dv decks
 

Hey all. Looking to purchase a new deck, and willing to spend no more than $5000.
Any suggestions?

I do need something which is reliable, firewire, composite, and so forth.

I've been looking at some of the Sony's and seem to like them, but have heard good things about some of the JVC's.

I'm looking for some input.

Thanks again.

The Sony DSR-25/45 are great, rugged, and reliable decks. My DSR-20 is over 4 years old now with more than 900 hours on the drum clock and still going strong. It has never failed to perform.

I think I paid about $2800 for it. The replacement 25 has that very valuable LCD panel.

Once you go above these decks in the Sony heirarchy, you get into their editing decks with SDI capability, jog shuttle, etc.

For NLE work, in my middle-of-the-road business, they would be overkill.

If you are looking at the Pro JVC decks, I've hear they are OK. If you are looking at the consumer decks, I'd stay away after having bought several of them and also reading about the experiences of others.

hey, thanks a lot of the response. That is what I was feeling, too, about the Sony's, but always like to have some other peoples opinions, too.

Thanks again.

We've got two DSR1800's that we've been using for over 3 years now. They are real workhorses, very similar to the old Betacam 1800's, but with 4 channel audio and some other goodies. They're more than your budget, but the less expensive ones are good too. We needed component in and out as well as firewire, which is why we spent the $$$ on the 1800's. I know two earlier model DSR20's that are older than our 1800's and they too have been chugging away for a few years with no problems. I think the 20 is now the 25 but is still within your budget.

My DSR 20 is 4 years old and has failed 4 times. Three of those times I had a miserable experience with Sony repair services (as always). The flat rate repair on a DSR 20 is $450.00 - that is the minimum they charge just to look at it.

Steve

Sorry to hear that. I guess there are bad as well as good experiences with Sony.

The two 20's I am familiar with have been in pretty heavy use for close to 4 years, one maybe more, with no trouble at all. On the occasions I've used Sony service (new heads on a BVW300 3 times over a 12 year period) I used the service center in Dallas and always had good treatment and fair price. One time I thought I needed the complete head job, but they only replaced the upper drum and saved me a couple thousand bucks.

I have one colleague who sent a deck to the center in the Chicago area and wasn't very happy with his experience there, although the deck was overhauled and is still in use several years later. He felt they were overpriced and unfriendly.

If anybody's interested, dv.com has a review of the DSR45 and gives it a very favorable review. The 45 also does component in and out, which is nice for people like us who also have Betacam SP. However, it is not an editing deck in that you can't do insert editing. That would be a bit problematic for me on occasion, but not necessarily for everybody.