We're doing a frantically paced shoot in both St. Louis, and Chicago on two back to back days at the end of the month. The last shoot should wrap by around 1pm in Chicago, but we have to get the footage (probably 3 hours worth or more) overnighted for the client in Austin, TX the next day, where they'll be making all edits, by noting timecode and "in" and "out" points. We'll then be making the clips in Iowa City, using their cues.

We could just dupe the DVCam tapes and overnight, but the client would have to rent a DVCam deck to view, and they know nothing about video editing etc.

Is it possible to just take the tapes to a video production place in Chicago, and have them make DVDs straight from the tapes, and if so, can they include a running, onscreen timecode? Is there a much better way to do this?

Originally, I was going to just capture everything in FCP, use the Generate Timecode filter, and make DVDs for them eliminating the need for a deck and all, but with that much footage on a laptop, I don't think I can do it and still make the overnight mail...

Any suggestions are very welcome. Also, if anyone know of any places near chicago that would be able to do this, please let me know.

Thanks!

On professional DV decks (i.e. DSR-1500), they are able to burn-in the timecode as the tape plays back.

A lot of consumer cameras may be able to do this too- some consumer cameras are able to play back DVCAM, although it probably isn't officially supported (my Panasonic GS70 does this). Check that the camera puts the timecode on its analog output (not just the viewfinder).

From there, you can take that signal into a DVD recorder... or VHS, which doesn't have DVD media compatibility problems (unlikely if you use good media, but still possible).

2- An alternative would be to make Quicktime files.... quality won't be that good (unless you have money, or can wait) and the client might have technical difficulties playing them back (slow internet, can't figure out how to install quicktime).

hhmmmm. i suppose vhs would save a lot of headache. or, i suppose if i compressed it all down (and 320x240), i could upload it in chunks to an ftp server...

you've given me some things to consider. thanks for your input!!

eric