Quality Deck?

[John Brock]

Anyone know of a good mini DV deck or camera to use to capture 24p footage shot on an XL2? The Firewire input on my camera is starting to get touchy so I need another way to get my footage to my NLE.

[John Brock]

Does anybody know if the Canon ZR960 will be able to read and capture the 24p footage from my XL2 to Final Cut 7? I've asked the people at Canon but haven't yet received a response.

[Chris Soucy]

The ZR960 doesn't support 24f so won't stream it either.

Go for a HV20, 30 or 40 which do support that mode.


CS

[John Brock]

While those all look like fine cameras that's a little out of my price range. I'm just looking to see if there's a cheap mini DV camera out there that I can use as a "deck" to capture what I'm shooting in 24p on the XL2 to Final Cut.

I don't have much of a budget for equipment, that's why I bought a used camera, but if I had to do it all over again I probably never would have bought the thing.

[Chris Soucy]

In order to capture 24f you must have a camera that can work with it.

A non Canon won't and only the HV dinky cams qualify.

Check out the "for sale" area here or ebay for a S/H unit.

Your other options are to fix the Firewire port or shoot in 60i, then any DV cam will work with the footage.


CS

[John Brock]

Thanks for the info, Chris. These forums are proving to be extremely helpful for a complete rookie like myself.

I guess my options now are to either find someone locally who can service my XL2 or ship it off to the Canon facility in New Jersey because if I'm going to end up spending almost a thousand dollars I would rather put it into fixing what I already bought as opposed to buying more used equipment.

On the other hand if I could find a good deck that can handle 24p footage I might still be interested in going that route now and getting the camera serviced a little later when I can afford to have it in the shop for weeks at a time.

Thanks again dude!

[Rodney Compton]

Hi John

Chris, I am in the same position and have been capturing old footage on to a Sony handy cam, but I am not sure if it is my eyes, or working in HD, that makes the footage look like sh......

Can you advise if the handycam captures the footage, then it will be of the same quality whatever the deck in use?

Regards

Rod

YouTube - ‪The Goldfinch‬‏

Canon 5dmk2 500 mm Canon L FD 4.5

[Chris Soucy]

Hi, Rodney..................

The footage will be as good as the quality shot, basically.

To explain that, if it was shot on an analogue camera then digitised onto DV, it will still have analogue artifacts but the digitised footage can be transferred (digitally) time and time again without any further degradation, none.

If it was shot on DV, then any transfers to other DV cameras will produce a perfect replica of the original down to the last bit and byte, however, the quality will always be the same as produced by the original camera barring any tweaking in an NLE in between.

Digital will always copy perfectly or it won't copy at all.

BTW, I thought that footage looked pretty damn good, the occasional focus blip but otherwise fine.


CS