Hello all,
I have about 15 HDV tapes shot in PAL for a job. The tapes were shot on two separate cameras, one a Canon and one a Sony. I don't have any more details from the shooter. I took them a place that does PAL-NTSC conversions (Dub Express/Express Media - in California), but for some reason their Sony PAL deck wouldn't read the tapes. I had never heard of this before. The guy there said that if it was shot on a Canon sometimes their Sony decks won't read the tapes. Does this mean I have to somehow track down someplace with a Canon PAL deck in order to convert this footage to NTSC, or even to digitize it? Has anyone had to handle this before? I didn't realize these tapes and decks were brand specific. Any ways around this? So far I have a relatively flexible deadline, but I"d like to get these at least digitized soon if possible...

If the Canon tapes were shot using their propriety 24f system, the Sony decks will not reckognise them.

You're going to have to find a Canon HDV camera to get them downloaded, no other way to do it.

Cheapest way is to find a s/h HV20, 30, or 40 and snap it up, it'll do the job.


CS

dang... there's always surprises with these tapes. do you think that if I find a PAL Canon Vixia that it will be able playback the Sony HDV tapes? thanks for your help!

Don't think so, for the same reason the Sony decks won't read the Canon tapes.

However, as you're definitely going to need a Canon HDV camera to read the Canon tapes, no harm trying.


CS

Thanks for the advice Chris. I think I may just wait until I'm in PAL-land in a month and see if I can have things digitized there. Does anyone know of any companies that might do this kind of either digitization or conversion in Amsterdam?