Options for (or instead) of Sony HVR-M15AU

[treehorn]

Doing a lot of freelance work for a company that is giving me tapes that are MiniDV (standard and HDV), plus I take home tapes from work that are DVCam. Have a deck that I've been borrowing from work when needed but...thinking it would be a not-so-bad idea to have one of my own. But at $2K for the Sony HVR-M15AU (which is what we have at work)...it's a chunk of change (especially when it's summer doldrum time for work).

Not finding any other options though that would export via firewire into my MacPro/edit in FCP. And not finding too many refurbished options either.

So if anybody has any ideas/options...would love to hear them

Thanks!

 

[LethalWolfe]

Do you need all the features a deck has to offer or do you just need to capture via Firewire? If you just need to capture then even a consumer HDV camera will work just fine. The only wrinkles are finding something to play DVCAM tapes (craigslist/ebay for a used DVCAM deck or older DVCAM camera) and if you get any full-sized tapes (in which case your only option is to get a deck that can take full-sized tapes).


Lethal

 

[treehorn]

Just need it to play/capture. Have an old dvcam camera...but finding it problematic with anamorphic (audio sync is always 17 frames off). Is HDV pretty standard across the board (ie, will a Sony play panasonic tapes fine and vica versa....I know MIniDV wasn't always reliable across all brands, especially if recorded in anything other than sp)

 

[LethalWolfe]

Strange that you are getting that problem only w/anamorphic footage as there is no difference between as everything is 4x3 DV when it hits tape.

HDV is not all the same unfortunately. Sony and JVC use different, and incompatible, variants of HDV. Canon is in Sony's camp except for 24fps recording which Canon does different. Panasonic doesn't use HDV at all. First gen Sony HDV decks/cameras only played the Sony format. Newer decks and cameras I believe play the Canon 24fps varient as well. I don't think any deck plays both Sony and JVC.


Lethal