P2 to DVCAM/ BETA

J

jonnz

New member
I am shooting a doco and the client insists the rushes to be delivered on DVCAM or BETA (because this is how they are set up at present). Which is the best way to achieve this. They wont accept Mini DV. The only way I thought was to to go in then out of FCP. Any less time consuming solutions would be appreciated.
 
Unless you want to use a recorder and record the SD output from the camera I believe you best best is going to be the FCP route
 
Yeah you'll either need to rent a DVCAM deck or contract with a lab to transfer from your hard drive to Beta. It's a little silly for them to insist on those specs though, DV and DVCAM are functionally identical and also pretty close to Beta in terms of quality.

Noah
 
Thanks. They have agreed to go to a DV dub. This is a newbie question, I am shooting on 720p can I dub straight from the P2 in camera to an external DV deck.
 
Sure- check in your manual about the specific downconversion settings. But that of course does away with the benefits of shooting digital. Are you sure the client isn't aware that any modern NLE could edit your footage in HD at much higher quality than DV? Perhaps they think of HD as something difficult that they can't edit when they actually can. Just a suggestion...

Noah
 
Know that there is NO WAY that the timecode on those DV/BEta tapes will ever match what you have on P2 at DVCPRO HD 720p. So if they want to do an offline cut with those, and online with DVCPRO HD, then they are SOL. Not unless you provide WINDOW TIMECODE dubs, and they modify the timecode to match that, will it ever work.

People who insist on tape like this are really in the prehistoric era.
 
The DVCAM standard includes backwards (playback) compatibility with MiniDV. Any DVCAM deck can play back MiniDV.

The video data in the signal is identical. (DV25)

In fact, if you really want to make them happy; you can pop a MiniDVCAM tape into your MiniDV deck and record to that. It'll be recorded as DV (not DVCAM), but unless they pay close attention to the mode indicators on their deck, thy won't even know the difference. - And if you keep it under 40mins per tape, they're even less likely to notice. (A [40-min "standard"] MiniDVCAM tape will hold the full 60min of DV, but they won't be expecting more than 40 min to be on the tape if it's DVCAM.)

(And yes, you can record to regular MiniDV (and DV) tapes in DVCAM mode without any problems too.)

- Mikko
 
So you shot it 720p and they want it 480i. What a loss. I am surprised they did not ask for 4:3.
 
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