digibeta to disk--cheapest way?

[sophocle]

I am looking for some input--

I have about 8-9 hours of footage on digibeta tapes I need to put on disk.

Since fast disk is not an issue--I have 8+ Tbytes of raid, what would I need in terms of software/hardware to transfer the tapes to disk, preferably not additionally compressed?

Obviously I need to rent a deck, but this is as much as I know.

Going to the posthouse is an option , but it will be quite expensive and a logistical nightmare-- bring a truckload of USB drives?! And then copy these back...

If anyone has suggestions please let me know.

Thanks

[christoph]

Going to the posthouse is an option , but it will be quite expensive and a logistical nightmare-- bring a truckload of USB drives?!

i hope your raid doesnt consist of USB drives ;)

if you're sure your raid and a comp that is fast enough, all you really need is an SDI capture card (and a rented digibeta player for a day or two). a blackmagic card can be had from about 300 dollars (although i've heard that they have some quirks.. but hey, cheap is cheap)

you probably want to use some kind of timecode controller too though, since otherwise you're basically crash recording which means if you ever need to recapture from the tapes you're looking at a lot of work.

check the forums at 2-pop.com, lots and lots of info and advice there
++ christoph ++

[mattias]

are there any breakout boxes for sdi/uncompressed with a firewire interface or similar? i'm looking to do the same thing for onlining my short on a shoestring budget, but i doubt that they'd like it if i opened up one of the g5's at the place where we're editing to insert a pci card. maybe a dvcpro box would do the trick? that's as close to digibeta quality you can get with dv, isn't it? is it 10 bit though? if it's just 8 we might as well use the dvcam tapes and deck we already have?

/matt

[tacotim]

Mattias, I think this would fit your needs.

http://www.aja.com/products_Io.html

Tim

[mattias]

you're right, that's exactly it, thanks a lot. i've heard of that card before, but just assumed it was pci for some reason. i'm gonna have to see if i can rent or borrow one since the cost is out of the film's budget, and even though it would be a great thing to own i can't afford it myself either.

/matt

[christoph]

maybe a dvcpro box would do the trick? that's as close to digibeta quality you can get with dv, isn't it? is it 10 bit though? if it's just 8 we might as well use the dvcam tapes and deck we already have?

i'm rather confused now.. are you looking to online from digibeta source tapes to a digibeta master? or from DV sources to digibeta?

if the former, dvcpro will result in quite a bit of a quality hit since there's still some compression over the original digibetas... (also, it wont be much easier/cheaper). using dvcam decks/tapes for intermediate steps would be a pitty since 8bit uncompressed from digibeta is still way better than DV... actually the 10bit comes only into play when you do major color manipulations or several generations.

if the source is DV anyway, all you need to do is to render it out as an uncompressed quicktime on a firewire disk and take it to a posthouse that can play it out on a digi tape.. much cheaper and same quality.

or did i missing something here?
++ christoph ++

ps: the aja is a lovely box indeed.

[soundboy]

I am looking for some input--

I have about 8-9 hours of footage on digibeta tapes I need to put on disk.

Since fast disk is not an issue--I have 8+ Tbytes of raid, what would I need in terms of software/hardware to transfer the tapes to disk, preferably not additionally compressed?

Thanks

The cheapest option would be hiring a Sony J3 that has the firewire option, the older model doesent have this so make sure you get one of the newer ones.



The J3 also has SD1 out which is the best way to suck your vision into your PC, but you'll need a decent video card that can handle SDI.

To hire a Sony J3 would be much cheaper than hiring a Digi Beta for the day.

[mattias]

sorry, i wasn't very clear. i wish to online from my digibeta tapes, but we've used almost all the money and if i can't afford that i though maybe going from digibeta to dvcpro and then back to digibeta would be an option, because that i know i can do for free. if it's indeed a significant quality hit it's not an option, but that's why i'm asking.

specifically if it's only 8 bit i don't think it will help much at all. the dvcam dub we've been editing looks more than sharp and clean enough for both dvd and broadcast, it's just that it doesn't hold up that well when we start color correcting. the telecine was done as a "technical grade", meaning all the information from the negative is in there so there's a lot of contrast boosting and such to be done, which i think we need 10 bits for if we really want it to look great.

/matt

[christoph]

sorry, i wasn't very clear. i wish to online from my digibeta tapes, but we've used almost all the money and if i can't afford that i though maybe going from digibeta to dvcpro and then back to digibeta would be an option, because that i know i can do for free. if it's indeed a significant quality hit it's not an option, but that's why i'm asking. specifically if it's only 8 bit i don't think it will help much at all.

DVCPRO is virtually identical to DV quality vise... same compression sheme. if you have acess to a DVCPRO50 device, that might be worth considering since the compression there is virtually unnoticable. all Dv and DVCPRO formats are 8bit though.

if the telecine is indeed far from what you want the film to look like in the end, your only option is pretty much to get it onlined 4:2:2 uncompressed ... 8bit will work, but 10bit is better ;)
++ christoph ++

[mattias]

DVCPRO is virtually identical to DV quality vise... same compression sheme.

oops, i think i might have meant dv(cpro)50. i've never used a higher end dv format than dvcam, so i guess i just assumed too much when this guy who would do this for me told me about his system. but as you say it would still only be 8 bit despite the 3x compression and 4:2:2 sampling.

if the telecine is indeed far from what you want the film to look like in the end, your only option is pretty much to get it onlined 4:2:2 uncompressed ... 8bit will work, but 10bit is better ;)

ok, thanks.

/matt