OT: DHR-1000 & DVCAM

JackW wrote on 1/14/2009, 12:29 PM
I got a request from a client to transfer his MiniDV tape to DVCAM. I know that my Sony DHR-1000 will play DVCAM tapes. We occasionally archive short term projects on AY-DV124PQ tapes, and I assume these are in the DV format.

Will the DHR-1000 record in the DVCAM format as well? This isn't a service we've ever been asked to provide before, so I need some advice.

Thanks in advance.

Jack

Comments

farss wrote on 1/14/2009, 12:51 PM
"Will the DHR-1000 record in the DVCAM format as well?"

I don't have one at hand immediately and I'm not certain if that camera has that option, you'll know straight away looking in the menu. Most of the higher end HDV cameras such as the Z1 do.

If you have to hand off tapes to 3rd partied it might be time to consider buying a VCR. The HVR-M15U gives you the option of using both small and large sized cassettes and recording and capturing DV, DVCAM and HDV and in PAL or NTSC.

DVCAM is better for archiving as it is more robust than DV. For archiving I'd avoid the long length thinner tapes. Another advantage of having a wide mouth VCR that can take 184min DVCAM tapes.

The other not trivial advantage to owning a VCR is you leave it hooked up to your edit system. Those little firewire sockets fail pretty quickly when you plug the cable in and out a lot.

Just my two bobs worth.

Bob.
JackW wrote on 1/14/2009, 2:19 PM
Thanks for the quick response, Bob.

The DHR-1000 is a VCR that's designed to accept both the small DV and large DVCAM tapes. It's the work horse of our editing suite and is used by us primarily with playback and recording of miniDV tapes.

Presumably, since it will play both DV and DVCAM tapes, it will record as well as play back. All I'm trying to do is verify that with a DVCAM tape in the deck it is actually recording as DVCAM and not DV.

Jack
farss wrote on 1/14/2009, 3:13 PM
Oh,
sorry. Too many things from Sony call xxx-1000. That VCR from memory was the consumer version of the DSR-30. I'll check with an old hand. Pretty certain that VCR will only record in DVCAM as way back then Sony did not support DV.

BTW "DV" and "DVCAM' tapes are the same. You can record both DV and DVCAM to all of them. Heck I even record HDV to 184min tapes labelled DVCAM.

Give me a couple of hours and I'll get you the low down on the VCR. I do recall now you actually had to 'trick' the 1000 into recording DV.
Bob.
JackW wrote on 1/14/2009, 4:07 PM
Actually it's the other way round.

The VCR records DV without any problem. What I need to be able to do is record as DVCAM.

And yes, we record to DVCAM tapes quite often for archival purposes. But I've just assumed that this is being recorded as DV, even though we're using the larger tapes.

Am I wrong?

Jack
farss wrote on 1/14/2009, 4:10 PM
Definative answer.

No the DHR-1000 will not record DVCAM. It will playback DV and DVCAM

The DSR-30 which is an almost identical VCR records DVCAM only out of the box but has a hidden key press combo that'll make it record DVCAM.

In general many Sony cameras and VCR will playback DVCAM even though they don't state that in the specs. Recording DVCAM is a different matter.

All that said if the client will accept DVCAM they can certainly playout DV and might well accept that if asked.

Bob.
farss wrote on 1/14/2009, 4:12 PM
"But I've just assumed that this is being recorded as DV, even though we're using the larger tapes."

Yes, this is correct. The tape is irrelevant, it's the write speed of the VCR plus a few other things like "locked audio" that are the differences between DV and DVCAM.

Bob.
GlennChan wrote on 1/14/2009, 6:46 PM
Some of the Sony VTRs will even play back DVCPRO tapes. I believe that it's mostly the same signal (except for PAL DVCPRO?). The difference is that the track pitch is different... so DVCAM tape runs faster than DV, and DVCPRO faster than DVCAM. When the VTR is trying to play back the tape at the right speed (takes a few seconds) you see dropouts... and then the servos lock and everything is good.

Mixing DVCPRO and DV in the same VTR may or may not get the heads dirty very fast though; I don't have enough experience with that to say.
EDIT: I'm talking about a huge # of DVCPROs and DVs... a few DVCPRO tapes in a DV deck (the DSR-1500 or higher) shouldn't hurt.
JackW wrote on 1/14/2009, 6:48 PM
Thanks for the info, Bob and Glenn.

Jack