Beta SP/Machine Control/AVXL/SYNC vs. DV and firewire

[loopengine]

I need an opinion or two please if you have a chance.

I am a composer who is currently running a mixplus with a DV camera as my source for capturing video for composing to. I am considering getting a BETA SP player/machine control/usd or sync/ and an AVXL. All of this is on EBAY these days for around 6k.

The question is, should I just get a DV deck and keep working with firewire or is the machine control/Beta deck route really necessary. I really don't need to lay back to tape as I deliver audio CD's with two pops generally.

Beta SP is so universal right now, that it makes it easier on the producers to just send me that with no worries, e.g timecode embeded, no need for window burns on the DV.

[Martin Chappell]

depends how rich you are!

DV is fine. machine control is usually lumpy, haven't seen the protools 9 pin option.

I remember the AudioVision. wow was that was expensive, the machine control was adequate for batch capaturing video, so you could archive on tape.

jogging to find cue points. very frustrating. 5 secound pre-rolls. thats after it's spent 4 secounds cueing to exactly 4 secs earlier...

I would stick to dv/ what ever jpeg based card you like. especially since disk space is cheap now.

We generally give the composer VHS, it's going to be close enough over a couple of minutes, hey maybe even more.

When we're mastering to SR the only sync is the 2 pop ( we go for 3 pops in Hong Kong. and a reel of film is 20 minutes more or less.

[Philthy]

I believe that you would need a DV deck or camera capable of reading & putting out time code from your source tape. Your camera may have a timecode out- I know that professional DV cameras do, but I'm not familiar with prosumer/consumer models.

[The Chinese]

Loopengine-

checj out Digi news from NAB....the Av option is now only $1695.
Sweet.
-todd A.

[The Chinese]

Oops. I meant Avid Mojo....sorry, i got confused..(sorry Marti....I know you're reading this...).

too many free drinks while gambling...
-todd A.

However, It did look cool, and seemed to work pretty well....

-Todd A.

[loopengine]

thanks,
I think I will stick with what works...

Do you know how to capture the timecode off of a DV tape into protools? If they forget to give me a window burn on the DV tape I need timecode to discuss the cues with the director etc.

[kkfaudio]

I've been wondering about this too. I've been running SP for years, and it's great for us. We can send a CD to the video place to restripe DigiBeta when necessary, or if it's corporate, just lay back to the SP.

Anyways, more and more low budget stuff is being done on DV. So, going back to Philthy's comment about needing a deck or camera with timecode out : Is that the only way to get show code from a DV? The editors working this format aren't super technical - all I know is they run it into Premiere or Final Cut Pro via firewire. Is tc reference passed through firewire? They say they are working with tc, but can't tell me how they get it!

If anyone could clear this up for me that would be great. I'm trying to figure out whether to buy a DV deck or if a digital video card of some sort would work. (I still run my picture from tape right now)

Thanks!

[N-G-NEER]

If you are using a DV camera it will output TC with everything else. (DV Machine control is part of the DV format.) Using Premiere, or Avid DV to capture the image from the camera, you need only a fire wire port, also called a 1394 EEE card between $30 and $50. Protools recomends using the Avid CODEC but lets be real, it's the same company. Premire is easy to get and inexpensive and it's capture screen is very strait forward and easy to use. So is Avid DV's but it's far more expensive. Beta SP is not going to be around that much longer, there are too many new and less expensive alternatives that do as well or beter. If your going to use Beta SP then fine but if not the whole shebang should run you about $500 or less or with Avid DV add about a thousand to that.