The ideal way to record

[Guest]

Hello,
I just ordered my DVX from EVS and I was wondering about the best way to record to save the life of the camera. (I know they are probably built to last, etc.) but I hear alot about tape decks etc. What exactly are these and what are they used for?

Do you actually put the mini dv tape in a seperate tape deck, hook the dvx up to that, and do your recording from the deck? If so, how do you watch your playback? How much do these units cost?

Also, if you do use the actual dvx to record, I've read it's best to have a cheap digital camera around and actually take the tape out of the dvx and put it in the cheap one to do the playback?

Thanks.

 

[glassblowerscat]

Re: The ideal way to record

You don't use a deck to record with, although there are some good hard drive solutions for recording straight to disk. Your deck (alternatively: cheap-0 miniDV camera) is for saving wear in the capturing/viewing/rewinding part of the process.

Ryan

 

[Guest]

Re: The ideal way to record

Ok, and how much do the decks cost? Are they really worth it? And by capturing you mean setting up the frames?

 

[glassblowerscat]

Re: The ideal way to record

Decks cost $1500-$3500 for the low-midrange ones. Usually unless you do a lot of productions, it's better to just get the cheap camera and use that. Panasonic makes a tank of an el-cheapo camera called the DV53 that I've been using for a while to capture with.

"Capture," meaning getting the footage from the tape to my computer's hard drive through a firewire cable so that it can be manipulated by my editing software. Usually capturing is done through your editing software, or non-linear editor (NLE).

Basically what you're doing in capturing is telling the NLE, "Okay, there's this clip I want. It's on tape #23. Here are it's beginning timecode and ending time code. Now I want you to read it off the tape and onto the hard drive for me."

The main reason you want to use something other than your DVX to do this is that it involves the NLE taking control of the camera so that it can read data from the tape. This involves lots and lots of rewinding and fast-forwarding, as well as actually playing back the part of the tape you want to capture. All those hours really add up quickly.

 

[Guest]

Re: The ideal way to record

Thanks so much! It makes sense now. wow, 1500.00 to 3500.00!! For something that can easily be reproduced by a cheap camera? sounds crazy, but I guess if you're doing alot of films it would save alot of time. Thanks again and talk to ya soon.