Re: Fire wire shoot

Here's my twisted logic on the subject.

I transfer to FCP from my camera as I don't have a deck. The economy is so frickin' tight and I just can't afford to buy a deck. In my market (Denver) There is only one rental house and they wanted $750/day - ouch. I tried that a few times, but said screw it. I am just very careful NOT to do any shuttling, just rewind and play start to finish without stopping. (I log clips into FCP on the fly)

My thought on head-wear is this. I've owned my camera for over 3 years. I knew that tape-less recording was coming in the next few years So, I figured that the cost to replace the heads would be about $4K. vs. buying a $20,000 deck. Even if I had to replace them once or twice, I'd be way ahead of the game. (For mastering back to tape, I just take my exported FCP file to a local edit house and for about $75 layoff to one of their decks.

In the past 3 years, I have not had any issues with heads. So, by not spending the $20K has really saved me money (and may have kept me in business through these tough economic times.) I did buy a Firestore, but didn't like it - too bulky and flaky. Any day now, there's going to be another recorder like the tiny NanoFlash HD-SDI Compact Flash recorder that I can use to record tapeless.

Note: This was my decision and your mileage may vary.

OK, flame suit on. Hit me!

Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
www.santellaproductions.com