mini dv vhs combo decks?

Not sure about the DVCam playback, but the JVC SR-VS30U is a good miniDV/VHS combo.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=250896&is=REG
It's not that cheap, but it gets the job done. Your other option would be to get a DV to analog converter, hook up an existing VCR, and then just use your camera for DV. If you've got the money, the DSR-11 is nice http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=212935&is=REG or the DSR-45 http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=249564&is=REG

But times are a changing, soon everyone will have an HD deck at home or something, that'll be fun.

Thanks for the feedback directorlca. I actually ended up buying the JVC from BH before I even saw your reply so it's nice know someone out there thinks it is a good deck. The research I did turned up mixed reviews, but it seemed to be the best combo out there and supposedly works with Avid. It should be here by the end of the week.

My main use for the deck is so that I can log regular DV and DV-CAM footage on my home system, the VHS side is just a plus so I can quit dragging my VCR into my office for the once in blue moon VHS that I need to capture. Up until know I've just being using my canon zr to get analog footage into my system and it seems to work pretty well. I'm just getting too lazy to keep plugging and unplugging stuff all the time.

Either way, this deck is probably just going to be a short term thing. What I really want to do is set up an HDV system. Does anyone know when Sony is going to release their HDV deck? I've seem bits about it online, but no definite ship date. For me that would be the ultimate - able to record/play DV, DVCAM and HDV.

So this is for converting old VHS to DV? does the DV record the VHS signal so you can edit your old VHS from a DV tape?

sorry if thats an off the wall questions but whats the purpose of this for you? you need a way to edit DV using a VHS editing card?

King Goldfish said:

So this is for converting old VHS to DV? does the DV record the VHS signal so you can edit your old VHS from a DV tape?

sorry if thats an off the wall questions but whats the purpose of this for you? you need a way to edit DV using a VHS editing card?

Click to expand...

Sorry for the long overdue reply, I don't get by the board often these days. To answer your question,

1. the deck is primarily being used to play and capture DV and DV-CAM tapes (recorded on MiniDV cassettes, it doesn't accept full size cassettes.)

2. I don't use the VHS side of the deck very much, but occasionally I'll use it convert an old VHS tape to MiniDV or to digitize VHS footage into my Avid through the deck's firewire connection. I could accomplish the same thing using my camcorder and passing through a regular vhs deck, but this is just a lot more convenient for me.

All in all, after using it for a few months, I'm pretty happy with the JVC SR-VS30 combo deck. I had read some negative things about it, but so far I've had few issues. Sometimes the batch capture is a little fussy, but in my experience this seems to happen with a lot of low-end firewire devices on occasion. Quick review of things I like and don't like.

Likes:

1. Plays both regular DV and DVCAM tapes. This was the deciding factor for me.

2. 99% of the time it works with AVID Xpress DV (running on Mac) just fine. No stuttering, good deck control, batch capture works.

3. Added bonus is the SVHS deck which lets me digitize VHS tapes through firewire and dub VHS tapes to MiniDV. Eliminates a lot of clutter and cables from my system.

4. Only cost $800. Sounds like a lot, but most decks that can play DVCAM tapes cost even more.

Dislikes.

1. Consumer features. Why the heck does this deck bother having VCR-Plus? I don't know too many people that would buy a deck like this to hook up to their home entertainment system.

2. No headphone jack. Just stupid to not have this. Hard to call this a prosumer deck without a headphone jack in my opinion.

3. Controls are a little complicated. Deck settings have to be precisely set for capture and batching to work properly.

4. Needs its own firewire bus. Doesn't share well with other equipment like firewire drives. I ended up buying a PCI firewire card that I use for my other firewire devices. I keep the deck on the internal firewire bus. However, it doesn't seem to be bothered by my iPod which I also have on the internal bus, so maybe its the drives not the deck that's the problem.

5. The firewire port is on the front of the deck instead of the back. I've seen this on other miniDV decks and I can never figure out why they don't put it on the back with the other connections.

6. Though not a big deal, I do wish it had a coax output so that I could use my old 13" color tv as a monitor.

7. The shuttle nob on the deck itself is a little cheesy. The one on the remote is much better.

WARNING! The JVC decks do have a serious problem playing back footage shot on CANON cameras!

I was all set to buy one of these S-VHS/Mini DV JVC combo's but the reviews are 100% unanimous that they cannot playback CANON shot tapes without dropped frames, bad audio, or some other serious problems.

The decks are not bad, but do some research first.

How about DVX100?