I'm looking to set up a multi format capturing setup to digitizing setup to capture footage from:

DV, DVCAM, HDV, Beta SP and Digibeta for now

I intend to have a PC connected to each deck so I can easily capture from different formats and store the digitized content on an external raid.

I understand capture cards are required for Beta SP and Digibeta. I wondered if there are any other capture devices that are required to digitize these formats on a windows based PC and if anyone knows of a good stand alone program that interfaces with such devices.

Thanks for you help

James Blackburn

for capture of those formats only you'll get by just fine with an HVD-M25 and a J30; check out the Blackmagic or AJA capture cards, you would only need a standard def capture card as the HDV format can be captured via firweire.
Blackmagic cards have particularly good cross platform support, so may be worth checking out if you want to capture to a PC. They ship with standalone sofware for capture and playback.

Thanks Andy, thats a great help. For buying used decks what sort of drum hours are acceptable and what is over use, or does this vary from deck to deck.

I'm being presured into finding a cheaper VTR that can play back Digibeta and Beta SP tapes and outputs via firewire.. The J30 is a cracking little deck for the price but i'm still required to find a cheaper deal.

Does anyone know of any such decks other than the J30?

Thanks

James

You can look into the J-10 which I've seen for under $8000 US. It has SDI and FireWire according to the descriptions.

Have you considered the issues of capture codecs? If you capture all the standard def material by FireWire they will share the same codec but if you switch between firewire and a capture card there will be a different codec. The HDV will be a different codec as well. Unfortunately FCP is not the most forgiving program regarding codecs at this point.