Mini DV Video Walkman VTR GV-D1000???
 

First off I want to say that I love this site. I'm wanting to take my filming experience one step further and this site is addicting when it comes to valuable information I'm seeking out. Thank you for such a great site as this.

Now for my question:

I've been filming family events and hunting adventures, but want to start editing the footage I record. Does anyone know if this is a great piece of equipment for editing? Is there anything that would go great with this piece of equipment? I don't know if you can do voice overs with this and add music, so please let me know if anyone has ever used this. Can you hook this up to your computer and edit footage frame by frame and add many cool effects to your edited film? Thank you and have a blessed holiday.

David Ellis
Active Duty Air Force
Wright-Patterson AFB

Sony GV-D1000, a DV Walkman mini-VCR
 

Quote: David Ellis

First off I want to say that I love this site. I'm wanting to take my filming experience one step further and this site is addicting when it comes to valuable information I'm seeking out. Thank you for such a great site as this.

Now for my question:

I've been filming family events and hunting adventures, but want to start editing the footage I record. Does anyone know if this is a great piece of equipment for editing? Is there anything that would go great with this piece of equipment? I don't know if you can do voice overs with this and add music, so please let me know if anyone has ever used this. Can you hook this up to your computer and edit footage frame by frame and add many cool effects to your edited film? Thank you and have a blessed holiday.

David Ellis
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Steve McDonald Replies:

I've got a Sony GV-D1000 and it is a great little item for quick and simple editing. It's just fine for playing your camera tapes into a computer, another VCR or a DVD recorder. Whatever editing commands a computer can give, this model will follow them. It's also very handy for use as a self-contained display system, for taking your videos out for a showing, with the viewscreen and battery operation. It does audio dubbing onto the 12-bit audio 2, from an analog input. However, the tape has to have been recorded in 12-bit on audio 1, for this to be possible. If necessary, you can re-record video shot with 16-bit audio and set the recorder to re-do it with 12-bit, if you have two DV VCRs or camcorders. You can't upconvert 12-bit to 16-bit, unless you have a computer program that will do it.

One drawback with the GV-D1000, is that mine doesn't seem to work with my Sony Digital8 or JVC DV VCRs, in FireWire-controled synchro editing. Except for the situation I describe next, I have to do manually-controled editing, if I use it with them. It does accept infrared synchro-edit commands from the Digital8 VCR, but it won't control the Digital8, if their roles are reversed. My less-expensive JVC HR-DVS3U, a large, desktop DV/S-VHS dual-deck, also does audio dubbing and works well with a computer. The combination of the two VCRs gives me most of what I need in either NLE or VCR to VCR editing. I never use my camcorders for editing playback, so I don't actually know how well the GV-D1000 might work in synchro-editing with a Sony DV camcorder.

I'd recommend this model for your purposes, although it costs around $1,000. However, there isn't much, if anything, that it does that you couldn't do in editing with a Sony DV camcorder. The use of a mini-VCR like this will save wear on a camcorder and is a bit easier to keep hooked-up on a desktop, but unless you will do a lot of editing, it is a bit of a luxury. I got an extended warranty for mine, but I have had no trouble with it in 18 months of use.

I got the GVD when I started playing with video and it is great. There is an optional camera, the CVX-3, which docks to the unit. It's not a great picture but for times when you can't have a big camera or need to be covert it's super.

I also just got done torturing my GVD in the field; I plugged in a 9" composite monitor and watched boxes of MiniDV tape on it, wrote the timecodes for worthy segments, and when I got home would capture those segments for editting. The project would not have gotten done were it not for me watching video while carpooling and eating lunch at work, the GVD really came through.

Can't comment much on using it for editting however, my linear editting days are long gone, I do everything in the computer now. One niggle I might add is that the GVD is not a pro deck, although it seems to look like one. Don't drive it like a pro deck and you will be fine. It's fine at capturing as well but I usually use my cheaper camcorders for that task.