Solitaire / DV Recorders

[bvolcjak]

Ian,

I just want to make sure I understand. Recording straight from my camcorder into the hard drive (of something like the JVC SR-DVM700 Three-in-One Recorder) would be comparable to recording in MPEG2 or SVHS quality, right? My thanks to you and Tim for your comments.

[IanPearson]

Bill
No not quite, using firewire to your recorder hard drive will still be at DV quality, what will be MPEG2, (roughly SVHS quality) is the output from a DVD. I’m not familiar with the JVC three in one recorder, but I’m assuming it has a hard drive and can write DVD’s.

Similarly feeding from your recorder hard drive to the Solitaire using the S connector, (firewire is not available in this case) will again be at about SVHS quality. This is the yes part of your question.

Any DVD that can be read by a normal DVD player, will be compressed from the native DV level you feed in, to MPEG2. However, since a Solitaire will not accept direct input of any DVD other than a Arabesk generated DVD, you would have to feed a DVD in via your S connection, which again would have a slight, but acceptable loss of quality.

Going back to the beginning, Tim suggested the use of an Avio DV, which can now be picked up at a relatively low cost.

This would allow you to feed your Cam (with or without a tape in) directly into the Avio using firewire. This would give you several hours of recording, without taking your much more expensive Solitair on site and then again using firewire, run the recording into your Solitaire for editing, all at DV quality.

Hope this helps, but if I have misunderstood your requirements, please come back again.

Ian

[bvolcjak]

Tim / Ian,

My thanks again for your comments. I'll think this over and let you know what happens. Have a good day.

[TimKennelly]

Bill,

The unit you sight would be storing the footage on the hard drive at native DV quality, the same as what you would have on DV tape.

I don't know if the unit would be compatible for firewire transfer over to the Solitaire though (only trying it would confirm that one way or another).

This appears to be a nice unit and gives you some flexibility having hard drive, tape and DVD built in and you could use it for tape to DVD transfers as well as for extended recording use.

However, I would just point out that an AvioDV could do all of this also and more (you could even edit the footage internally which the JVC unit cannot) for considerably less money.

I feel like an AvioDV salesman repeating this option and wish to make clear I have no vested interest in a sale here as I do not have an AvioDV for sale.

[johnneumann]

Hi Bill,

One reason I haven't been able to get excited about recording straight to hard drive of any kind is because it puts pressure on me to edit and erase the footage immediately before I can use the drive again. I don't know how much footage you plan to shoot, but consider too that once a hard drive is full, it remains full and unusable until you delete it.

While recording straight to hard drive sounds great to pros who want instant access to their footage, it's only for people who know for a fact that they'll be using their footage immediately so they can clear the drive to record new stuff on the next shoot.

That's not for me! I can procrastinate editing footage for days or weeks before doing something with it. Also, I've shot seminars that can total 40 hours of footage in three days. You'll definitely need to look at the capacity of a hard drive and consider if it's able to hold as much as you plan to shoot. Also, if you bring an editor into the field, you need a full size monitor to see what you're doing.

My solution was a Sony DSR-11. It's a DVCAM tape deck. If you're not familiar with DVCAM, it's a videocassette - much larger than a miniDV - that holds regular digital footage. The advantage of DVCAM tapes over miniDV is that they're long. Very long. The Sony DSR-11 allows you to record in DVCAM format, up to over three hours for a long tape ... and miniDV format, up to five or six hours on the same sized DVCAM tape tape. (Someone here can correct me on exactly how much longer extra the miniDV format gets you. It's either 1.5x times as long or 2x as long.) That's five+ hours of shooting non-stop! By the way, that's not a cheap "extended play" format. There's no signal degradation here. It's pure digital footage exactly the same as if it had been shot on a camcorder. You simply get a firewire cable from the camera to the DSR-11 and hit "record". Because the tapes are big (ie, lots of surface space on the tape) even miniDV format has plenty of signal presence on the tape, so even the longer miniDV footage works perfectly. I can see no advantage to using the DVCAM format as there is no image improvement or playback advantage that I can see. I have edited dozens of tapes without a single problem.

The long tape length really speaks to me and the fact that these are tapes means I can shoot as many as I want without having to urgently empty my hard drive so I can make room for more stuff. I also have reasonably durable archives of all my old source footage.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone shoots straight to hard drive. I guess if you're a working machine and you assembly-line footage out as a professional without a need to archive source footage, you're okay. But for normal work or hobby shooting, having the source tape is important to me.

The only two downsides are the price of the DSR-11. It's a digital Sony VCR that sells for $1700 new. That's a lot of dough for a VCR. The other downside (if you care) is that you need to load the footage into your editor in real time. That means that six hours of footage on tape takes six hours to load into an editor.

The upside is that the DSR-11 is small and pretty rugged. I can't imagine taking a Macrosystems editor out into the field, but different strokes for different folks. I prefer my relatively small DSR-11.

Of course, you can also always record over old tapes. There are also no compatibility issues. It's a digital signal that will go into your editor via firewire. No image loss whatsoever.

I don't remember how I came across the thing when I first bought it, but I'm surprised it's not standard gear for a lot of pros. I remember a seminar I spoke at a long while ago and at the end of the weekend, the videographer (using plain old miniDV tapes straight out of the camera) presented me with fifteen one hour tapes of the event! And each of these, of course, was missing the two minutes it took to stop the camera, swap out the tape, and hit record again! Ridiculous!

I wish I would have knows about digital DVCAM VCRs from the beginning.

Google the DSR-11 and see if a digital VCR is not a better solution for you. From what I can tell from your post, if you're willing to spend the money, it's a slam-dunk for you.

-JOHN

[TimKennelly]

John,

I agree and disagree with some of your points.

Your vcr and tape method is a proven medium and more compact than, albeit considerably more expensive option.

Regarding hard drive capacity issues and taking an AvioDV onto location I would disagree.

The AvioDV is not any larger than any normal deck, including the one Bill sights and as for hard drives, they are cheap and plentiful.

Towards the last I was using my AvioDV without the screws that hold the two halves of the body together, rather using a strip of gaffer's tape along both side seams.

I could take the gaffer's tape off (and place it on the top temporarily), open the case, take the small screw driver I had gaffer's taped inside the case (love the stuff) and replace the drive, regaffer tape the screw driver and halves back together in about twenty seconds total.

So you have relatively unlimited recording and storage capacity with the AvioDV and hard drives.

I would agree this would not be so with Bill's sighted VCR and would agree your method would be superior to that and also to the AvioDV for portability, but again at quite an initial price differential.

Also, DVCam tapes are not exactly cheap and have limited reuse ability where as hard drives are extremely reuseable.

Still, if money is not a factor I would agree a DVCam alternative is far more portable and elegant.

[PaulBusta]

My "portable" storage is a Sony DSR 200A DVCAM camcorder and it just so happens that is shoots video "and" runs on battery's too. The last one I got (I have 3) cost me $1,023 with everything, on ebay. DVCAM user since 1998 and even that footage looks like I shot it yesterday.