Can I capture footage from an HDV camera with the PDX10?

[Shon Troelstrup]

Hi everyone:

The arena I work at shoots their in-house games on JVC GY-HD250's. We are broadcasting on a TriCaster Broadcast, which (as far as I know) doesn't handle HDV , so we've been shooting at 480/60i DV.

I recorded a few tapes of our last game and want to use the footage to edit some highlight packages.

Just wondering if I can bring my PDX10 into the production office (on the other side of the arena) and capture the tapes, rather than lugging one of the big JVCs down here.

[Adam Gold]

As long as you shoot standard DV, it should work fine, with the standard potential bugs of shooting on one cam and capturing on another. Should be easy enough to test beforehand (highly recommended).

[Shon Troelstrup]

Thanks, Adam!

According to the JVC manual, the HD250 records 480/60i in DV.

Conversely, any recommendations for a deck that will play DV and HDV?

[Jay West]

For what you want to do, why bother with a deck? Decks are pretty expensive and will be as cumbersome to lug around as the JVCs.

Are you thinking that you "need" a deck because you might "ruin" one of the HD250s by using it to capture or record tape? Not to worry. It has not been an issue for decades. There are dozens of threads here pointing out the fallacy of that common assumption, including some from Chris Hurd (who has pointed this out so often that he gets pretty testy when it comes up again.)

For going up to HDV, almost any old HDV consumer cam will work. For example, a lot of folks have happily paired Canon HV10/20/30/40 cams with pro-level HDV cams. The idea being that the little cams work fine as decks and free up the pro-cams for use. Heck, a used cam will probably suffice. Last time I checked, used HV20s could be had for about $200 ($US).

[Shon Troelstrup]

I'm just too lazy to pack a camera down from the media booth and bring it back when I'm done. I'm not familiar with playback decks, but didn't realize they were that cumbersome. I thought there might be one that would sit on my desk. I also don't want to wear out my pdx10 motor by playing hours of tape. I generally use a MiniDV rewinder to save wear and tear.

[Adam Gold]

Any HDV cam or deck should play 60i DV but you need to be careful. The HV20 Jay suggested is great for most HDV and all DV, but I think it won't play HDV you shot with your JVC. JVC is only 720, IIRC -- I think this is called HDV1 -- while Canon and Sony are 1080, or HDV2. I think. I'm betting if you put HDV from the JVC into the Canon you'll get a blue screen.

HDV decks are not cumbersome but they can be expensive. Even cheap ones like the Sony GV-HD700 are way more expensive than a cheap old camcorder. And again, they don't play the same flavor of HDV as your JVC. Some more expensive Sony decks play 720 as well as 1080 HDV, but only play 720 via analog.

As Jay said, you won't wear out the motor. Main concern is other moving parts if you are doing a lot of shuttling back and forth, but even that is minor, and of really little concern if you are capturing the whole tape in one go. After all, this is what the deck section of the cam is designed to do.

But if the cam is needed elsewhere, makes sense to get a less-expensive unit.

Read the specs carefully.

[Jay West]

Most HDV decks are serious pieces of equipment costing thousands of dollars. The least expensive one that comes to my mind is Sony's HD700. It is small enough for Sony to call it a VideoWalkman and, as I recall, it goes for around $1100 ($US). And, if memory serves, it plays back HDV but will not record it; the unit only records to SD.

Wearing out the motors on your PDX10 or a small consumer HDV cam isn't very likely. It would be different if you were going to be doing hundreds of tapes in day-in-day-out recording and playback over months or years. Since you are not, there is no point in your buying industrial grade equipment. For pulling tape on four or five games, the PDX or, for HDV, a consumer HDV cam will be fine. Heck, the motors and tape mechanism in my old TRV900 are still functioning despite more than a decade of heavy use. What wore out were the firewire port and the external power socket.

[Jay West]

Just saw Adam's post. I had forgotten that those JVC cams only shot HDV in varieties of 720p. That would indeed be a problem for capturing without the camera and likely would prevent using any consumer HDV cam that I know of. Shon could use the firewire connections to feed the 720p signal out to something like an HV20, but that really eats into convenience. I assume Shon has already looked into tapeless recording units, laptop connections via Adobe On-location, etc. Looks like hauling a camera down to the production room might be the best alternative for the short term for HDV.

For the meantime, with SD footage, using the PDX would be the best solution for capturing the existing few tapes.

[Shon Troelstrup]

You guys rock. Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the JVC; I'm still getting familiar with it (I usually shoot on a Canon XL2, Sony PDX10, and most recently, a Canon 7D), so I'm not up to speed on HDV. According to the JVC manual, when it's set to 480/60i, it's DV.

We do have a PC in the media booth, but it doesn't have any editing software installed yet. I'll be installing NewTek SpeedEdit (included with TriCaster package), and more preferably, Adobe CS5, soon. I guess I can capture in the media booth when that's set up.

And regarding tapeless recording units, YES, I have been looking into that and am getting quite frustrated. Our signal chain (condensed) is cameras>TriCaster>Venus 7000>Flash Media Encoder>output to UStream/arena screen. Along the way, the video is stamped with a score/clock and squeezed down into a horrid 416x224 resolution for display on the screen. This 416x224 video is also sent to a JVC SR DVM700 DVD recorder, which records a low res DVD which the teams must have at the end of the night.

My predecessor was editing highlight footage from these 416x224 DVDs, and they look horrible. I'm trying to find a way to intercept the video feed from the TriCaster before it's compressed. As far as I know, the TriCaster doesn't support Firewire output, so I don't think I can use Adobe OnLocation (?). I've also looked into the Black Magic HyperDeck, but it uses Uncompressed Quicktime only, and the SSD drives required would break the bank and our storage budget.

The Atomos Ninja also looks promising, but it's HDMI input, and that, too, is not supported by the Tricaster to the best of my knowledge.

I'm now thinking the Matrox MXO2 lined into a PC/laptop might be the way to go.

Sorry for the derail. I'll take a look around the forums and see if there's a better place to ask about that.

Cheers, guys. Much appreciated!!!

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Jay West

Most HDV decks are serious pieces of equipment costing thousands of dollars. The least expensive one that comes to my mind is Sony's HD700. It is small enough for Sony to call it a VideoWalkman and, as I recall, it goes for around $1100 ($US). And, if memory serves, it plays back HDV but will not record it; the unit only records to SD.

I use mine only for playback but if I'm understanding the manual correctly -- always a challenge with Sony -- it will record HDV (say from an HDV cam) via FW. It does not have component or HDMI in -- they are out only.

Page 76 of the manual says "Your VCR is capable of recording in both HDV and DV formats." On page 28 it shows the "signal flow" going to the VCR and indicates that if you have an HD source and use the i.Link cable the recording will be "HD Quality."

Incidentally, this is one of the decks that will play back 720p30, but not via FW. Analog only (although maybe not; I wonder if it'll send it out via HDMI? And if so, could you use an HDMI capture card?). And I'm guessing not 720p60.