Exporting from a different camera
 

I have a tape recorded from a Sony PD170 and then put into a Sony DVR TRV10 to transfer into Final Cut. My question is will using the TRV10 to input into FC instead of the PD170 lose any quality because of the heads or anything else or would it not make a difference. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

Bob

It shouldn't make any difference what camera you use to capture the tape, as long as it's DV. It's all digital, so you're just transferring binary data. Either it will work or it won't, there aren't really any "quality" issues.

There are a few minor issues which might come up - like trying to capture a PAL tape with an NTSC camera (which wouldn't work). If you recorded your tape in DVCAM mode then you might have an issue on *some* other cameras. Generally speaking though, most Sony cameras can play/capture DVCAM tapes even though they can't record them. This may or may not be true with other brands.

The only other thing which might give you problems would be if the heads were out of alignment on your PD170. That might create a situation where the tapes would work on that camera, but not on others. This is probably rather unlikely, but I remember the Canon XL1 was prone to this kind of problem years ago.

Worth noting: DV cameras that playback DVCam footage usually play back the normally Locked audio as Unlocked which MAY pose a problem if you try to record BACK to a DVCam deck which will be expecting Locked audio. Also, Unlocked audio can cause some headaches in post when cutting and butt ending clips together. This may not be an issue for you.