Question about varicam decks and firewire
by Filmcutter
on
Nov 5, 2006 at 8:05:31 am
Hi everyone-
I was told that there are NO firewire decks out there that can play back DVCPro HD (Varicam) tapes that were recorded on 126 minute loads. In other words the only way to get the footage off 126 minute varicam tapes is to go through the HDSCI output.... Is that true???
Re: Question about varicam decks and firewire by Michael Slowe on Nov 5, 2006 at 11:10:53 am
This is my problem in mastering to tape in HD from Media 100. I only have SDI out at present and have to rent an HDCAM deck (huge and expensive!). However Media 100 is soon to support firewire for its HD version but am I right in thinking that this will only be for downscaled SD media? HD cannot go down firewire, or can it, and if so are there any decks for this configuration?
Re: Question about varicam decks and firewire by gary adcock on Nov 6, 2006 at 3:01:46 pm
[Filmcutter]"I was told that there are NO firewire decks out there that can play back DVCPro HD (Varicam) tapes that were recorded on 126 minute loads. In other words the only way to get the footage off 126 minute varicam tapes is to go through the HDSCI output.... Is that true"
True- as long as you understand that the oversized cassettes are only available from material recorded on A 1700 deck. IF you are talking about the "Camera" size 126 minute tapes- there should only be 32 minutes of material recorded on each tape and you can play them in the 1200 and 1400 series decks to get the content out the FW connection.
However you do have the ability to maintain quality when you convert back to DVCPROHD by digitizing with an AJA Kona card via HDSDI- the kona cards also have the ability to properly read the VFR flags over the HDSDI stream allowing for 8 bit and 10 bit workflows
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
