Attaching a small camcorder to DVX?

N

newbie

Active member
I´m thinking of buying a small camcorder (with DV in/out) for my DVX and connect it to the DVX via firewire, so I can use the small camcorder´s heads instead of the DVX´s.

I´m thinking of just buying a new Sony HC42E for these purposes (and also use it as a deck), as it is around 400 euros with DV in/out and rather small. However, my question is whether there is a good solution to attach it to the DVX? It would be nice if I could attach it so it would still look *professional.*

Do you have any ideas about how this can be done?
 
Unless there's something wrong with the heads on the DVX, why even consider this?

The DVX's heads are probably good for at least 800 hours (so I've been told).

Use the Sony as a deck, sure, that puts a lot of stress on the heads. But in the field? Not unless absolutely necessary. Just my $ 0.02 American.
 
I just want it to last as long as possible and I don´t see any downside to this as long as I use the DVX heads every now and then.
 
Come on, the head life on the DVX100 is THOUSANDS of hours. And after that you just have the service center to replace the heads. Cheaper than an extra camera.

Sounds like getting a KIA to tow your BMW to save the engine...
 
So you suggest to use the DVX also as a deck? I was just thinking if I bought a second cheap camera, to use it as much as I could to save the DVX.

But if the second camera isn´t worth it, I´ll just skip it and use the DVX.
 
Getting a cheap camera to be used as a deck is not such a bad idea, as you have to wind & rewind the tape on it. Just having a secod camera connected to the DVX100 while shooting is a bit overdoing it, and inconvenient. When shooting the tape is just running thru the camera, which is easier on the camera than using it as a capture deck.

If you do not mind the extra equipment connected to the camera and want to remain professional looking, take a look at the DV Rack. Then you can capture to the hard disk on a laptop in real time, monitor the shots & sounds, have scopes etc.

http://www.seriousmagic.com/dvrack.cfm
 
the extra camera will be a burden when shooting..

but if you want to save the heads, get DV rack and lug a laptop around.
 
I am thinking about going this route but what computer laptop specs (hard drive, memory, raid 0, etc) does one need when using the premier pro dv rack and 60 minutes of record time? TIA
 
Most people shoot in the field with their main camera.

Then they take the tapes out of the main camera and put them in a cheap one to dump the tapes into the computer.

If you are on a budget this is what I would recommend.
 
Here I go thinking out loud again... But in order to benefit from the auto capturing directly to computer... isnt the hard drive specs something like 1 gig per so many minutes of tape time.. something like 3 minutes or so.... a minimum ghz speed of 2.8 preferably 3.2 +, at least 8 meg of ram, several hard drives... but hey this wouldnt fit on a laptop.. this is too much i think.... there must be another way... like a 50 foot firewire to go straight into my desktop.

I think im going to focus on the lighting for now and as Dan stated just go with the ole (panasonic master) DV tapes.
 
DV is 3.6MB/sec, or about 13 GB/hour. To capture DV you don't need a gazillion megs of CPu, ram or HDD, a very basic laptop will do. On a 250GB HDD you can fit about 19 hours.
 
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