If you ever edited with a deck you'd hate going back to a camera. The heads will be more robust, faster shuttle speeds, faster rewind/ff speeds, can leave it connected all the time, etc.........

>>2. saves wear on camera

it would make sense for a reasonable price, but who cares if you eventually wear out the camera, you can buy a new one and still have $800 left over for the price of that deck. And since camera is not going to wear out that fast ( or at all ) by the time it gets to that point, you can get a next generation cam. for the same price.

So if money is tight, just stick with cameras. If it's not, then deck may be more convenient, but that's about it.

Well in this case the deck offers a number of features that the camera doesn't like having a larger transport for D5 shell tapes, that's 4.5 hpurs of HDV on the one tape. Also possibly not a big deal in this case but the deck will playback some 720p formats.
We only got ours a few days ago so haven't had a chance to really play with all its features but for what it is it's pretty cheap.

Bob.

I have always advocated using a camera over buying a deck. I have two single-chip cameras bought off E-bay for $100 each that have, together, gone through over 350 tapes. They could crap out tomorrow and I would just buy another used DV camera off E-bay.

But...

In your environment and with the budget approved - buy the deck.

You can always justify another camera down the road. And if you use one of your cameras as a deck, you may someday have to explain to the boss that you can't edit because your "deck" is on a job.

cameras only are bad (if you can afford a deck).

What do you do if you need to capture a tape while someone has the cameras out?
A camera gets dropped?
the camera goes in for service?
Someone breaks the camers while capturing?

at my old job we had some DVCPro Decks & a DVCPro camera. I LOVED using the decks, hated the camera (capturing).

Couldn't agree more.
I used to use me old D8 camera as an A/D converter. By the time you got all the cables plugged into it trying to get a tape in/out was an origami nightmare so I went out and bought the ADVC-300 and never looked back. I still use the camera for 8mm videotapes but that's about it.
But what's being overlooked here is this specific deck does more than the camera can do, not the least of all being record 4.5 hours of HDV to tape. Gosh if someone handed me a cheque to go buy a HVRM25U I wouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth. If you haven't got the money and you're forced to use the camera as your deck that's an entirely different matter.

Also the connectors for component video on all the Sony HDV cameras sure don't look they're built to take a lot of plugging in and out, on the decks at least they're RCA / BNC connectors. Plus I dread to think what it'd cost to replace one of the component connectors on a A1, just the plastic battery retaining clip on my F828 set me back $250 to replace.

Bob.

the ammound of time for our DVCPro equipment was never an issue (like it is here). 2+ hour tapes worked in the decks & camera (that was nice!)

>> not the least of all being record 4.5 hours of HDV to tape.

Can I use this deck to archive my edited material back to tape? or can I only capture from tape to my computer?

Are you asking about a specific deck? I use my Pannie deck all the time to record back to for archiving. But maybe you are asking another question?

Yes, I'm talking about the deck in the message at the top of the thread, the Sony HVRM25U.

Yes, I thought so, but I was confused by you saying this, "HVRM25U digital recording deck" and then asking this, "Can I use this deck to archive my edited material back to tape?"

That's why I asked the question. I wanted to know if I understood your question by stating what I do with ANOTHER make.

I can't imagine nowadays a manufacturer making just a "CAPTURE FROM" machine without the capacity of "PRINT TO" ( record directly from PC )?

In any event, go to the SONY site, I started with SONY.com, and paste in HVRM25U. I did this and got back a whole bunch of stuff giving the details of the Sony HVRM25U capabilities and described as: HDV 1080i, DVCAM, and DV SP recording and playback".

I suppose you could visit or if they do, have a Sony agent visit you and have an in-depth discussion to. This isn't a small amount of money. More reassurance the better - huh?


I tried making a direct link for you, but I didn't succeed.

Well actually Sony make quite a range of player only decks, the "J" series. We have quite a few and they are in constant demand.
Why so popular?

Well a Digibeta deck like the DVW 500 will set one back around $80K down here, that's a lot of bucks if you just want to play or preview a tape, so the J ("J" = Journalist) decks which are under 20% of the price of the recorders are therefore very attractive. Better still the J30 will play Digibetacam ,Beta SP, Beta SX and IMX. Different variants provide 1394, SDI and component outputs.

There's also the "JH" series decks that'll play HDCAM, again at a fraction of the price of the full recorders / players.

Getting back to the 25, yes, it'll play and record HDV to / from the larger (D5 shell, wrongly called DVCAM) DV tapes so you can finally master a HDV program that's longer than 60 minutes.

But wait, there's more!

This deck will make a full clone of a HDV tape, time code and all. It's the ONLY deck that'll do that.

And there's even more!!

It's the only deck we've found that'll let us dub HDV to Beta SP (I know, I know some people want some wierd things done, lord only knows what someone will think playing back 16:9 off SP).
We tried this with the "10" deck and the UVW1800 just wouldn't accept the component signal. I think the "10" only does HD component. However the 25 will give a SD downconvert on the component outputs, feed that straight into a Beta SP deck and your set.

And even more amazing stuff !!!

It'll not only will it do a centre cutout, you can shift the cutout across the frame. Only for those who don't 'get' 16:9.

But one down side :(

No free steak knives. Silly Sony, they'll never sell without the free steak knives.

Bob.

It must have been these "player only" decks Adontech was concerned about? Must've been that huh? What do you think Bob?

It was the reference to "digital recording deck" and then the further reference to "Can I use this deck to archive my edited material back to tape?" that got me thinking about a machine that would only do CAPTURE and not PTT? Can these other "preview only" machines do "capture-from" too? See? If that is the case then that means there ARE machines out there that one can Preview and capture-from only? Is that true? PREVIEW and CAPTURE from only? And again this must've been the reason Adontech asked the question.

I do hope Adontech now has the information requested. I'm kinda glad I put up my 2 pennies worth.

That's exactly what the J series decks mostly get used for. Capturing via either firewire (downconvert to DV25) or SDI.
I've made good use of them, they're relatively small and lightweight. If DV25 is good enough quality for you then just plug into your Vegas machine and capture any of the formats I mentioned, usually way cheaper than paying a dub house to make DV dubs. Out the firewire port they look just like any DV deck.
If you want the full quality and have a PC upto the task then add a Decklink card to your rig and capture via SDI with 422 deck control.


Possibly what Adontech was uncertain about was being able to write HDV to "DVCAM" tapes. Guess we'll have to leave it upto him to fill us in.

What I'm now wondering is if Sony are going to build a camera to go with the deck, there's a gapping hole in the lineup, no HDV camera has a record time over 60 minutes and that's a PIA.

Bob.

There's also the issue of fast forward and rewind. If you're doing a lot of tape to computer in's and out's, the search function on a deck has got to be 20 times faster.

In the days of analog tape editing, the quality of the deck used was of paramount importance. Digital technology has made that a non-issue. Any camera playback system will work (qualitatively) as well as the best, most expensive deck around.

RE: using a camera as a deck
The issues of the "deck being out of the office" would be a non-issue if you absolutely dedicated one cheapo camera as a deck. If you're only doing five tapes a week or less, I'd personally opt for the camera as deck option. If you're doing a lot of transfers, you will love your deck.

v

Well unfortunately not quite so true with some of the DV and HDV decks which are just the same transport as in the camera, well I don't know that for a fact but if it walks like a duck and works like a duck....
Even so the big conveniences even if it works no faster than a camera are:
a) Ease of getting tapes in and out
b) Ease of accessing the controls
c) Ease of connecting cables.

Bob.