why are VTR's so expensive?

FiddlerMD

FiddlerMD

Well-known member
much like many people here, i use an old cheapy camcorder for capturing dvx footage to my pc. this works fine of course, but my question is, if a $300-$400 camcorder can do this w/o any problems, why is it that the cheapest vtr is still over a grand? Do they have some sort of features that a camcorder doesnt (for basic capture).. i know some have screens and some have certain editing capabilities, but if this is all done in software, why not a cheap capture vtr for $300 or something?
 
Maybe it's just a matter of supply and demand? If not many average consumers buy them, the lower sales would drive the prices up. With VHS, not only did home camcorder enthusiasts find them useful, but anyone that wanted to rent a video or tape a show had to use VHS. But now, with DVDs and DVRs, the demand for MiniDV VTRs isn't as high. Just one possible reason -- there could be others.

Dave
 
The mechanics required to build a VTR are much more complex and robust than used to build a camera - especially a cheap consumer one.

To build a deck that can stand up to profesional just costs more than to build a cheap camera for normal consumer level use.

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
The mechanics required to build a VTR are much more complex and robust than used to build a camera - especially a cheap consumer one.

To build a deck that can stand up to profesional just costs more than to build a cheap camera for normal consumer level use.
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Right, but it seems that there is quite a demand for cheap VTR decks, at least around dvxuser. Could one not be built?
 
there is a quite robust little dv deck out there, the sony gv-d1000. it has a small screen and can run off a battery, plus many other features quite useless to an nle system user. it runs about $1k. it's still much more expensive than a cheap camera, but you get all kinds of issues with those, like misalligned heads and other problems. i'm sure the economics of supply and demand has a part in the pricing, but a camera cannot stand up extensive use as a deck.
 
alichek said:
there is a quite robust little dv deck out there, the sony gv-d1000. it has a small screen and can run off a battery, plus many other features quite useless to an nle system user. it runs about $1k. it's still much more expensive than a cheap camera, but you get all kinds of issues with those, like misalligned heads and other problems. i'm sure the economics of supply and demand has a part in the pricing, but a camera cannot stand up extensive use as a deck.
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The Sony Mini DV walkman is a great little deck with a built in LCD, I have a GVD900 (5 inch LCD) as well as a 1000(4 inch LCD) and they are both great but I love my Sony DSR-30 even more because it has many more features. I agree that Decks are expensive but they are geared towards professionals who use them often so they have to be built to tale more punishment than your average mini dv consumer cam.
 
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alichek said:
there is a quite robust little dv deck out there, the sony gv-d1000. it has a small screen and can run off a battery, plus many other features quite useless to an nle system user. it runs about $1k. it's still much more expensive than a cheap camera, but you get all kinds of issues with those, like misalligned heads and other problems. i'm sure the economics of supply and demand has a part in the pricing, but a camera cannot stand up extensive use as a deck.
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That's not a deck...it's just a glorified cameraless camera. :D

Its tape transport system is pretty much the same as in camcorders, it's not robust at all.
 
Someone needs to create a cheap dv deck so as one can integrate it into a rack, or set it atop a desk and not charge 1k or more for it... I think if someone could engineer this, they would make a killing from people like the users on these boards. You could charge the price of cheap camcorder for it just put the extra money into the build of the deck as opposed to the lens, optical features, etc...

Just my thoughts
 
i actually thought of modifying my little sony camcorder into a deck .. the sony has touchscreen controls too so the screen could be potentially taken out and placed onto a front panel and still leave you with full control of the "deck". this wouldnt be that hard to do in theory. i just cant bring myself to destroy a perfectly functional camcorder :) .. maybe ebay for something with a broken lens or something
 
I was thinking it would be great to develop a basic deck that fits in a 5 1/2 inch space in a computer, where a DVD drive would go, etc.

Dave
 
dbarak said:
I was thinking it would be great to develop a basic deck that fits in a 5 1/2 inch space in a computer, where a DVD drive would go, etc.

Dave
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Sony offers a drive like this and has for years, we had one at my job 4 years ago and I ended up putting it in a case and making it external. The thing I didn't like about it was there are no physical buttons on the drive and you you to control everything using your NLE system. The back of the drive had s-video RCA jacks, firewire and a port to be powered by the computer. The firewire port burnt out and it was useless after that. I just tried to do a search for it and it did not yield many results so I don't think it was a popular device. The model number was sonY DRV-1000P.



sd.jpg
 
Interesting that they tried it, but too bad it was a bad design. Basic buttons on the front, a lower price, and a more robust circuit could have made it a winner.
 
Spend the bucks and buy a deck or rent one. You are putting your masters in there! After all the work shooting you don't want to end up having your camera master messed up God forbid ruined by junk technology. Decks are built for constant use, they have rugged transports and depending on your budget +++ features. If you can't afford one, rent one to capture your material and then run them through one more time using your cheap camera or deck to make copies of your camera masters. tape is cheap time and talent isn't. I use a GVD900 as a screening machine for my backup masters and travel with a DSR45 in a Pelican 1500 case. The DSR45 has a small lcd "confidence monitor" and lots of nice features in a small footprint.
 
