Hi Grazie,
One challenge is that my cameras are NTSC and they are in PAL land so the option to just dub to a vhs tape won't work....rats.
I won't even be able to just preview on a tv because of that. We'll have to use a computer to view any footage I get...

I just occurred to me to go buy a PCI card w/ 3 firewire input ports for $50 and 'donate' it to the locals so they can use their computer to capture anyone's video and audio. Hopefully, their computer is fairly new and robust and can handle video....

Apparently, there is an external hard drive and external dvd burner available so I'm hoping I can work with those and at least leave a copy of something behind and take the tapes home and do a decent edit and mail back the final dvd product.

I'm told they would really like to record their music and have been held back by the cost of a pro job @ $3000, so they feel stuck as that is an insurmountable amount of money.

I'm looking thru my stash of older gear and think I can donate an older Sony MD recorder and mic and a couple of cords, turn them on to Vegas Movie Studio and Sound Forge Audio Studio and get them on their way to making their own products.
I'm just hoping I can pull this off and do some 'public service' here, and make some new friends in the process.

Eileen

For $50 could also buy a DVD recorder, though would have to check line voltages at the plug I'd imagine.

Fiji is 240V 50Hz, same as Australia however outside the main towns the power, if any, can be rather dodgy.
Even though they're PAL most PAL TVs will cope with NTSC, well the newer ones at least.

Bob.

Farss:
Glad to hear I might stand a chance of being able to use a tv over there if it can handle the NTSC, guess I'll bring my composite cords and maybe even components.

Ironically, my friends were cruising thru the SoPacific on their trimaran and stopped at the island of Kandavu. The owner of the small resort was looking to change over to a total solar system for electricity and everyone previous had taken her money then baled and/or really didn't know what they were doing. Along came my friends and Don was an electrician by trade and ended up being hired to do the job. His wife ended up running the resort for a couple of weeks while the owner went to Europe. Apparently, they did such a nice job they've been hired again for a couple of weeks to continue with more solar installations and Anna is managing an empty resort thanks to the "bloodless" military coup which happened a couple of months ago. Basically all the tourists cancelled which is really hurting the locals and leaving the performers without an audience.
Somehow my friend told them I could video them and make dvds... Yikes, now the pressure is on !
But I expect Don will at least know what kind of electricity system they have currently and can help me avoid 'frying' my gear with their 240V electricity...

Another thought came to mind:
With HD spreading around the world will we all finally have one single resolution standard? No more NTSC and PAL to deal with once everyone gets an HDTV?
Wouldn't that be nice.....!

Eileen

"With HD spreading around the world will we all finally have one single resolution standard? No more NTSC and PAL to deal with once everyone gets an HDTV?
Wouldn't that be nice.....!"

Nice sentiment but don't hold your breath.. ;-)
It has come closer because of economics -- US broadcasters have loosened up the specs in actual practice to allow more (cheaper) EU & AU content. But [teasing] how can you expect those who don't even know the right side of the road to drive on to *Finally* emulate us in the good ol' U.S. [heeheehee]

If anyone has a laptop, you could bring a 1394 PCMCIA ("PC Card") 1394 plugin. Also bring a crossover cable. You could capture to the laptop, and then use the crossover cable to connect the laptop to any other computer (you can go peer-to-peer via network, without a hub, if you have a crossover cable).

How good does the video have to be? You could use a simple analog video to USB converter ($10-20 device on eBay) and dump the video into any computer. I think the more recent ones will do 640x480. The older ones were strictly 320x240.

Of course you could just bring extra tapes, wait until you get home, do it on your own equipment, and mail the results.

With the Sony MD recorder there'd still be the problem of getting it into the computer, right (have never really used one but am under the impression it'd have to be done analog out from MD and analog in at computer)? Perhaps you can find a computer audio interface, rather cheaply -- I've heard good things about the TASCAM US-122. Original model was USB1.1 and the US-122L uses a USB2 interface. Perhaps the old version can be had cheaply on ebay. If you lived near me (Washington, D.C. area) , I'd loan you a recorder just 'cause I'd be interested in what this sounded like!

We decided that the way to go is for me to bring a 1394 card for a laptop and the firewire.

Wish I knew what a "crossover cable' is....I've got one more chance to swing by an electronics store today to pick up anything else.
I'm throwing in a 4pin to 4pin firewire so we can dub between cameras if thats necessary .... and as many dv tapes ,blank mini-discs, and blank dvds as I can cram into my baggage. Would love to bring a hard drive but I'm outta space and weight restrictions.

Gads, do I HATE not being able to lock my check-in baggage and having to hand carry all my equipment. The cameras aren't bad to carry, its the chargers, power strip, adapters, mics, cables, and all the blank media... If the accessories don't show up, not much is gonna get recorded. I doubt I'll have room for my "emergency" box of See's candies (being a 'survivalist' at heart here...:)

As to the NTSC and PAL future...
if HD/HDV is best at 1980 x 1080p why wouldn't everyone want to be with that format?

Reminds me that we gave up talking about changing over to metric here in the US back in the 60s.... man are we stubborn.

But I do agree at least we do drive on the "right" side of the road, which is a good thing, my left hand is too 'dumb' to be shifting gears....

Eileen

bevross:
For the MD I'm bringing an 1/8" stereo cord which I plug into the headphone out of the MD and into the "Line-in" on any computer. Play it back in real time and record with Sound Forge, Vegas, or Acid, or any other recording appliction available. Edit and burn....
(Yes, it goes from digital to analog to digital, but with the MD I record using their ATRAC compression and when recording into the computer have it record as a .wav file so I'm ready to edit & burn.)

Looks like my next move is to get a laptop and record straight into that....mic into "mic-in" with 1/8" stereo cable....but for now the MD is a whole lot cheaper than a laptop for on location recording.

Wish I knew what a "crossover cable' is....

It is a network cable. Same everything as the cable you usually use to connect your computer to a hub or router, or the jack in the wall. The difference is that two of the wires are crossed (i.e., for two of the wires, pin 1 on one end of the cable does NOT connect to pin 1 on the other end). You will find the cable in the network section of the store. Since you're packing light, get a short one. Often (but not always) the cable itself is orange colored.