calling Bob Z – X post – Firewire to RS422 timecode etc

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bob Cole] ” I need to dub a lot of HDV tapes to Beta,”

I’m no Bob Zelin, but why do you need to do this?

[Bob Cole]

[JeremyG] ”
I’m no Bob Zelin, but why do you need to do this?”

First of all, congratulations on the first part. (couldn’t resist, Bob and I still want to be on your good side)

I am shooting in HDV to future protect for high definition (and because I have an HDV camera, no small factor financially for this project).

The client wants to edit on Beta.

[Rich Rubasch]

I believe you could use the M-Connect for machine control and timecode pass thru. Then you would have to take the S-Video out and the RCA Audio out of the M25 to the Beta Deck…certaily not ideal. Another way would be to get a second SDI to Component analog and take the M-Connect SDI for the conversion…again not great.

Better yet, IMO, would be to use the SDI out of the M-Connect and dub to DVCAM. You keep the digital audio at true 48k and most of the picture quality. Not gonna do what your client asked for, however.

If you have a Kona card and the breakout box you could run the SDI out of the M-Connect into the breakout box. Put FCP in Digitize mode and run the component and XLR out to the Beta deck. Sort of an EE setup using the Kona as your convertor. This would tie up your edit system while it dubbed.

To go from DVCProHD to Betacam we actually use an old Aurora Pipe system to send the SDI from the DVCProHD deck (downconverted in the deck to SD) into the Pipe Pro, then take the component out and XLR to the Beta. On the Panasonic deck I have a timecode out so I run that to the Beta and put it in External Regen. Has worked great.

That’s all I have…

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob Cole] “The client wants to edit on Beta.”

So run your HDV deck to the Kona LHe via Component and downconvert the footage to SD Uncompressed 8bit. Edit the project and master out to BetaSP. Much simpler than dubbing everything.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

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[Bob Cole]

[Rich Rubasch] “If you have a Kona card and the breakout box you could run the SDI out of the M-Connect into the breakout box. Put FCP in Digitize mode and run the component and XLR out to the Beta deck. Sort of an EE setup using the Kona as your convertor.”

Sounds good, and I could go component video out from the M25. But I wonder whether this would really work, because when I digitize any material shot with my Sony Z1 HDV camera, played from my Sony M25 deck, using either Firewire only or Firewire plus component out, my FCP capture session is frequently interrupted with messages about searching for broken timecode. (I’m no techie, but imho the timecode should not be broken — these are continuous takes, the tape is not rewound in the camera, the camera is fairly new, and I use Sony’s premium digital master tape. Oddly, the timecode break is quite consistent, and often when the material is critical I have to revert to “no deck control” in FCP to get the shot captured.)

Does using the HDMI port avoid these issues? Is Firewire the culprit in these phantom-broken-timecode issues?

[Bob Cole]

[walter biscardi] “Edit the project and master out to BetaSP.”

I wish that were the case, but the client wants to use his own editing facility.

[Bob Cole]

I’m sort of taking a left turn from my own thread here, but given what I have (Sony M25, AJA LHe), which would be the better way to go from HDV to HD-SDI: Convergent Design HD-Connect MI or AJA HD10AVA?

HD-Connect MI seems like a very nice choice, if I understand it correctly: it is all-digital, converting the M25’s HDMI, which carries everything (video, audio, timecode?) in its original digital form, to another digital signal.

Am I missing something here?

Would that path also eliminate the broken timecode problem that I’m experiencing while capturing HDV originals?

Thanks to all for their excellent ideas.

Bob

[Jeremy Garchow]

Then offer to capture everything for them in SD, or send it out to a dub house to get transferred with matching tc.

If they wanted Beta, it should be their duty to figure out how to get it to Beta.

Jeremy

[Christian Glawe]

Sounds like this is getting into Dub House/Transfer territory…

If it were me, I’d start wondering if I want to get into tying up my system for a day or two, doing something that could easily be handled at a larger facility that is set up for stuff like this…

I’d almost say, take it to a facility *for* your client, mark it up an appropriate amount to cover your “post supervisor” fee for the time it takes you to make it happen… or… tell your client “Here’s the name and number of a couple of facilities…”

[Rich Rubasch]

I like to think of these kinds of things in two ways. Will I be asked to do this kind of thing in the future, and should I find a workflow that is outside my facility to get it done. This way I can determine if I should really be set up to do this sort of thing…once it’s up and running you can charge for it, and it gets clients thinking about using you rather than another guy. This can be big, and might mean the difference between getting the next job or not.

I recently took on short run DVD and CD duplication because I was asked enough if we did it that I finally got the equipment to take on those jobs. It’s worked out very well so far.

Betacam isn’t dead yet, folks. I’m putting new heads on my deck right now. Probably the last time, but we make a lot of Beta dubs around these parts…

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media
Madison, WI