agonizing over decks

R

rumigirl

Member
Hi. New video person/new dvxuser member here. Been consulting this forum a lot and love it.

I need a deck and don't know what to get. I just bought a G5 with a lovely 16x superdrive in it -- but a friend said I might want to think about buying a mini-DV deck that includes a hard drive and a DVD burner in it (Pioneer makes one, I guess), so that I can use the deck to burn DVDs really fast. (He says the Pioneer DVD burner can burn a 55-minute DVD in 5 minutes.)

Is that really necessary? If I have the Superdrive, do I need a deck with those capabilities? I may need to burn lots of DVDs. Is the Superdrive not as fast as, say, the DVD burner on the Pioneer deck my friend was talking about? (I haven't had a chance to test the Superdrive yet.) Is the Superdrive too fragile to use for burning DVDs frequently, or in quantity?

Any advice you have on this would be greatly appreciated!
 
You should be fine with the internal SD. Im still chugging along on one of the very first gen Superdrive in my G4. burned hundreds of discs albeit very slow at 2X :). If you are doing lots of dupes reugularly you may want to look at a dvd duplicator or send your master out to get duped. I always create disk images of the dvd and burn in Toast.
 
Don't waste your money. The DVD drive in your computer will do just fine for burning DVD's. 16x is among the fastest now, so it's hard to imagine that an external deck will be any faster. The only reason that you would need an external burner is if you plan to burn a lot of DVD's and you need to use your computer at the same time. If you need many copies of 1 DVD, you may want to consider a duplication house.
 
dsr something-or-other?

dsr something-or-other?

I'm thinking a Sony DSR-11 (or 25, or 30) -- used.

I've been struggling with cheaper (gv d1000) vs. faster (dsr-11 up), and because I'm new-ish at this, I've been thinking speed might be the thing to go for. (I need all the help I can get.)
 
I would kill to have a DSR-11. I always tell myself I am saving money for one. Maybe I'll get it one day....They are nice decks from everything I have heard and read.
 
you mean as in recording onto a mini-dv tape from a DVD player? Alot of DVD's and players have copywrite protection that makes the footage you record un-usable and un viewable. However, JVC just came out with a DVD/mini-dv combo deck that would make it possible.
 
PDX DVX: Thanks for that feedback about the dsr-11. I've heard good things, too (altho I also remember someone in a biggish studio/shop saying that the dsr-11's needed more servicing more often than his dsr-45, i think it was). Anyway, I hope we both get our dsr-whatevers, and soon!

Also, can you help me understand why you (and Rasquachemedia) would want the functionality in that JVC DVD/mini-DV combo deck you're talking about? Like, would the problem be that you copied a finished project to DVD, and then the source tape(s) got corrupted, and you wanted to re-use the material on the source tapes, but now no longer had any access to them, except through the DVDs you created? Is that what's good about the JVC deck? Or are there other scenarios that make that DVD-to-mini-DV dubbing functionality valuable?

(Thanks!)
 
rumigirl: I asked because I had friend give me one of his projects on dvd and asked me to make a new cut. But it wasn't saved as a .mov on a data dvd, but burned and I don't know no how and actually don't want to go through ripping.

I downloaded this ripping software that was supposedly the bomb and everytime I tried to use it it messed up my computer. I had to erase everything off my hard drive and reload all my software and data (over 150 gb of stuff) twice. ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR STUFF!

This software was rec. by macworld as the best on the market and well it didn't work and the company was horrible at getting back to me for help.

On top of that, I'm in education and we use film clips to discuss an array of issues and dvd's are not very convenient (I learned the hard way) as far as cueing and having to wait through the menu video's. So putting them on tape is much more efficient and practical for presentation, lecture, and discussion purposes.
 
interesting... thanks for that clarification. i didn't realize tape had those advantages over dvd in those settings...
 
What I understand from your friend that suggested the combo miniDV/DVD Burner is that they are suggesting that it is 'fast' because you can take advantage of its internal hardware encoder (as opposed to Mac's software encoders ie. DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Toast) and is faster at doing this for very simple DVD burns. Having hardware encoder is faster and less time-consuming than the process it would take you to Capture --> Edit(?) --> Encode --> Burn. The mechanism in the combo deck isn't necessarily faster it is just the process, makes things simpler.

The advantage in this is if a client needed a quick burn of the footage you just shot, put to DVD so they can review it. Also these combo decks have internal Harddrives on them and some have firewire I/O so yo can do simple editing and also add chapter markers. I was considering getting a deck like this as it makes things simpler and faster for backups and quick dvd's. But this is not necessary in your system.

I have a DSR-11 and it rocks. Some $$ though but it'll be worth it. Or you could always get another DV Camcorder.

As for using footage from DVD's. I use MacTheRipper to copy and remove Macrovision and Region Encoding then Burn It using Roxio PopCorn then you can use the resulting DVD to copy to minDV. Or skip that process and find some software off VersionTracker.com that'll do the converting of the Video_TS files to MPEG 2 or some Quicktime video/audio file.
 
mikkowilson said:
DSR 25, or (better yet) 45 is much better than the DSR-11 ..but then there's price. :-)

- Mikko.
Click to expand...

Which is exactly why I went with the DSR-11. At $800-$900 that was already a steep price for my budget. Like other readers I needed something to serve as a deck to feed my NLE but I also needed something affordable and in my budget. A deck like the DSR-11 is also very small and still portable much like a camera but still robust enough to handle the wear and tear and not "eat" tapes. Not yet anyway.

Although I would love to have the XLR audio outs and composite video outs that the 45 has.

damn.
 
Well I kinda posted in another topic here, but nobody replied. What is great about JVC's new DVD DV combo is that they are giving away a free presentation monitor with it, so it's a much better value than it seems...
 
ian lucero said:
Which is exactly why I went with the DSR-11. At $800-$900 that was already a steep price for my budget.
damn.
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Where did you get a DSR-11 for $900? They're selling for $1650 at B&H.
 
Sumfun said:
Where did you get a DSR-11 for $900? They're selling for $1650 at B&H.
Click to expand...

I got from BH! Yeah I know I checked lately on prices and they had jacked them up. I purchased my deck 1 year ago. Maybe they have been in more demand lately so they raised the price. Crazy I know. If it was the $1650 price I wouldn't have purchased it.
 
ian lucero said:
What I understand from your friend that suggested the combo miniDV/DVD Burner is that they are suggesting that it is 'fast' because you can take advantage of its internal hardware encoder (as opposed to Mac's software encoders ie. DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Toast) and is faster at doing this for very simple DVD burns. Having hardware encoder is faster and less time-consuming than the process it would take you to Capture --> Edit(?) --> Encode --> Burn. The mechanism in the combo deck isn't necessarily faster it is just the process, makes things simpler.
Click to expand...

Oh.

ian lucero said:
The advantage in this is if a client needed a quick burn of the footage you just shot, put to DVD so they can review it. Also these combo decks have internal Harddrives on them and some have firewire I/O so yo can do simple editing and also add chapter markers. I was considering getting a deck like this as it makes things simpler and faster for backups and quick dvd's. But this is not necessary in your system.
Click to expand...

Phew.

ian lucero said:
I have a DSR-11 and it rocks. Some $$ though but it'll be worth it. Or you could always get another DV Camcorder.
Click to expand...

What is a DSR-30? I've seen them advertised on ebay. How does it compare with the 11/25/45?
 
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