Looking for a specific Mini DV Tape Deck...?

Mike Krumlauf

Mike Krumlauf

Award Winning Filmmaker
This may not exist but I am looking for a Mini DV Deck that can read all the different flavors and codecs of DV tapes from SD to HDV. This would include JVC's PROHD codec. I have over a decade and a half worth of tapes I would love to digitize and if i can find a deck that can do it all that would be great! I thought I heard Sony making one at one point?
 
I know some of the Sony DVCAM decks could playback DVCAM, consumer DV and even DVCPro. They are on eBay for ridiculously cheap. Some less than $100.
 
There was a Sony deck that could play back JVC HDV 30p, but ... I don't think it could handle 24p or 60p footage. Nor was it likely to be able to play back DVCPRO25 or DVCPRO50.
 
Sony made an HDV or HDVCam deck, think it still sells for $30k, it might do what you need. I'd need to check the specs on our little half rack DVCam decks and see what they can play, but I think they could do all the DV flavors (standard def.) except for DVCpro. There were some DVCpro decks that could do dv small cassettes up through large DVcam and large DVCpro. I might have one of these decks that was "donated" to us from a station when they moved buildings.

JVC might have had a deck too, I thought they made one that would handle all of the (H)DV flavors.
 
A quick google says JVC BR-HD50 would get you all DV, plus SD DVCam with FireWire out for direct to computer ingest. Never used it, but the tape mechanisms in our BR-DV3000 decks was a real weak point if they didn't get regular use, think I scrapped about 15 of these a few years ago because the grease turned to rock and the mech. no longer worked. Sending them back for repair resulted in even more playback issues so we made the push to solid state media.
 
Greg_E said:
A quick google says JVC BR-HD50 would get you all DV, plus SD DVCam with FireWire out for direct to computer ingest. Never used it, but the tape mechanisms in our BR-DV3000 decks was a real weak point if they didn't get regular use, think I scrapped about 15 of these a few years ago because the grease turned to rock and the mech. no longer worked. Sending them back for repair resulted in even more playback issues so we made the push to solid state media.
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I have a JVC BR-HD50 tape deck. It can read my DVCAM tapes shot with a Sony PD150 and my HDV tapes shot with a JVC GY-HD250. Like you I have been trying to digitize about 180 hours of mini dv tapes.
 
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Here are the codecs on my tapes
Sony HDV 1080i
Canon HDV 24p
DV 24PA 4:3 & 16:9 (DVX100 and XL2 footage)
DVCAM 60i
JVC PROHD 24p 720p
 
I don't think you'll find much that works with the XL2 tapes, Canon was pretty closed back then. Not sure about the others.
 
Greg_E said:
I don't think you'll find much that works with the XL2 tapes, Canon was pretty closed back then. Not sure about the others.
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XL2 tapes will work with any deck that can decode the general DV codec in 24p anamorphic 16:9.. that i know.
 
Hmmm, Our PBS station bought one and brought it up for some testing, I remember that it didn't work in any of our decks which is the same that they found at their studio. Resorted to using the camera as a playback device for a while. They were also using that Avid/Pinnacle editor where we had Media Composer. This was back in like 2003 or 2004, so I don't remember all the details.
 
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