-
DSR-11 v. Best Buy Camcorder
I frequently hear that there is no reason to buy an expensive miniDV deck, such as the DSR-11 when you can just use a $300 camcorder. Are you really getting all of the quality?
Here are the obvious pros for the DSR-11:
*DVCAM and DV tapes
*Standard and mini sized tapes
*PAL and NTSCWhat else?
-
22 Replies
-
The quality coming across the firewire is the same on ANY device. You need to determine your feature you NEED for your production house. Just cause it’s cheap, doesn’t mean it can’t do the job. The DSR is built for daily use and versatility. If you don’t need either pick up the camcorder. If you need the features, you have little choice but to buy the DSR. Needs first, bling later!
This is my deck:
https://www.dvnation.com/10k.html
It fulfills my needs, I don’t recommend it for everyone.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Dual 500 G4
OSX 10.3.9
Ram 1.38
FCP 4.5/AE 6.5/DVDSP3 -
Well, the tape transport in the DSR-11 is beefier. It won’t wear out on you as fast as the one in a miniDV camcorder. That being said, there are several folks on this forum and other who have been using a camcorder as their feeder deck for years with out fail. However, what we don’t know is if those cameras get daily, weekly, or monthly use. How much capturing and outputting to tape do you anticipate doing?
The control you have over the deck would be far superior to the camcorder, and that’s probably the second biggest reason to go with a deck. The camcorder won’t be nearly as responsive to your commands via FCP as a deck will be. You’ll have faster cueing, faster capturing, and less headaches just trying to navigate around your footage using a deck. Also, it’s pretty tough to do a timecoded Edit to Tape with a camcorder. It can be done, but when I need to make a miniDV copy for one client, I’ve given up trying to get (relatively) matching timecode to my DVCam master and I run it in wild via Print to Tape. As you may or may not know, FireWire isn’t 100% accurate when it comes to timecode. The only way to get that accuracy is to use the RS-422 protocol, which you can’t get out of a camcorder. However, neither can the DSR-11 handle that protocol. I think you have to go up to the DSR-45 to get real machine control, and that’s a whole lot more money, so that’s probably not an issue for you under the circumstances.
The first biggest reason to go with a deck is the ability to use DVCam over miniDV. While technically they are the same format, it’s just that the tape runs faster in DVCam mode giving you a better signal, it’s a beefier tapestock that gives you higher quality masters. If a client comes to you with a DVCam tape, you’ll want to be able to capture it. If this is more for a hobby or personal use, and there are no clients, that probably doesn’t matter so much. If this is a business, there is the perception issue. If a client walks into your edit suite and sees a camcorder, it’s going to scream “amateur”. A real deck is going to give you much more credibility. It’s all in how it looks sometimes. You could lose out on a clients’ bigger projects because he/she has the perception that you’re not “that kind of editor”, or that you’re not ready for prime time, just based on the hardware on your desk. It’s not fair, but it happens.
Hope this helps you decide!
debe
-
[j.north] “What else?”
Long life and robustness to work in a day to day editing environment. Mine’s been running for four years now without a hiccup. You get much better tape transport controls too.
Are you a professional editor charging an hourly rate to your clients? If so, they deserve professional gear, not a cheap workaround that may or may not work correctly.
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
-
A couple of thoughts, while the DSR 11 only has Firewire and composite in/out, it is a real workhorse as has been said here. I have been using at least 4 of them at my place and around town and have never seen any of them hiccup and that’s going on 6 years.
JVC has a couple of decks which also have component in/out, and while I killed their BR600 in less than 5 years, I recently got their BR6000 and it is really great. Much more robust than the 600, plus it takes DVcam tapes like the DSR11, AND has RS422 control which debe mentioned, and it costs far less than the higher-end Sony decks.
One other sort of third-party opinion on all this is that if you don’t need to impress clients with your equipment, you can buy 2 or 3 cheap DV camcorders for input and output and just toss them as they fail. Much cheaper than a deck solution, to a point. I have seen a lot of people on this forum swear by this method, but for me, the client/professional thing is important, plus, eventually your cost of multiple cheap camcorders could exceed the cost of a decent deck.
BTW, any of the afore-mentioned decks can be found on eBay at pretty good prices. I got my BR6000 on eBay for about the cost of a DSR11, about half retail.
Have a wonderful day.
-
[Chris Poisson] “while the DSR 11 only has Firewire and composite in/out,”
Actually it also has S-Video I/O which looks every bit as good as Component.
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
-
[walter biscardi] “Actually it also has S-Video I/O which looks every bit as good as Component.”
That would certainly be debatable!
-
Ah, my bad, forgot, I don’t use s-video much, although I do use it to my monitor from the DSR11 and it does look good. Whether as good as component the jury’s out for me, but then I have these 50-something eyes…LOL!
Have a wonderful day.
-
[Frank Nolan] “That would certainly be debatable!”
You can debate it all you want. I’ve use the S-Video output many times to capture DV/DVCAM for projects that were a mix of Beta, DigiBeta and DV/DVCAM and the quality is a great match for the other material. It works and it works well.
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
-
Just curious Walter, why would you use S-video over Firewire for capture?
Have a wonderful day.
-
There is no debate. Component without doubt produces a higher quality image than S-video.
Rick
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up