DV Deck VS. Cheap Camcorder

Alessandro Machi · April 12th, 2007, 11:46 PM

I'm on both sides of the fence on this one.

I think prematurely wearing out a camcorder is a bad thing because the day that it fails on location on a shoot will be hastened if it has spent a lot of time doing playback in an NLE environment.

However, I am upset with how unreliable my JVC HD deck is. It stops and claims an error has occured during the simplest recording jobs. The last two or three times I've tried to use the JVC deck as a dv recorder I've had to give up making the dv dub and instead used my trusty Canon ZR never leaves the studio camcorder.

I have a glorified "player only" JVC-HD/DV deck that was also supposed to record and I'm not happy about it.

Marcus Marchesseault · April 13th, 2007, 03:25 AM

"I do a lot of doc-style work where I am literally taking only 5-20 minutes from each tape."

I think that is probably where the division between the methods lies. I have frequenly used over %50 of footage shot. I can see where it would be senseless to capture everything if only one third or less of the tape is being used.

100Gig flash drives will one day make all of this stuff irrelevant. I give it three years before cameras start to almost completely switch away from tape. Maybe hybrid systems like the Panasonic HVX200 will be the norm next generation.

I like flash. It's so...Star Trek.

Peter Ferling · April 13th, 2007, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

I like flash. It's so...Star Trek.

Ha! I remember watching those episodes and they were using small cards as props for memory. The irony that predicting solid state memory cards would exist in the future, while still using computers that spoke like old macs, clicked like typewritter, and displayed binary code on incandescent light bulbs! So retro..

I'm in the same boat, using most of my media shot as it relates to live events and wind up cutting out the minority; the zooms, pans, frame fodder, and scene changes, etc.

Time permitting, I'll ingest a full tape while continuing on with the shoot. Then I'll know what I have to work with before wrapping up. What matters in not always on the monitor, but what comes off the tape.

Marcus Marchesseault · April 13th, 2007, 11:10 PM

I find it amazing that we are, in some ways, beginning to surpass the computer technology of the original Star Trek series. Voice recognition is getting quite viable and storage devices are becoming quite efficient. Remember when Spok would change cards in his console? Soon, the console will be able to store enough information to only need one card. The computer controls of machinery is almost complete with integrated circuits in everything from handheld computers to battery chargers and coffee machines. It's obvious how much our cameras are starting to resemble computers.

I think the benefit of large flash storage will be quite evident since hard drive speed hit a wall about five years ago and the lack of moving parts always increases reliability. Regardless, I think remnants of the old tape-logging method will survive as the human operator still needs to see footage at single-speed. For jobs where someone other than the editor shot the footage, a full wade through of all the footage by the editor while marking cut points will probably always be done. Until we turn into the Borg.

April 12th, 2007, 11:46 PM	#16
Alessandro Machi Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Los Angeles, Ca USA Posts: 553	I'm on both sides of the fence on this one. I think prematurely wearing out a camcorder is a bad thing because the day that it fails on location on a shoot will be hastened if it has spent a lot of time doing playback in an NLE environment. However, I am upset with how unreliable my JVC HD deck is. It stops and claims an error has occured during the simplest recording jobs. The last two or three times I've tried to use the JVC deck as a dv recorder I've had to give up making the dv dub and instead used my trusty Canon ZR never leaves the studio camcorder. I have a glorified "player only" JVC-HD/DV deck that was also supposed to record and I'm not happy about it. __________________ https://alexlogic.blogspot.com/ Los Angeles Emmy Winner (yes, used a video edit controller and loved doing so.) Last edited by Alessandro Machi; April 13th, 2007 at 03:50 PM.

April 13th, 2007, 03:25 AM	#17
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	"I do a lot of doc-style work where I am literally taking only 5-20 minutes from each tape." I think that is probably where the division between the methods lies. I have frequenly used over %50 of footage shot. I can see where it would be senseless to capture everything if only one third or less of the tape is being used. 100Gig flash drives will one day make all of this stuff irrelevant. I give it three years before cameras start to almost completely switch away from tape. Maybe hybrid systems like the Panasonic HVX200 will be the norm next generation. I like flash. It's so...Star Trek.

April 13th, 2007, 11:10 PM	#19
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	I find it amazing that we are, in some ways, beginning to surpass the computer technology of the original Star Trek series. Voice recognition is getting quite viable and storage devices are becoming quite efficient. Remember when Spok would change cards in his console? Soon, the console will be able to store enough information to only need one card. The computer controls of machinery is almost complete with integrated circuits in everything from handheld computers to battery chargers and coffee machines. It's obvious how much our cameras are starting to resemble computers. I think the benefit of large flash storage will be quite evident since hard drive speed hit a wall about five years ago and the lack of moving parts always increases reliability. Regardless, I think remnants of the old tape-logging method will survive as the human operator still needs to see footage at single-speed. For jobs where someone other than the editor shot the footage, a full wade through of all the footage by the editor while marking cut points will probably always be done. Until we turn into the Borg.