DV deck for a computer
 

Does anyone know of a Mini DV and HDV deck that can be mounted in a PC?
When DV first came out I belive that Sony made one. I have not seen one since.

I am shooting with a Sony HDR-FX1 and I want to free up the camera for shooting only.

I have a Dell workstation that is set up exclusively for editing and burning to DVD. I would be a lot easier to load video directly in the computer than to use the camera to load.

I have checked a couple of catalogs like the B&H that just arrived and I didn't frind anything there.

Any help would be appreciated

Going to be pretty expensive. I'd guess minimum $800 or so.

If you got a cheap miniDV camera, like the canon ZR series, that would be cheap and would work-- just a differently shaped unit, but same result.

However, to get HD it's going to be expensive anyway.

There's an interesting device I saw linked somewhere on the forum, called the HDV walkman, I think from Sony. Might check that out. It wasn't so expensive, IIRC. Perhaps $600?

Cheap camcorders, DV or HDV, are generally much cheaper than respective tape decks. And they can be used as backup/B-roll cameras also...

The question always remains: do you want to trust a very cheap camcorder with your precious tapes? Or do you rather spend more on a professional deck with a 100% reliable mechanism?

I think a DSR-11 DVCAM/DV deck maybe fits in a desktop PC case. It's not made for PC cases, but from the size I guess you could make it fit with just a little DIY work.

We have a €€€€ DVCam deck at work and and up capturing from camera because there are more dropouts with the deck...

All cameras (from the same brand) use more or less same tape mechanisms. Very reliable, actually.