From one miniDV tape to another

King Cole

King Cole

Active member
I had a bad TOD timecode setting while recording. SOOO, I need to regenerate a new timecode. I've got a low-quality Panasonic handicam and a Sony DVCAM deck. I tried connecting the two via firewire, but was unable to do so. This gets me to my question: If I connect via S-Video or Composite (R,Y,W) from my camcorder to my deck, play the camera while recording to another tape on the deck, will I experience ANY (Even in the slightest) loss of quality?

Thanks in advance,

JC
 
BIG loss of quality. Don't (you decompress the DV stream, make it composite signal, then decode it and recompress DV - a nightmare). Capture the footage, put it on a timeline, give it the TC you want and print it back to tape. You will keep the quality intact.
 
The Engineer said:
BIG loss of quality. Don't (you decompress the DV stream, make it composite signal, then decode it and recompress DV - a nightmare). Capture the footage, put it on a timeline, give it the TC you want and print it back to tape. You will keep the quality intact.
Click to expand...

Engineer,
Thanks for your response; I feared the worst ;-) I have around 100 tapes with this problem, and importing each one into a timeline isn't the most appealing of ideas. However, final destination is film, so I can't lose ANY quality along the way. One more question:

Forgive my ignorance, but does this same loss of quality occur through S-Video transfer?

JC
 
>>> does this same loss of quality occur through S-Video transfer?

Yes.

>>> I tried connecting the two via firewire, but was unable to do so.

Why? This would be your best bet (as far as time is concerned). What is the model of the DVCAM deck?
 
vidled said:
Why? This would be your best bet (as far as time is concerned). What is the model of the DVCAM deck?
Click to expand...

Sony DSR-11

To be honest, I'd just hooked the two up via firewire, switched the imput to DV (versus composite and s-video), hit play and record, and expected it to work. I ran out of time last night and was planning on trouble shooting this evening. I figured s-video and composite would work easier than firewire (I guess I'm assuming way too many things that I shouldn't), but maintaining quality is really paramount. So, if firewire turns out to be an option, will quality be maintained?

JC
 
Hey.

Thanks for added info.

1st: the DSR-11 is a good unit, congrats!

To put it in simplistic terms:

Composite: crappy analog quality, MUCH loss in quality
S-Video better analog quality, but still analog so much quality loss when transferring
Firewire: digital 1:1 transfer of video - NO LOSS in video and audio.

Small note: the analog composite and S-Video is good if your signal is originating from an analog source, e.g. old VHS or 8mm video camera or VCR or some such. If you have a cam with firewire ALWAYS USE THAT!!!!

In your case:
the cam should be in VIDEO or VCR mode (NOT CAMERA). You hit PLAY on tyhe cam, and RECORD on the DSR-11.

Voila!
 
vidled said:
In your case:
the cam should be in VIDEO or VCR mode (NOT CAMERA). You hit PLAY on tyhe cam, and RECORD on the DSR-11.

Voila!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I tried exactly that, and after it didn't work easily, I didn't go further with it. However, tonight (I'm at school right now), I'll download the manual and see if I can trouble shoot things.

Some more background just to explain: the deck is not mine, it's the director's, but it does seem very nice. All this is for editing a documentary, so the timecode problem happened during the shoot and FCP doesn't like Time of Day timecode, so I need to regenerate around 100 tapes worth of timecodes.

Again, I appreciate all the help/info from everyone, especially vidled, and I'll post an update after a little troubleshooting with the deck.

JC
 
Although this SHOULD have worked, you could -of course- also try and go the other way: PLAY from the DSR-11 and RECORD in the cam, but I'd recommend the other way round first. Let us know how it went tonight.
 
So the only reason you are copying these 100 tapes is because FCP is having trouble with the Time-Of-Day TC? I'm guessing it's having trouble passing the spots where the TC jumps while the camera was paused??? Why not just get another program that will capture the clips and then import them into FCP? Seems alot easier.....
Scenalyzer is great but I'm not sure it works on MAC's. Surely there is a MAC solution for this???????????
 
Sirius_Doggy said:
So the only reason you are copying these 100 tapes is because FCP is having trouble with the Time-Of-Day TC? I'm guessing it's having trouble passing the spots where the TC jumps while the camera was paused??? Why not just get another program that will capture the clips and then import them into FCP? Seems alot easier.....
Scenalyzer is great but I'm not sure it works on MAC's. Surely there is a MAC solution for this???????????
Click to expand...

Thanks, I probably should have pointed to the link of my original thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=43921&highlight=madness

Basically, I've chosen to go this route because my director will be emailing me spreadsheets of timecodes, we'll call them (for the sake of explanation) timecodes for tape A. Then, I will later import the tape A footage onto my computer, while he works on the spreadsheet for tape B. Of course, the numbers will be greater, but this would allow us the greatest efficiency. It was a two camera shoot, so, only half of the tapes have the TOD timecode.

Since this is our setup, we figured the only way we'd be able to accomplish this is by having correct timecodes. If needed, I can get the TOD footage into FCP. However, should anything disasterous ever happen to the captured footage, because of the TOD timecode, FCP would not be able to automatically reimport, and we'd have to go through, tape by tape and clip by ciip recovering footage.

However, I had not considered another program. Would something else be able to import timecodes from a spreadsheet? Am I missing some easy fix?

Thanks again. I got home late, so it may be tomorrow before I figure this camera-to-deck thing out.

Thanks to all,

JC
 
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