ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

11 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

?? The D in DV is for Digital, so we're in full agreement! Perhaps I was wrong to say 'digitise' per se., I meant 'use it as a deck because although the optical path was shafted the deck portion of the camera was still operational and may be cheaper than renting a deck' ;-)

11 years ago - Susi Arnott

All I'd add is - headcleaning tapes are invaluable, especially if you're mixing manufacturers. Don't over-use them, but the slightly different lubricants between Sony, JVC, and Panasonic can supposedly mix and clog, so cleaning for a few seconds between 'makes' might save glitches.
And worth looking for something that runs miniDV, DVCam and HDV as well, to work with most archives.
Only problem relying on camera-as-deck is some DVCam playout tapes are physically larger, grrrrr, but makes perfect sense for camera originals

11 years ago - Franz von Habsburg FBKS MSc

Depends where you are, Antonio. I have several Sony DV decks which I still use as I have a stack of stuff on DV (which, Paddy, is digital. Only the older Sony 8mm is analogue) but your computer will need a FireWire input, although you can buy a Thunderbolt/FireWire converter cable. To buy old stuff I always recommend bblist.co.uk for the professional second hand film equipment.

11 years ago - John Lubran

There's DV, DVCAM and HDV, they all use exactly the same type of tape, hence you can record HDV on either DV or DVCAM tape and vice versa. The main difference between DV and DVCAM is that DVCAM records 50% faster than DV so that a DV tape marked as being a 90 minute tape only provides 60 minutes in DVCAM mode. HDV plays at the same speed as DV. We have used the same bog standard Panasonic miniDV tapes for all three formats for years without having the merest hint of a problem. At £1.20 each it's about as cheap an HD format as it's ever likely to be! And very robust too. There is no issue about recording quality; unlike with analogue formats it's just binary code, it's either there or it isn't. So much nonsense about this unfortunately. The pretense that one should use expensive branded tapes marked 'professional' etc., is total bunkum wholly designed to make bigger profits for the manufacturers. The only difference between the smaller miniDV tapes and the large size tape is size. Large or small the tapes are entirely interchangeable, it's just that most camcorders only take the small miniDV tapes

11 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

You can use any old DV camera - back in the day I bought one from ebay for a tenner because the optical path was screwed but the deck part still worked, used it to digitise all the DV tapes.

11 years ago - Tim iloobia

I couldnt help but smile at you descibing dv tape as so outdated. As one source of material i often use it, the feature i just shot was semi shot on hdv. Love the texture. But just to check, is it dv cam or mini dv you have? And where are you based and how many tapes do you have? Its possible i can help but need a bit more info. If it is dv cam it isnt going to play in a standard mini dv player (if i remember failed attempts correctly) and yes you are right, these are harder to come by.... But let me know. Tim