stay with betacam or go digital?

[R. Hewitt]

Mixing formats is never a good idea.

The compression rate on DV is higher than BetaCam but DV wins on the virtual elimination of visible dropout – something that plagued the format.

DV25 at 4:1:1 is not the best way to start if you want to do good quality chroma keying. However, take a look at Serious Magic’s Ultra product and you may be persuaded otherwise.

I’d still go for another camera to match what you already have and start investigating the full costs of going digital later.

[Charles Lorch]

The real problem I see isn’t getting away from beta, but rather the idea of getting away from the D50 head. That’s an excellent camera, and with the kind of money you’re talking it’s not a reality to talk about anything better, ie. digibeta,dvcpro50, or HD. Those are all better as far as the camera itself and the format as a whole, but the price shows it. One way to “go digital” might be to change format without changing cameras. The D50 with a DSR1 DVCam back might be a nice way to go. If you got rid of the beta back (I’m guessing a BVV3)you could, money wise, go lateraly to a DSR1, and then get the new camera mated with a DSR1, and have two matching cameras without putting $ into beta. The same lateral $ move could be made into a quality DVCam deck with a component or perhaps SDI card to work in uncompressed. A reluctance to put $ into beta is what helped us make the decision to spend more and get an SDX900 and a 930 deck. Of course if you’re working in broadcast you’ll still need a beta deck in house. You could even get a DVCPro50 deck to play back your DVCam footage and be able to master to 50. I don’t know if that would be worth the extra $ for the deck for you, but it would be nice.

[Brian]

switching the beta cam back on the d50 to a dvcam back is precisely what I am thinking. this way the work flow originates in digital and only goes to analog at the end of the production chain when our commercials are distributed in beta cam. but, i’m just wondering, it sounds nice and efficient but how much of an advantage is it in reality? supposedly there will be fewer artifacts resulting from the initial digitizing of the analog footage. but on the other hand, the beta cam format is allegedly better for greenscreening. so how much real world gain is there going from a betacam to a dvcam format?

[Andrew J. bricker]

I do all three – Beta, DigiBeta, and DVCAM. My first choice, for obvious reasons, is DigiBeta. Second is DVCam, with Beta 3rd. I Chroma Key just about every day, and when I have to use the DVCAM, i get around the artifact issue by digitizing at 1;1, 2;1, and yes, even 3:1 – depending on the project, and the quality requirements. The results are quite remarkable! Green screen seems to work better than blue for me. So, my advice is to go DVCAM for $$ reasons, but get a deck with SDI or component output, and digitize into 4:2:2. The DSR-1800 is a nice deck, not too pricey. Good Luck

[Charles Lorch]

I think the only real gain is that you’re not putting money into more beta gear.
I don’t have any experience specifically with this, but I see no reason why you couldn’t go with another D50, but with a DSR1 DVCam back, so long as you don’t capture via firewire/to DV codec etc. Having the same head should match well regardless of the format. We’re currently working on the graphics/finishing for a fishing show that was shot with PD150’s and offlined in FCP with no graphics or transitions and turned over to us. We capture the footage via SDI into our 844X in 10 bit uncompressed, and all graphics and compositing has been very clean. It’s not green screen, but it is an example of where it’s not the format but how it’s handled that makes all the difference.
I think the idea of not putting $ into beta is a good one, but I don’t see any real advantage for you to think about DV since to do either right ( a solid 2/3″ camera and ability to lossless compression/drives ) will cost the same ( DV more if you already have a beta deck ). If because of budget you can’t go to higher end format now like DVCPro50, DigiBeta, or true HD, then perhaps the thing to do is ride out beta until you can.