Camera or Sony DSR 11
 

I have a short question.
I have just finished shooting 16 hours of footage on my XL2.
Should I digitise using my camera or should I hire a DSR 11 for a day at a cost of $100 and save my camera heads. Also, will some quality be lost on a deck that will have lots of hours on it from hire.
I have about 35 hours on my camera.
Thanks
John

Clean the heads as required and use your camera. One other thing that I did was to purchase a $300+ Canon single CCD DV camera and use it to send the video to my computer. The tape mechanism and electronics will play back your tapes in the original quality. I have compared and have seen no degredation. The cost difference is in the camera portion.

Thank you Mark.
I thought as much, interesting about the single chip camera I will look into it.
John

I'd have to disagree on both counts.

A: Using the camera you shoot with to digitaize is very damaging to the heads...no matter what anyone says. They're just not made to go through the quick start/stop/rewind/fast-forward shuttling it takes to capture.

2: I've heard a lot of people talk about purchasing a relatively inexpensive camcorder to use as a deck. While that's better than using your primary camera...do you really plan on buying another camcorder when that one goes kaput? In the long run you might be spending more than it would have cost to buy a DSR-11.

My advice: Do what you can to buy a DSR-11. It's built sturdy to handle digitizing...and it's relatively inexpensive. Take out a business loan or something and use your next commission to pay for it. Better yet, have your next client buy you one in lieu of (or as part of) your fee.

I use XL2 bodies for downloading tapes to the computer and I think that the XL1s, XL2, and XL-H1 are well capable of doing so for years with no problems. I run hundreds of tapes through the bodies during and after each filming project and have yet to have a single problem. Just keep the heads cleaned when needed and you shouldn't have problems - the XL was built to do so and it would need mega-use to wear out the heads or mechanisms.