Yes, I am going to rent it for a commercial I have to lens. If all goes well thru shooting and post, I think I'll make the investment into that and a deck.

I run Avid MC and Avid Xpress Pro. I understand that Avid *might* have a dvcpro50 update for Avid Xpress Pro and higher systems.

Keep your eye out for some announcements around NAB this year. Panasonic may be introducing a new DVCPRO50 deck with Firewire built-in (something not offered now) at a lower cost than their current full deck offerings.

I have seen footage shot with the sdx900, and it looks great. Super 16mm quality. Of course it should, since the cam cost 25k+....I'm stunned how much difference a 2/3 chip makes over a 1/3....

The shoot was indoors. I still have doubts on digital footage on anything with a great deal of distance, say over 50 feet. Even HD looks a bit hinky on landscape shots.

Michael Struthers
www.buzzdigital.com

I am hoping Avid announces DVCPRO50 support in the Avid lineup from Xpress Pro and Up. THis will make a difference in bringing some of the cost of aquisition of DVCPRO50 for my workflow.
It looks like a great interim format for when you never want to be analog, but when HD is still costly and cumbersome technically to deal with on fast shoots.

I believe any Avid above Xpress pro will take DV50 via SDI. With the Mojo box on Xpress Pro I think you can get it in, but only via component...could be wrong there. It would be nice to have the option with the cheaper systems. We sold our old (7.2) Media Composers and went with Xpress Pro because it did everything our old systems did but faster, and we're shooting only DVCAM now, so why spend money on new Media Composers (although the new systems have some more features that would be nice, they weren't all that significant for us, considering the cost and how good Xpress Pro is now).

I thought about going to a DV50 format when I switched to DVCAM, but decided to spend less money, because DVCAM looks good enough with the DSR500, and then by the time we're ready for another upgrade, HD for the masses ought to be here. That was my reasoning 4 years ago, and HD for the masses (by my definition--ie., an HD camera for the price of a DSR570 and decks for the price of the DSR2000's) still isn't here, and Panasonic has done great things with the SDX900...so maybe DV50 is going to stick around for awhile, who knows...our next upgrade could be to DV50 instead of HD, and that would make your suggestion very good.

Yeah.. I am looking at it for $10,000 - $20,000 range music videos, because the aquisition cost of footage will be low, and the post path will be cheaper as well.

HD takes a lot of work to get right, and the post is just as expensive as everything else. In fact, right now, it price in post seems to match whatever you would have saved by not having to do a 16mm one light transfer to tape for editing. The guys who know what they are doing in HD and the HD rooms are going for a premimum at the moment.

So staying in SD video that is more than broadcast worthy and can match 16mm is excellent for music videos going to broadcast.

Hate to bump an old thread.. I'm looking at a sweet deal on a pair of DVCPro 50's.. What choices do I have for getting footage to a PC from one? Anything inexpensive?

Depends on the camera - firewire or cards were available during the lifetime. P2 adaptors come up on ebay but not that often. Firewire is the cheapest - cards and adaptors are still common. Which cameras are you thinking about?

Hate to bump an old thread.. I'm looking at a sweet deal on a pair of DVCPro 50's.. What choices do I have for getting footage to a PC from one? Anything inexpensive?

I've still got DVC Pro 50 Cams and Decks here. The cams have no SDI but the AJD-950 deck does have the optional SDI board. I just run into an Atomos Ninja V with its optional SDI module and capture in Prores then just transfer the files to the PC. haven't done it in a while as 99.99% of my work is now HD with a tiny amount of 4k. Look for cheap DVCPro 50 decks on eBay. Some examples:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=panasonic+dvcpro+50&_blrs=spell_check

If a deck doesn't have an SDI output you could always use a Component to SDI or a Component to HDMI converter to convert and grab the deck's output. Such as these sorts of units.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=component+analogue+to+sdi+converter&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_blrs=spell_check&_osacat=0&_odkw=panasonic+dvcpro+50

The Analogue to HDMI converters are real cheap if you have a way to capture the HDMI stream.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=component+analogue+to+hdmi+converter&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=component+analogue+to+sdi+converter&_osacat=0

Chris Young