Thanks for the reply. What is Sony HD Cam?

I'm wondering because a film festival said the film must be on 32mm 16mm or Sony HD Cam format.

Ace

Ah, it would have helped if you'd said that in your first post. Also I think you mean 35mm (not 32). Do you have a potential festival entry?

"HDCAM, introduced in 1997, is an HDTV version of Digital Betacam, using an 8-bit DCT compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 720p or 1080i-compatible (1920x1080) resolution, and adding 24 and 23.976 PsF modes. The recorded video bitrate is 144 Mbit/s. Audio is also similar, with 4 channels of AES/EBU 20-bit/48 kHz digital audio. It is used for Sony's cinematic CineAlta range of products".

Vegas supports HDCAM in the following way:

HDCAM deck
HD-SDI out
Blackmagic capture card
Vegas capture utility to sonyYUV codec.

Just bear in mind that 144Mbit/s is quite a high data rate and that's before you factor in the audio. Worse still that's the sustained data rate.
If you have something in either DV or HDV by far and away your cheapest bet is to have a dub house dub it to HDCAM. The record capable VCRs are seriously expensive.

Bob.

Just bear in mind that 144Mbit/s is quite a high data rate

...be glad it wasn't HDCAM SR that cranks at more than 10x that data rate...

But what's 1.5 Tb/s among friends?

:O)

The transfer is definitely for a dub house, and if it is DV originated, ask if they have a Teranex box to scale your footage to HD resolution.

So you can transfer DV to Sony HD Cam? To transfer on film would cost me about $5000 for my short. How much will it cost to get it transferred to Sony HD Cam? Also, what is DV Cam?

Thanks for all the replys,
Ace

DV Cam is Sony's "professional" version of miniDV. Same cassette, slightly different recording. It runs the tape faster to have greater protection against dropouts, ability to do linear editing, and always has locked audio.

DVCam decks will play back miniDV fine.

So if a festival said that it takes DV-Cam, do you think they will also take miniDV?

Thanks,
Ace

They should.
Although a lot of Sony gear will record both. And you can record in DVCAM to MiniDV tapes. The Sony DSR-11 VCR and Sony PD-150/170 cameras all will record in DV or DVCAM. Only issue is in DVCAM you only get 40 minutes on a 63 minute tape.
If going to all the trouble of making a submission and they say DVCAM just get it dubbed, down here we'd only charge $25 + tape for a 1 hour dub.

Of course I'd also recommend you send them the large format tapes, same tape just in a bigger shell. They'll hold upto 3 hours of tape in DVCAM. Even if your video is only 5 minutes long I'd still send them a big tape. Just that it a) looks a little more pro and b) You've got more room for labelling and c) the things harder to loose. In that case forget using the PD170 camera, you'd need the DSR-11.

Bob.

Thanks for the replys. I already have the short film made, but I'm looking at two festivals right now and one festival accepts 35mm, 16mm, and DVcam and the other festival accepts 35mm, 16mm, and HDcam. How much do you think it will cost to get it dubbed to HDcam?

Thanks,
Ace