Do I Need A Deck?
 

I am a proud owner for a Z1U. She's my first camera but we're getting along great, I'm learning fast and I am already getting jobs and impressing folk with my demo reel. I have been doing quite a bit of editing lately and I have begun to think, is it unhealthy for me to use my Z1 for capturing? Am I risking damage to the heads and/or mechanisms? If I do have to get a deck, do I have to get an HD compatible deck (or HC-1) or would any old mini-DV be good to go? Your advice would be much appreciated.

Some people may find this controversial, but I'm of the firm opinion that you *don't* need a dedicated HDV deck unless you're going to use it twelve hours a day, five days a week. The primary advantage is *not* to save wear on the Z1 heads as some folks want you to believe, but rather to free up the camera for shooting instead of tying it up in the editing suite. And no, DV won't do, unless all you want it for is to wind tapes. Gotta be HDV for capturing and playback. If you do get a deck, you want the Sony HVR-M10. Hope this helps,

Funny I just came on here ready to start a thread about this. The prices of both the deck and the FX1 are very similar, so I was wondering if it would be better to just buy an FX1 to serve as a deck, assuming you just need the deck function for occasional use. That way your 'deck' has a lens and CCDs, and can also shoot video as a secondary/backup camera or even be rented out when it is not being used.

I'm getting to the point where in the next year I can see myself buying a deck (to quickly duplicate DV and HDV tapes) and I'm leaning toward getting another HDV camera instead to serve this purpose. At least I could shoot with it when it's not being used as a deck.

2nd Cam
 

I have a Z1 and bought a barely used FX1 as a spare. I use it as a second camera and as a deck. If money is the issue, the FX1 is a great alternative to the deck. To cut the head wear, I batch capture large chunks of tape. You need a lot of hard drive storage if you do this on a regular basis.

I started another thread similar to this, but I was wondering why you couldn't use, say a DSR-11 if you shot in DV mode (not that there's much point in this, but for some jobs it's required). I'm not sure if anyone's really tried this or not?

DV mode? No problem, any DV or DVCAM deck will play it.

HD10U for Capture Deck?
 

Has anyone tried using a JVC GY-HD10U to capture HDV from tape shot with a FX1 or Z1?

Not going to work... there are two semi-official flavors of HDV (semi-official because the manufacturers refer to them but the HDV consortium itself does not). HDV1 is 720p, HDV2 is 1080i. The JVC cameras are HDV1. They will not play back HDV2. The Sony cameras are HDV2.

(The Canon cameras are also HDV2, but their Frame modes are a new addition to the HDV specification, so it follows that HDV2 gear made prior to the first Canon camera XL H1, will not play back those Canon Frame modes, as they don't know what those modes are).

Do I Need A Deck
 

I've stated this on another thread, but it's worth repeating:

Sony completely "missed the boat" by not offering a HDV deck that will accept standard sized tapes. You can fit 4 1/2 hours of HDV material on a standard DV tape. For on-location Stage Events longer than 1 hour, the FX1/Z1 could pass the signal via Firewire to a HDV deck. I've been recording DV in this manner for years. It's also a cheap way to archive for editing later.

I like recording DV directly to my laptop (when feasible). Saves on head wear on the camcorder. I haven't managed to get my HD10U to record HDV directly to a computer hard drive via firewire yet.