Urgent Advice Needed!!!

JBurkey

JBurkey

Active member
Hello all, I'm one hour into my 24 hour rental period for a Sony DSR-30 (DVCAM VCR). I need to copy DVCAM footage to mini-DV and here's my question.

Can I simply use firewire out to my DVX or another mini-DV camera and record? Or do I have to use component out into the DVX since DVCAM video uses a diff. compression format than mini-DV? I don't know if that matters or not.

Thanks guys, I appreciate your help.

Jerry
 
hmmmmmm,

well if you do a coponent to coponent you should definetely get a DVCAM recording of a mini DV tape. Of course it won't be true "DVCAM", but will play on a DVCAM player. When you connect via firewire are you using iLink settings. Of course to truly test it out, record and see if your DVCAM tape eats up more time than your source since a 40 minute DVCAM tape records 60 minutes of Mini DV time. Make sense?
 
hmmm... not really. I didn't know about the whole dvcam vs. minidv time difference on tape.

The original footage is on DVCam. I want to copy to mini-DV. So I'm going DV out from the DVCam deck into my DVX and just recording in VCR mode. It seems to be working ok but I just wanted to put my finger on the pulse of the experts. I'm also doing it with composite out from the deck to the DVX and it seems to be working OK. But please, if anyone has input, help me out, thanks.

Jerry
 
Both DV and DVCAM use the exact same compression.

As a result: yes, you can copy between DVCAM and DV directly over Firewire/iLink with no loss in quality. This is the one correct way to do it.

In fact, copying between the afformentioned formats in any other way than Firewire will result in quality loss. This goes for Digital formats such as SDI and Analog formats such as Composite and Component.

- Mikko
 
Addendum to Mikko's: the only difference between DVCAM and miniDV is the 50% wider track width on tape (less dropouts, hopefully). Because the data format is identical, firewire copying is possible, easy, and the only intelligent way of doing a copy either way.

Have done the same several times between TRV900 and Sony PD10 (or something).
 
Addendum to Petrus's: DVCAM tape also plays 33% faster than DV - meaning a 60min DV tape will hold 40mins of DVCAM material. The pitch of the angle of the tracks on the tape is also more than DV to allow for the wider tracks.

But we where only talking about the signal formats here :)

If you *really* care about the differences, check out this page: http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-tech.html

- Mikko
 
Thanks

Thanks

Wow, thanks guys. You put my mind at ease and saved me a big hassle (and a lot of cheddar!)

gratitude,
Jerry
 
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