miss tape.

    #2
    The thick white stripes usually mean that the head is out of alignment compared to the camera that shot the footage... so it'd play back fine on the camera that shot it, but not on another device.

    FWIW, for the maybe 2 MiniDV's I need to capture every few years, I'm still using my old Canon HV30. It reads just about anything NTSC (psf24, i60, sony, Canon, doesn't care), connects with firewire (inexpensive adapters available), and I even hooked it up as a gimptastic HDMI webcam recently on a whim. Can usually find it or the slightly newer HV40 for under $100 on eBay.



    and yes, tape sucked.

    I miss those blessed few years when you could ship off SD cards like tape, before cameras started getting stinking high-cost media and everyone started demanding you upload 256GB overnight :P
    Pudgy bearded camera guy
    http://mcbob.tv

    Comment


      #3
      I would get something like this.

      https://www.ebay.com/itm/333524091615

      From memory you had to get a FireWire port as an option on some of these decks BUT

      DvcPRO decks were better at reading the mini DV tapes and had better error correction. Plus faster to shuttle and rewind etc.

      From memory Sony used ME or metal evaporated tapes and Panasonic used MP or metal particle tapes and the MP was a bit more robust. The Panny decks could read Mini DV and DVCAM (I think) as well as of course DVC Pro.

      JB (all from memory of having owned these but could be totally wrong)
      Last edited by John Brawley; 06-28-2020, 02:13 PM.
      John Brawley ACS
      Cinematographer
      Los Angeles
      www.johnbrawley.com
      I also have a blog

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by combatentropy View Post
        Does anyone recommend a good playback device for Mini-DV tapes?

        I was looking at the Sony HVR-M15U, on eBay for around $600.

        [ATTACH=CONFIG]139451[/ATTACH]
        I'm in the same boat.

        My method is that I got a DVX100 and MacBook Pro with FW800. I am just going to play the tapes the whole hour through and then record directly to Quicktime.

        At the end, I'll have a DVX100 to play around with.


        Though, if I were being more serious about the whole thing, I'd get an old PC and a miniDV deck, and install my old copy of Adobe premiere that still has the proper miniDV capture tools built in.

        The Quicktime player built into the Mac OS does record the MiniDV straight from the DVX100, but I still haven't tested to see what happens when the tapes ends or when there is a break in the timecode.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by combatentropy View Post

          I'm apprehensive of the DSR-11, which is much more common. I bought one when they were new and immediately resold it, because I had a bad experience with it (I think it ate the first tape I put in it). Anyway, the HDV players that I just mentioned are newer, and the HVR-M15U is about the same price as a DSR-11.

          ---

          I have about a hundred Mini-DV tapes that, after years of procrastination, I would like to transfer to SSD.

          At first I tried with the camera I still own, the TRV900, but the results were bad. Sometimes it played back the footage fine, sometimes with the slightest audio squeaks, sometimes with that dreaded blockiness moving on the left and right sides, and sometimes with thick white stripes across the video!

          The tapes were recorded by a few different cameras (Canon GL2, Sony TRV900, VX2000) on mostly Panasonic Professional brand tape, but there a few from Sony and Fuji. (I vaguely remember the disproportionate catastrophe of mixing tape brands in the same camera without running a head cleaner in between. I just ran a head cleaner for 10 seconds in the TRV900, but still the same video artifacts remain.)

          ---

          If you think it's just my old TRV900 that's the problem, and a cheap Mini-DV camera off eBay in good condition would play back all the tapes fine, by all means let me know.

          Otherwise, I am considering a professional deck that might be better at handling a variety of magnetic terrain.

          Surely some of you have gone through this same kind of project!


          P.S. I don't miss tape.

          Got you. Reading again your reasons for going tape deck makes a lot of sense.


          My tapes are all shot on Panasonic SD miniDV. All the same brand of tape, as well. I was very into standardization, as that was still early days digital, and analogue thinking was still the way things were done.

          Comment


            #6
            Thanks, mcbob and JB!

            DVCPro decks cannot play back Mini-DV tapes without a cassette adapter, which I cannot find even on eBay.

            deck.jpg

            One model of it is the Panasonic AJ-CS455. It might be the only model. It adapts what it calls "S-cassettes" (Small cassettes) to "M-cassettes" (Medium cassettes).

            adapter.jpg

            Otherwise yeah, a DVCPro deck would be a great choice, very cheap on eBay.
            Last edited by combatentropy; 06-28-2020, 02:45 PM.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by James0b57 View Post
              At the end, I'll have a DVX100 to play around with.
              I considered doing the same thing, James! One thing holding me back is I don't know if it will play back all my tapes any more reliably than my TRV900.

              Comment


                #8
                Get a Sony DVCam deck, we have a bunch of dsr1500a decks kicking around. Then buy a bunch of head cleaners. Sony made an internal PC drive for a while, it was used as DV transfer and as a data backup device for a while, they are kind of rare.

                Plenty of free tools to capture DV data streams.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by combatentropy View Post
                  I considered doing the same thing, James! One thing holding me back is I don't know if it will play back all my tapes any more reliably than my TRV900.
                  Yeah, totally. Once I re-read your post, I realized you are dealing with different makes and models. Different ball game. I had all the same brand and camera across the span. So I am in a different position.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    You are in a much better position, it sound like!

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Greg_E View Post
                      Get a Sony DVCam deck, we have a bunch of dsr1500a decks kicking around.
                      Yup, leaning in that direction now.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by combatentropy View Post
                        You are in a much better position, it sound like!
                        I had recently found out about Quick time being able to record miniDV via firewire, so I was doing some preliminary testing the other day, and what I had totally not expected was how much nostalgic joy I got from the sound of the tape cuing up in the camera. That sound was the sound of a fresh tape going into the camera for so many hundreds of tapes that it probably developed into some sort of Pavlovian dopamine hit.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Haha, I get a Pavlovian response too, but it's more like dread Too many technical glitches through the years, too many stupid mistakes on my own part.

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