Tranferring PMW-EX1r footage onto HDV tape??

[Rob Perry]

I own the EX1r as well as a Canon HV30 that shoots HDV onto miniDV tapes. I just accepted a gig tomorrow where the client wants the end product footage in HDV on tape... so I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to either tether the two camera together so I can directly record onto tape, or if I can dub the footage after the fact. I assume that since the EX1r can record in the HDV standard (1440x1080) that it would make this process easier, but I really have no clue.

I've never used a pro-sumer camera like that as a deck before, I know it has an HDMI out and an A/V 3-in-one out, but don't know if they can be used as inputs. I'm thinking the only possible course of action is to shoot the footage down the firewire connection and record the stream that way.

If anyone has any ideas, I would really appreciate them... especially since I'm a dumbass who already assured a client I could do it for them.
Thanks!

[Doug Jensen]

Rob,

Have considered sitting down with the client and educating them a little about the time-saving advantages of giving them the EX1 footage on disc or hard drive? Not only will save them a lot of time ingesting from tape in real-time later on, but it will also provide them a supeior product if you shoot with HQ.

Okay, I understand that they're the client and ultimately you have to do it the way they want it done, but I've always felt that part of my job was to educate the customer and provide them guidence whenever I felt it was necessary. In fact, that attitude and extra service has made all the difference in my career. This is a situation I have been in more than once over the last four years since switching to XDCAM, and I was always able to convince the client to "see the light" and do it my way -- and not once were they sorry afterwards. Usually they gave up doing anything at all on tape ever again.

I know this doesn't answer your root question, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Try to talk them out of it.

[Rob Perry]

Doug,

The problem is that the end client is a production company in Japan, so I'm dealing with the people they hired to get the footage. I briefly tried to explain it to them how throwing the files on a hard drive and shipping it to Japan was a better idea, but they only know what they were told, and they were told to get HDV tapes. Also the language barrier makes it difficult to really argue with them, haha.

Anyway, I was just looking in the HV30 manual and apparently you can dub an HDV signal onto it via the firewire port. The only thing that worries me is that you have to set it on "auto-detect" or something and I'm not sure if A) you can stream footage thru firewire from the EX1r, and B) if it's going to be recognized as an HDV stream. I'm thinking that at the very least I should be able to import the footage into an "HDV" timeline in Premiere, and then send it through the firewire as the preview/monitor signal into the camcorder... who knows?

[Doug Jensen]

Rob,

I haven't done it myself with an EX1R, but according to page 94 of my very own EX1 Field Guide, you should be able to send or receive HDV signals via the Firwire port. The key is to make sure you only shoot SP1080 / 60i or SP1080 / 24P. Note: Those formats are called 1440 on the EX1R instead of 1080.

You'll also need to enable the "i/LINK I/O" menu.

Now that you know it can be done, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes to hook it up and run a test of your own. Like I said, I haven't done with an EX1R.

[Enrique Orozco Robles]

... Vegas pro let you print HDV to tape (using any HDV capable camcorder) by firewire....

you can keep your full quality EX master clips, make renders to HDV, give the tapes to your client and talk about the benefits of the EX masters that you already have... in fact, I've used this option to one customer although I give the HDV files on disk (DVD-data) ......

I'm sure other NLEs can give you this option also.....

my 2 cents

[Duncan Craig]

I've done it before.

The EX1 will need to be set at/recording in HDV 25Mbps, and you'll need a firewire 4pin to 4pin. I have an HV20 and have connected it to my EX1.

Hope that helps.

[Rob Perry]

So streaming it onto the HV30 via the iLink worked very well, and the only "bad thing" was a 2 second delay. Also, I thought it was very impressive that the iLink functionality triggered initiated the recording as well, so I only had to operate the EX1r the whole time.

I didn't get a chance to watch the footage from the HDV tapes on a monitor afterward though, so I'm wondering what it actually ended up looking like. From the view on the HV30's LCD screen, it looked kinda sub-par... but that was comparing it to the EX1r's LCD screen so who knows. I haven't recorded in anything other than the HQ formats yet either, so I have to go back and see what this 1440 SP stuff looks like on an HDTV anyway.

[Doug Jensen]

The SP mode doesn't look too different from the HQ mode, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Also, the transfer between the two cameras is digitial so there won't be any generational loss or re-encoding. The video that got recorded on the HDV tape will look precisely like the EX1 original. Even though you're recording to tape, it's really not any different that moving data files from SxS card to a hard drive . . . assuming the tape has no defects.

The video probably looked bad in the HV30's LCD just because that screen it's not as good as the EX1's.

[Jim Forrest]

If all else fails PM me. I have an HDV deck and can print from my timeline onto a HDV tape.
I don't live far from you.
Jim

[Duncan Craig]

I don't have my HV20 to hand, but I think you can use the zoom control when playing back tapes to zoom into the recorded image.

This may give you a better idea of the recording quailty.