capture deck or cheap dv camcorder?

R

rbtjonas

Member
Help! I'm a dvx100B user. For log-and-capturing the mini dv's to Final Cut, I've been using an inexpensive Panasonic PV-GS39. Lately, it's been showing bars across the footage at capture, even after I clean the heads. After 150 hours, could the PV-GS39 be going bad? Since it cost me about $300, I'm not sure that it's worth a repair. Any suggestions? Should I invest in a capture deck (which one?) if I might go HD within the year? Of course, if I get the HVX200A, I might still use mini-dv's.

thanks!
 
Your best bet is probably to pick up a cheap used camcorder. A capture deck would be pretty expensive for something you're only going to use for a year.

(I'm assuming you've ruled out the possibility that you just have a bad batch of tapes.)
 
iain.bason said:
A capture deck would be pretty expensive for something you're only going to use for a year.
Click to expand...

Might I ask why it would only be used for a year?

I've had a Sony DSR-11 for years, and it still runs like a champ. Allows for miniDV, full-size DV, and DVCAM. It's been discontinued... replaced with the HVR-M15AU. Same deck, essentially. Adds HDV, and keeps all the backwards compatibility with SD DV/DVCAM. Same basic price point.

If your budget can afford it, I say get a deck. It's an investment that will last you a while. You can keep buying a new/used, cheap camcorder every 150 hours, or you can buy a deck that will last. I know it's been debated on these forums many times before, but I still can't justify, for myself, a cheap and temporary solution if there's a budget to invest now in something more robust.
 
I use the cheapest Sony consumer cam, that was available for capturing my footage. Have captured more than 700 hours of video in the last 7 years with this cam and never had any problem. So sometimes the cheapest solution is not the worst. For me at least there never was any need for a deck... Especially if you look at the prices of todays consumer cams and compare them to a decks price. I could buy consumer cams till the end of my life for that money... And you also have a cheap second cam for situations you don't want to see your first cam in...
 
:dankk2: Thanks, everyone, for thinking out loud about my capture device choices. To C2V. . .I just checked out the Sony DSR-11 deck, so I'm pondering my budget. The reason that I might only need a mini-dv deck for a year is because I may bump up to the HVX200A, using P2 cards instead of mini-dv. But maybe I'd need some sort of deck in the field for downloading the P2 cards while I continue to shoot? Are there decks that capture both mini-dv and P2 cards?

Thanks!
 
P2 cards are a media, not a recording format.

It is better to dump the content of a P2 card on a hard drive.

Me, I have a small mini-DV camera that I used for years and is still good.


About your camera, did you also captured the same tape using your DVX100b to see if you get the same result in FCP?

What kind of bars? Horizontal blue bars? If this is the case, you need to clean your heads. Probably a manual wet cleaning will be required.
 
Just how many hours do you expect to need a deck for? Any halfway decent MiniDV cam should certainly make it hundreds of hours without any issues. Even if you get dirty heads, if you don't feel like hand cleaning them (or if the design makes it impossible) you can just use a cleaning cassette - might shorten the overall life of the heads, but you wouldn't be worried about that, right?

At least, that's been my experience. And these days you can get a NEW MiniDV cam for less than $200.

I'd only say it *might* be worth getting a deck if you can either get a really great deal, expect to do thousands of hours of DV tape before switching to HD, or both. I guess it might be worth it if you also have serious time constraints on your capture, since decks have much better tape control when it comes to multiple playback speeds, rewind/fast forward, etc.
 
Do you have any models of cheap mini-dv camcorders to recomend, seing how not all of them are both in and out firewire?
 
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