DVCPRO 50 or Digital Betacam Deck?

[Charley King]

Recording wise, they are not that different in quality.
Digi-Beta using a Sony Camera will give a better look than a DVCPro50 on a Panasonic Camera.
Price: DVCPro50 considerably cheaper, thus the quality difference in Camera.

Charlie

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Warren,
I use to do the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon for our local ABC afiliate. Fun stuff.

Not sure I agree with Digi-Beta being that much better than DVCPro 50??
But if it’s the deck your interested in, I would go with the Digi-Beta deck. It’s more used and considered to be a Mastering Format. Plus it can record/play Beta, which everyone has, not true with DVCPro.

Best Wishes

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[David Jones]

If it were me, I would choose based on which format I shot with.

[Bill Nahlik]

Warren,

I, too, used to do the CMN telethon. One of the best!!

Digibeta is a great mastering format and a DVW-A500 will play back Betacam and Beta SP tapes (a DVW-500 will not). Look for the Analog/Digital print below the tape door. Neither model will record to Beta SP. You can shoot on D-Beta as well, but either DVC or D-Beta will give you great pictures.

As far as editing on a DVCPro, the trajectories (speed) of the cue buttons on a DVCPro deck are much different from any other braodcast-quality tape source. It will take a lot of getting used to. It is also difficult to scrub audio for accurate audio edits (using a CMX).

Hope this helps.

[Lev]

Just to inject another question onto this thread…other than the deck, what do you need on the PC hardware side to get the video from the VTR to the PC? Do VTRs still use firewire as a means of data transport or does moving to this level suddenly change the whole game and you require high end cards in the PC as well?

Asking because we’re also looking at potentially moving from miniDV work up to DigiBeta, but it’s a bit confusing of what hardware makes up the production pipeline. With miniDv, all we ever needed was the camera and a firewire cable to the firewire card in the PC….done…. I’m guessing digibeta cams can’t dump directly to PC without a VTR.

[Warren]

Todd,

This thread is turning into the “I used to work on the Children’s Miracle Network telethon” thread along with the deck tips. Thank you for you years of support. What we produce now doesn’t even resemble the show of old.

I tried out the DVCPRO-50 deck last week and didn’t like it at all. Even set FCP to the required settings and it wasn’t a fun experience.

Now I’m off to find a donor willing to help me get a DigiBeta deck on the cheap.

Thanks,
Warren

———–
Warren Junium, III
Director of Television Production
Children’s Miracle Network
wjunium@cmn.org
801-278-8900

If anyone ever wants to donate their services to support Children’s Miracle Network, please contact me by email or phone

[Warren]

Bill,

Thanks for your support of Children’s Miracle Network.

You post makes it seem like you were standing over my shoulder last week. I brought in a DVCPRO-50 deck and didn’t like it at all. Seems like Digi will be my way to go. Off to find the money that will help make that happen. Thanks,
Warren

———–
Warren Junium, III
Director of Television Production
Children’s Miracle Network
wjunium@cmn.org
801-278-8900

If anyone ever wants to donate their services to support Children’s Miracle Network, please contact me by email or phone

[Warren]

Lev…..

Email me and I will help. Went through this process a few years ago and also continue to modify our suite often.

Warren

wjunium@cmn.org

———–
Warren Junium, III
Director of Television Production
Children’s Miracle Network
wjunium@cmn.org
801-278-8900

If anyone ever wants to donate their services to support Children’s Miracle Network, please contact me by email or phone