Using a 'Cheaper' Mini DV to Playback, and Capture in FCE

[Michael Fraticelli]

Hello

I've read a few posts here where folks were having problems with their Cannon GL2, and Cannon XL Camcorders in regard to FCE, and Final Cut Pro.

Camera recognition could a problem when 2 high speed devices are trying to share the bus speed in the firewire port of a G5.

Soooo I just keep my Lacie HD disconnected when I'm using my GL2 in my G5

HERE'S ANOTHER OPTION:
Perhaps this is 'old news', but I just picked up a Cannon ZR500, and my intention is to use this 'Cheaper Camera' to playback and capture in FCE, or iMovie HD.

That way, I'll also save the Video Heads in my GL2 - Make Sense?

Now here's the question:
Will the ZR500 playback with the same quality that the GL2 recorded it in?

It seems the ZR500 specs show it be 16 capable - but perhaps this is a mute point - again will most cheap Camcorders playback in 16 Bit Audio, and the SAME Video Quality that the tape was recorded in?

Thanx
Mike

[David Jimerson]

Any camera which can play back DV can be used to capture. It's all the same 1s and 0s either way.

The only time there may be a problem is if you're capturing 24p and want to remove pulldown; some older, cheaper cameras may not be able to transfer the necessary metadata.

But in FCE, that's not a problem, because you can't remove pulldown, anyway.

And if you're capturing GL2 footage, it's really not a problem, because it doesn't shoot 24p.

[Michael Fraticelli]

Ok then

So then as I suspected, this ZR500 that I just picked up, will playback the 16 bit sound effects that I recently recorded with my GL2 allowing me to capture in FCE (using the ZR500), instead of the GL2.

Thanx :)

[Greg Boston]

Hey guys, I'm going to relocate this thread to the GL1/2 forum since that's the camera being discussed.

regards,

-gb-

[Greg Perry]

Back at the end of May, I used my then new GL2 camera to record a weekend music festival - about 35 bands over the course of four days. Returning home I decided to heed the common advice I'd seen here and not use the GL2 for playback. Instead I used my Sony TRV38 as the playback device and dumped the footage via firewire to the harddrive of my Pioneer DVD recorder.

Without any further editing, I burned the recorded footage to DVD-R but when I went to watch it I found a very annoying problem that kept popping up sporadically throughout the footage.

What I kept hearing was a quick, high-pitched squeaking noise that was always just a single quick note that seemed to appear randomly throughout the recordings. It sort of had the sound of a mechanical squeak but at the same time when I was listening to the video on DVD-R it didn't seem like that was the case - it seemed more like it was "in" the audio itself. If that makes any sense.

And it wasn't popping up at regular intervals either. I might watch/listen to one band for thirty minutes and think that the set was okay and then all of sudden there it is - squeak! And then three minutes later - squeak!

I ended up deleting all of the sets I had dubbed with the Sony camera from my recorder's harddrive and started over using the GL2 as the playback machine. This time around the audio came out without the occasional squeaks which is what I expected since when I listened with headphones to the tapes playing back on the GL2 the audio sounded great.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there some kind of incompatibility issue between the Canon and the Sony cameras? Do I need a cheap Canon camera to use as playback for tapes recorded on my GL2?

One other factor I'll throw into the mix - the Sony had recently been repaired by Sony to take care of a defect. I've recorded with it since then and it seems to work fine as well as play back tapes recorded on it originally with no problem at all.

Also, I just remembered as I was typing this - when I first got the GL2 and had no other camera (the Sony was broken), I tried to play back some tapes recorded on the Sony and found that I was experiencing short audio drop-outs. Is this common for recordings made on other cameras that are played on the GL2?

Thanks for any feedback or insight that anyone has to share.

[Mike Barber]

Does anyone know of any other machines that one could use to capture their footage from miniDV tape to harddrive? Are there any miniDV decks for such a purpose?

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

Does anyone know of any other machines that one could use to capture their footage from miniDV tape to harddrive? Are there any miniDV decks for such a purpose?

I use a now discontinued Panasonic NV-DV 10000. It is quite remarkable old beast of a thing! It does full size tapes and miniDV too. Lodsa connections on front and back and in its day was meant as a prosumer edit deck too!

Anyways, a quick search hereabouts pulled up some good stuff within these forums:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60078

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...t=minidv+decks

Outside:
http://www.videomaker.com/scripts/article.cfm?id=7531

http://www.dvshop.ca/vdecks/panadecks.html

[Don Palomaki]

I use a Sony DHR-1000 VCR (take both full size DV and MiniDV tape) for capture and archiving edited material in DV format.

Also, Sony offered some MiniDV Walkman-size miniDV tape decks, GV-D300 and GV-900 (had an LCD screen) or something like that, that work for recording and capture. As an aside, the GV-D200 was a Digital-8 walkman deck tah could play Digital-8, Hi8, and 8mm video.

All of the above are probably discontinued by now and you may have to look for a used model if you really want one.