I got the Sony GVD 1000 now and knock on wood have not had any issues with it, I do plan on getting an actual DECK at some point. The GVD is good for portability. I can also use it as a pass through which is cool. I recently needed to bring some VHS footage into FCP and I ran the VCR through the GVD to the computer. Just wish there was an audio meter on the screen or unit it self so you can see what channel your feeding into the computer. I know you can select channel 1, 2, or stereo in the menu. But like someone said its not a real deck but for me it gets the job done of importing footage into the computer!
 
why are VTRs so expensive? same reason why Swatch watches are so expensive: supply and demand. The companies know two things:

1. no matter how much they cost, big companies and serious editors will buy them
2. as long as no one company dumps their prices, nothing will change

it's Game Theory at it's very worst. Same reason why RAM, LCDs and Plasma screens were so expensive and then suddenly dropped in price: as long as everyone kept the prices up nothing changed. then some small company came out with something MUCH cheaper and the other companies had to dump their prices to stay in the market.

But chances of VTRs going down in price any time soon (or at all) are slim to none. Fortunately we should see a complete transferal to Hard Drive or Solid State based memory in the near future - most bigger TV stations have or are going to server based systems and with the onslaught of HD the industry is slowly going tapeless.

mor10
 
FiddlerMD said:
much like many people here, i use an old cheapy camcorder for capturing dvx footage to my pc. this works fine of course, but my question is, if a $300-$400 camcorder can do this w/o any problems, why is it that the cheapest vtr is still over a grand? Do they have some sort of features that a camcorder doesnt (for basic capture).. i know some have screens and some have certain editing capabilities, but if this is all done in software, why not a cheap capture vtr for $300 or something?
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I'm one of those losers, errr users, who has a DV VTR. For me the choice came down to a number of things.

1. I often shoot in-house, corporate video. Meaning that my capture time sometimes exceeds 8 hours at a sitting. While a cheapie video camera MIGHT be ok with that, I'm not about to bet my job on it.

2. VTR reads and writes DV, and accepts mini or full size DV cassettes. It's REALLY nice to be able to write not only my finished work, but all my source out to a backup DV tape. Those 4+ hour full size tapes are sweeeet.

3. VTR can be used in AC or DC mode. So I can take it on the road, stick in a full size DV tape, and roll 4 hours at a time without changing tapes.

4. VTR reads DVCam. So I can trade tapes with all the local TV stations. They can all read my Full size DV tapes with their DVCam gear, and I can read their DVCam stuff.

5. VTR has a switch on the back for PAL. Flip the switch and now I can work with tapes from across the pond. Read or write.

6. VTR is FAST. End to end on a 60m MiniDV tape in under a minute. And it'll do it all day long.

7. VTR has firewre, S-video in/out, analog in/out. And they're ALL hot all the time.

8. VTR has RS-422 control.

9. VTR has external signal level audio meters.

10. VTR has a cute remote control.


Of course most people don't need all this stuff, but honestly, it was worth the price of admission to be able to hand off or recieve full size tapes. You're not going to convince anyone at the TV station you're a "pro", handing them miniDV tapes.

True story:

First time I asked the local PBS station for a copy of a broadcast so I could check what they were getting back in the control room from my new audio install, they asked, "Do you want VHS?" I said, "What do you guys record in, DigitalBeta"? Producer laughed and said no, DVCam. I said, "good, bring me one." We've had a nice professional relationship since then, and now I get dubs same day when I ask for them. In fact, the producer dropped off one herself to me this week. Ask for a MiniDV copy and see if the station producer makes a trip out to deliver! LOL!
 
morten said:
Fortunately we should see a complete transferal to Hard Drive or Solid State based memory in the near future - most bigger TV stations have or are going to server based systems and with the onslaught of HD the industry is slowly going tapeless.
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You really think so? I'm not around TV much anymore. I did have a chance to see one of the first tapeless multi-site, News Channels come online. It was a disaster. None of that was public, but a friend of mine who worked at the station and knew my background asked me to come in one day and check it out... Scary.

The problem with going tapeless, is that you can't stick a hard drive in a fire vault. You can't protect a hard drive from vandalism, you can't take them off-site to protect from geographic incidents (tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, etc.)

In ye olden days, I used to watch the daily feeds come in on satellite and get laid to U-Matics. Today, I suppose you could simply run the Sat feeds to hard drive. if the drive took a dump, I suppose you could stream live off the Sat, or get another feed delivered, but for local production work, being able to have archival copies would still seem important.

In my "real" line of work, 9/11 and New Orleans taught a lot of valuable lessons about having critical data stored a safe distance away from the site. For many years that meant local bank vaults and the like. New Orleans changed that.

Maybe it's just not that important to the TV folks.
 
PerroneFord said:
The problem with going tapeless, is that you can't stick a hard drive in a fire vault. You can't protect a hard drive from vandalism, you can't take them off-site to protect from geographic incidents (tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, etc.)
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What are you talking about? OK, it isn't video (although the contents of the hard drive are irrelevant IMO) but my company is doing full server backups to SATA hard drives in hot-swap removable drawers which are then put into fire vaults and also taken off-site for secure archival.

The technology doesn't even cost very much!

P.S. This is just for the weekly full image backups. Day-to-day incrementals are done on tape. However the technology we are applying to data can work just fine with DV video.
 
Yeah, I don't get that point either. Hard drives are *cheaper* than high-def tape. And you certainly can stick hard drives in fire vaults or take them off-site; in fact any prudent backup strategy would dictate having two copies anyway. When a hard drive is $100 or so for 12 hours of DVCPRO-HD 720/24pN data storage, it becomes hard to understand why it's not an appropriate interim archival media. I mean, that's $8/hour, which is cheaper than HDV tape.

And when you go to "restore from archive", do you have to batch-capture all your clips in again? Nope, you just plug the drive in and instantly have access to all your clips (and all your other files too). No "transfer", no "recapture", no "logging", no timecode, no timecode sheets, no EDL files, nothing. Just plug in and instantly everything is completely restored.
 
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