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Deck Advice – Recommendations?
Hey guys, I need some advice on a deck, First of all, my budget is limited, I have worked without a deck for years now and now I can’t decide which deck would be a good all purpose deck.
I do a number of different things, from SD video to Animation for web and TV. I have a G5 and FCP 5.0, a Decklink Pro 4:4:4 card and although all my stuff is TV-rez these days – though I hope to do some HD in the future. I need to lay down some footage, basically to get it off my machine, even with over a TB of storage I’m just running out of space.
My inclination is to buy a deck and lay some archival projects and source footage to tape, but thats when things get complicated. I have accumulated all sorts of different resolution, DV, 8 and 10 Bit uncompressed, and all things inbetween. What tape format will best suit all my SD video footage and preserve as much of the quality as possible?
I though about the little Sony HVR-M10U HDV deck, is DV/DVCAM good enough? I’m not real concerned about having an HD deck at the moment, is this a good solution? I like this because it will give me some HDV options down the road, but it doesn’t record 24p…
You can see why I’m having difficulty.
So what would be the “must have” workhorse deck that would be most recommended for archiving footage?
Ed Anderson
Animator
**@**********dx.com -
7 Replies
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Probably the best workhorse for the money is a Sony DSR 11. You can get them on eBay, but even new are not expensive.
Have a wonderful day.
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[Portland Animator] “What tape format will best suit all my SD video footage and preserve as much of the quality as possible?
I though about the little Sony HVR-M10U HDV deck, is DV/DVCAM good enough?”
These two statements contradict themselves. “What the best quality possible” and “Is it good enough?” For SD archive, DigiBeta is the way to go for best quality. Or simply purchase a cheap FW 400 drive and simply export all of the stuff as Quicktime Movies in their native formats.
HDV is heavily compressed. DV/DVCAM is 5:1 compressed. If “good enough” is good enough for you, go with DVCAM. If “Best Quality possible” is what you want, go DigiBeta.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Chris Poisson] “Probably the best workhorse for the money is a Sony DSR 11. You can get them on eBay, but even new are not expensive.”
Yep, about $2k, really cheap for a VTR. I would lay off to DVCAM as that format is definitely more robust than DV.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Indeed, if quality matters, go DigiBeta. If you’re not too bothered, DV/DVCAM is fine.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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The Sony DSR-11 is definitly a good choice for a good cheap DV/DVCAM VTR.
If you have a lot of stuff you wanna lay down on DigiBeta, you can always rent one for a couple of days.
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[walter biscardi] “Or simply purchase a cheap FW 400 drive and simply export all of the stuff as Quicktime Movies in their native formats.”
This is what you should do, as a matter of fact buy two and put your archives on both. If you don’t need a deck, why buy one? For the price of a higher end deck, you could buy a roomful of firewire drives, okay maybe a shelf full at least. If all of your stuff is Animation, don’t subject it to dv, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Why don’t you get all of your projects that you want to lay off together in a logical manner and hire in a digibeta deck for a day or two?
If I were you, I wouldn’t buy a deck until you need it.
Jeremy
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G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.04 <> Kona 2
ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 4105 Fibre
OS 10.4.2 <> QT 7.0.3 -
Thanks guys, I will continue to resist buying a deck. I like the idea of chaep Firwire storage drives, I will likely do that. And I also like the idea of renting a Digibeta.
Thanks for the reponses, I knew I would get a boatful.
Ed Anderson
Animator
ed@animationpdx.com
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